As an Australian, hypothetically our US counterparts are often viewing and discussing brand new popular television as it comes out in America.
In Australia, hypothetically said episodes tend to come out a number of days later for very popular shows and often weeks or months later for less popular shows.
This is due to hypothetical dinosaur age licensing of said programs from hypothetical Australian media companies.
I have heard hypothetically on a number of occasions, hypothetical Australians downloading hypothetical series only hours later than they were literally aired in America.
The exact same things happens (hypothetically) with DVDs and whatnot. Contextual shows like South Park make less sense when aired in countries like Australia many months after they were aired in the US.
What do these companies expect is going to happen?
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On a side note, a television series that portrayed the story of a number of gangland murders was produced, and was to be aired WHILST THE TRIAL WAS STILL ONGOING. Now the magistrate in their epic wisdom decreed that the show was not to be shown in the state that the crimes were committed, as it may contribute to biasing the jury of the case (there's a correct legal term, which I forget).
What happened was that the show was aired in all other states except Melbourne, as ordered by the judge, and the very next day there were people STANDING ON STREET CORNERS IN THE MELBOURNE CBD selling DVDs of the episode to people as they were stopped at red lights. I kid you not, this actually happened.
Anyway, long story short the main man was convicted and later murdered in prison, but I hope this illustrates the utter lack of understanding and wisdom of Australia in these matters. Hypothetically no wisdom at all.
I agree with you completely; if we don't get over this, more people will be murdered in prison!
Okay, I jest. But you're absolutely right anyway. It annoys me as an American, and I'm the one with all the good fortune in this case! That a TV show can air here, and not air for another week if not longer in Canada, a nation literally adjoined to mine (and quite possibly where that TV show was made!) highlights the insanity. And this is especially stupid in broadcast TV, which literally gives its signal away. They know that the more eyeballs it has the more they can charge for advertising. How have they not taken advantage of the Internet and p2p yet? It's just dumb.
Worth watching, an hour or so speech from Mark Pesce, an American in Australia, who spoke on the topic years ago. I highly recommend anyone who doesn't think this is about the assumption of easy money and people with power sticking their head in the sands.
An interesting parallel to this that might be worth looking at is the Japanese market. America used to get anime way later than it was released, and there was enormous amounts of piracy.
By the time the show would be released on DVD, many people had nice-quality subtitled videos from an independent online group. Many of these "fan-subbing" teams said they were releasing the files as a service to the worldwide fans that wouldn't otherwise be able to watch.
These days, companies are doing a bunch of simultaneous releases on TV in Japan and online in the US (and probably some other countries?). I think that time will tell how big of an effect the time delay had.
Another problem (which has made me completely give up television) is that the TV stations abruptly decide to stop broadcasting a show one week, move it to another time slot, and then just have no mention of it again.
This happens in Europe aswell. I firmly believe that piracy is good for the Customer. It provides an alternative that the market can choose if it beats the Official Version. Just look at the second Matrix film. It was released at the same day and time globally, they would have lost lots of sales had there waited a few months. Piracy is giving customers the power to do something about idiotic anti-customer practices from the Content Industry.
European who loves watching USA TV shows: it can literally take YEARS before very successful US shows make it to (non-pay) TV over here and quite often they are not being shown at all.
I was honestly surprised "Dexter" was on regular German TV here rather soon - I was on season three when they started season one here. I cannot say "Breaking Bad" is being aired yet nor "The Shield", "The Wire" or any other of my favorite shows. Not even "Battlestar Galactica" or "South Park" made it to non-pay TV.
Well, at least "Two and a Half Men" is on if you are so inclined.
The worst bit is that I'm an American expat who would have to wait years to see these shows.... dubbed in German! I don't like dubbed anything, I certainly don't want to watch shows from the US dubbed into another language.
Personally I think the whole way we deal with shows no longer makes sense. The reason it is "illegal" to download or watch these shows online is because the stations in your country paid for the right to show it to you. It happens in my case that I wont watch their "value add" because I hate dubbing. The internet has replaced the need for these intermediate middlemen and the sooner everyone accepts this the better for all of us (even them, they need to be learning their new jobs asap).
In Australia, hypothetically said episodes tend to come out a number of days later for very popular shows and often weeks or months later for less popular shows.
This is due to hypothetical dinosaur age licensing of said programs from hypothetical Australian media companies.
I have heard hypothetically on a number of occasions, hypothetical Australians downloading hypothetical series only hours later than they were literally aired in America.
The exact same things happens (hypothetically) with DVDs and whatnot. Contextual shows like South Park make less sense when aired in countries like Australia many months after they were aired in the US.
What do these companies expect is going to happen?
---
On a side note, a television series that portrayed the story of a number of gangland murders was produced, and was to be aired WHILST THE TRIAL WAS STILL ONGOING. Now the magistrate in their epic wisdom decreed that the show was not to be shown in the state that the crimes were committed, as it may contribute to biasing the jury of the case (there's a correct legal term, which I forget).
What happened was that the show was aired in all other states except Melbourne, as ordered by the judge, and the very next day there were people STANDING ON STREET CORNERS IN THE MELBOURNE CBD selling DVDs of the episode to people as they were stopped at red lights. I kid you not, this actually happened.
Anyway, long story short the main man was convicted and later murdered in prison, but I hope this illustrates the utter lack of understanding and wisdom of Australia in these matters. Hypothetically no wisdom at all.