October 18th, 2004 is the day TV died. That evening, British satellite broadcaster SkyOne – part of NEWS Corp’s BSkyB satellite broadcasting service – ran the premiere episode of the re-visioned 70s camp classic Battlestar Galactica. (That episode, “33,” is one of the best hours of drama ever written for television.)

…SciFi Channel programers had decided to wait until January 2005 (a slow month for American television) to begin airing the series, so three months would elapse between the airing of “33” in the UK, and its airing in the US. Or so it was thought.

The average viewer of the SciFi network is young and decidedly geeky. They are masters of media; they can find ways to get things they shouldn’t have. Thus, a few hours after airing on SkyOne, “33” was available for Internet download. No news there.

…as the Chinese proverb goes, “Many hands make light work.” BitTorrent transforms the creaky and unreliable technology of audiovisual distribution, making it fast and hyper-efficient. BitTorrent creates the conditions for something I’ve termed “hyperdistribution” – a distribution channel which is even more efficient than broadcasting.

That has certainly been the case with Battlestar Galactica. The British aficionados of the series provided torrents for each episode within a few hours of each broadcast. Many fans in the US picked them up and watched them; so did many people in Australia.

While you might assume the SciFi Channel saw a significant drop-off in viewership as a result of this piracy, it appears to have had the reverse effect: the series is so good that the few tens of thousands of people who watched downloaded versions told their friends to tune in on January 14th, and see for themselves. From its premiere, Battlestar Galactica has been the most popular program ever to air on the SciFi Channel, and its audiences have only grown throughout the first series. Piracy made it possible for “word-of-mouth” to spread about Battlestar Galactica.

Mindjack – Piracy is Good?