Little Britain And Other Piss Takes

I’m just reading that the person who commissioned Little Britain never bothered listening to their radio show before giving the show the green light.

Great stuff eh? Nice to see that BBC mandarins are taking their jobs so seriously.

It’s good news for us of course. Since no-one capable of doing anything for us has bothered to come and see the show, it can only be a matter of time before we're commissioned ourselves. Maybe we should stop asking people from the Comedy Unit and the BBC to come along, thus further enhancing our chances.

Another thing that’s been annoying me.

I’ve been wrestling with a bit of guilt about downloading TV shows from the internet lately. I understand that my actions cause in a very small way, problems for the makers of the programmes I enjoy.

But something made me feel absolved this morning. I was checking the UK release date for the second season of US sit-com Arrested Development on Play and discovered it is due out on the 30th of January 2006. This is almost a year after it was first broadcast.

Why?

Why in the digital age do British viewers have to wait this ridiculous amount of time to be able to purchase a show that was available to other consumers a year earlier?

The BBC are running Season 2 at the moment, just as US fans are getting to see season 3.

Am I to be a good little consumer and wait until what, March 2007 to see Arrested Development Season 3? Or do I just download it from the net the day of or the day after broadcast? You do the math.

The thing is, I would be more than willing to pay to download US TV shows legally if such a service existed and while many pay-to-download TV services are just about up and running, for once the giant corporations are miles behind the masses. Demand and supply are poles apart.

TV companies have been remarkably slow to realise that they are playing in a global market. For once, the fat cats seem to have missed a trick and must be kicking themselves at the money they are losing right now in legal downloads if only they had gotten their shit together.

They will eventually of course, but in the meantime I’m not going to be treated like a second class customer. Why should I, especially when I’m able to do something about it?