July 7, 2008

Canadians skirt law to watch TV on the web

rp1.jpg Canadians are turning on, tuning in and watching traditional TV shows on the Internet often using underground ways to access American programming, says a new study by Toronto-based Two Solitudes Consulting. Times and Transcript reports.

"There's less online content available from Canadian broadcasters than is available from U.S. broadcasters, study author Alan Sawyer said.

The lack of available content is resulting in Canadians using underground activity to get the TV shows they want to see online, he said.

"A very important thing to realize is that every television program that is broadcast is available in most cases in illegal peer-to-peer broadcasting," said Sawyer.

... The study is called Changing Channels: Alternative Distribution of Television Content, and was done for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)."

emily | 12:27 PM | Studies and Research | Add this this entry to your del.icio.us bookmarks. Digg This Technorati search results for this Entry
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Comments

Great article but, as the author mentions, this is a rapidly changing landscape. I believe that the only way content producers can monetize their work is by making it readily available in high quality and supporting it with advertising. Otherwise it'll be widely available "underground."

Although the author mentions popular video-aggregation services such as Veoh and Joost, he did not make mention of Zipityzap's web-based internet television portal. As more and more folks discover how easy it is to tie the PC to the TV (with a $20 cable, http://www.svideo.com/prosvideo6.html), there will be a growing demand for this kind of service.

Posted by: geraldz | July 7, 2008 5:33 PM

The study was conducted in January 2008. Zipityzap launched in June 2008.

Posted by: asawyer | July 8, 2008 7:12 PM


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