I am watching Dr. Who (and some other shows) right now. Every time I finish an episode I have to wait 7 days before I can watch another.
7 days.
Now, this 7 days is perfectly arbitrary. It doesn’t take 7 days to make an episode (it almost always takes more), nor does it take 7 days to do anything else. The number is just a convenient amount of time for them to make you wait, such that other shows on the channel can get fair airtime.
Channel?
Airtime?
We should seriously be much past that stage by now. The BBC has filmed at least half of the Dr. Who content for this season (they must have, in order to finish airing on time). They may have finished all of it.
BBC, I will give you $100 to send me that content now.
If $100 doesn’t seem like that much money, consider this: it is more money than they will see from me for the show otherwise. Even if I watched ads (which I don’t) or actually watched it on broadcast (which I don’t), $100 is still probably more than they would get for me watching the season. And that’s just for whatever they have as prerelease content. When more is made I’d get it again, possibly the way I do now. It would cost the BBC a little, but I’m sure there’s more than just me.
Consider: if only 200 Dr. Who viewers were interested in this, that’s still $20000.
That’s a lot of money to make off a group of people who would likely otherwise give you nothing.
2 Responses
Do you promise not to post it on torrents?
Actually I agree. If you had accidentally watched some commercials, you would see that Bell is running ads saying that you can decide to record your favourite shows from a mobile handset. This concept is archaic. Why should you have to record them at all?
It takes longer than a week to make a show and they’ve probably filmed all of the live action material for episodes to come, but you don’t want to sit through hours and hours of dailies.
Most shows, and shows like Dr. Who that are heavy on the post effects in particular, are in the editing room right up to the wire. (And if you’re Joss Wheadon or Ron Moore, you may not stop editing then.)
Most outtakes are not funny. You’re much better off watching the completed product, which may not exist even hours before the broadcast time.