Was the New Dr. Who Leaked on Purpose?

Static-MT writes "The pilot episode of the BBC's highly anticipated new Doctor Who series may have been intentionally leaked onto file-sharing networks to generate buzz, a source who instructed the network on viral advertising told Wired News."

Comments

So whats wrong with this?

[oskard]

Well if its legal, meaning, the owners of the video purposely used this as advertisting, then who cares? Its a good idea if you ask me. Should be 'Distributed' via file sharing networks, not leaked :)

Leaked shows and buzz

[wronski]

I dont know if the leaking was intentional or not, but if the show is any good it will probably help the ratings. Battlestar Galactica came out first in the UK, and probably became the single most Bittorrented tv show before it aired in the US, to excelent ratings. The creator of BSG asked fans *not* to download the show, because he feared people who downloaded it wouldnt bother to watch it on TV. What really happened is, the show is excelent, and the buzz generated by all the early viewing probably helped the ratings a lot. In Brazil BSG started airing this month, and a lot of people who wouldnt otherwise even know it existed are tuning in to a semi-obscure cable channel because of early viewing.

Of course, if a show is crap P2P will probably hurt the ratings.

I don't think so

[UES]

I can't think of any drama or comedy shows that had a very highly rated 1st episode, then a huge drop-off in the second.

Usually a large drop-off in ratings is caused by one of the following:

1. Cast changes (The Practice)
2. Genre Fatigue (Enterprise)
3. Timeslot follies (Futurama, Family Guy)
4. Jumping the Shark (Malcolm in the Middle, Will and Grace)
5. The thing everyone waited for happened (Cheers, Moonlighting, soon will happen to Lost and Desperate Hosuewives)

I would think that if the BBC wanted high ratings, the thing to do would be to get as many people as possible to see the 1st episode, then follow up with 2nd and 3rd episodes of extremely high quality. That seemed to work for Battlestar Galactica.

Having more and more people tune in each week is very desireable to TV programming people, much more so than a huge number of viewers initially due to curiosity, then a big fall-off because the show stinks and can't hold an audience.

very bad

[badxmaru]

1) This could be a very bad trend, if the MPAA and anti-piracy groups get their way. If the marketer doesn't do their due diligence and check with their law groups, then this "buzz" and viral marketing could get those who downloaded said video prosecuted for downloading something that was intentionally uploaded for marketing purposes. Downloading things such as fc3.x86.iso is safe because it's already known content. If i downloaded desperatehousewives.s1e21.avi, how would I know if this was a marketing release or not?

2) maybe pirate groups should create another meta tag for videos = screeners, telecines, marketing videos.

3) If it really was distributed on purpose, then there should have been a disclaimer, or some sort of "tag" at the end, a title page indicating that the full series would come up soon, with showtimes and the like. Otherwise, what's the point of the first episodes excepting to bring the viewers up to a point where they know the storyline will eventually be regardless?

4) The whole "quality of video" analysis doesn't sell me on the purposeful leak theory.

Re:Make's sense...

[ZephyrXero]

If you make good media (music,movies,software,books,etc), most people will buy your stuff after they see that it's good. Since radio/tv do such a horrible job spreading good media these days, most of us look to alternative means, such as file sharing. I always "try before I buy" when it comes to new CD's for example... Continuing with that example, if you are making crappy music where only 1 or 2 songs are worth my time, I'm not gonna buy your crappy product. I know many of you have been burnt in the past from buying a CD because you liked a song or two you heard off of it, but hated the rest of the album. The same goes for all other forms of media too (*except maybe movies). Basically what I'm saying here is that "illegal" file sharing is a new radio/tv for a new generation and the only people who are going to be hurt by it are people making crappy products.