There’s an Oatmeal comic doing the rounds today about how hard it can be to actually pay for media content. The basic message is that although there is a wide range of places consumers can go to pay for media content (in this case a TV programme) it can actually be really hard to pay for the content. There’s also this critique of the Oatmeal’s position that, in summary, says: “just grow up and play the game according to the content industry’s rules”.
- Doctor Who is broadcast at exactly the wrong time for a family with very young kids to watch it, as it’s right in the bath / bed sweet spot between 6pm and 8pm.
- We have Virgin Media which features an on demand service, and we have iPlayer so we just skip new Who and rely on catching up later.
- We settle down around 8pm, ready to crash out and enjoy the new Who.
- The show hasn’t been added to the Virgin Media catch up listings.
- We plug the laptop into the TV, and boot up iPlayer. The new episode is available! Hurrah! But wait! Server demand is so high we’re looking at an hour or more to get the show downloaded.
- I wonder if there are any rips of the show on any media sharing sites? Yep, there are. Three clicks later the show is downloading to my laptop. Within two or three minutes there’s a 720p rip playing out from my laptop to the telly.