Agency Spy

We subscribe to AdFreak’s RSS feed for several reasons: they get scoops, we used to have friends who worked there (it’s a lingering respect thing) and then - they’ve gotten so fricking out of touch that the copy is good for a daily laugh. Today’s example comes from a piece about the cable network Showtime. For the whole preposterous thing, go here. Here’s the excerpted gist:

“Public-radio icon Ira Glass recently said fans constantly tell him they would watch the TV version of This American Life, if only they subscribed to Showtime. (The series is now available on iTunes for $1.99 an episode.) And this week, Showtime stopped just short of celebrating when new episodes of Weeds turned up on illegal file-sharing sites. Weeds creator Jenji Kohan told Advertising Age, “Showtime is great, but it does have a limited audience.” [Will] Showtime’s success end up destroying its own advertisement-free model? Maybe there could be a Showtime Lite that’s free for cable subscribers.”

Yes, Showtime is the cable network that lags in subscribers, but hello… why is Da Freak acting like Showtime is the only cable station who’s crap is on file sharing networks like The Pirate Bay and who’s paying base is erroding? Let’s just start with the fact that you can see almost any cable television show you want FOR FREE by downloading a program. We don’t have cable and many of our friends don’t have cable and yet, how is it we all saw the last episode of The Sopranos? HBO may be the premier network, but it too is losing out on revenue. Let’s see just this week alone we downloaded:

- the complete third season of The Wire, HBO
- the complete fourth to sixth seasons of Sex In The City, HBO
- the first three episodes of This American Life, Showtime (Hey - we give money to Chicago Public Radio)
- the first two episodes of the L Word, Showtime (We’re not fans)
- the first two episodes of Flight Of The Conchords, HBO
- the first three episodes of American Gangster SANS ads, BET
- the last three episodes of Heroes SANS ads, NBC
- and so many movies we can’t even begin to explain. We’re going to hell for sure.

Sheesh. Look, file sharing networks are growing at a rapid rate. Maybe your mom isn’t doing it yet, but our teenage cousin does it, as well as the two twenty-year-old boys in the apartment below us. You guys over at Da Freak really got to get a reality check and tune into culture. File sharing is here to stay and it’s rapidly growing problem for everybody from Showtime to the big three networks to the MPAA and the recording industry. itunes is one solution. We’ve bought programs from the Apple shop. Another solution would be if the television industry and the cable companies could get together to agree that consumers should be allowed to buy only the stations they want. We’d pay for HBO and Showtime, the BBC and maybe a few others if we weren’t forced to buy the rest of the crap along with it. We’re assuming that when the blog offers up the concept of Showtime Lite they mean to say that some programs from the network should be available with ads for basic cable subscribers. That’s also a great idea that ALL cable networks might want to consider.