Canadian public TV to try out BitTorrent

Update at 10:10 a.m. PDT: The titles for Tessa Sproule and Guinevere Orvis have been tweaked.

Following closely on the heels of Norway, Canada's public broadcasting service is adopting DRM-free BitTorrent distribution for a major prime-time show.

On March 24, CBC will use BitTorrent to distribute this year's broadcast of Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. This will make Canada the first country in North America to release high-quality, DRM-free copies of a prime-time show using the popular P2P file-sharing technology.

(Credit: CBC)

Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country in hopes of winning 50,000 Canadian dollars, attracted more than 1 million viewers in 2007. While broadcast shows in the United States regularly reach more than 8 million viewers, for a Canadian broadcast program, 1 million is a huge success.

Tessa Sproule, the CBC manager in charge of the show's digital outreach, is a regular reader of the BoingBoing blog, which earlier this month highlighted the use of BitTorrent by Norway's public broadcaster for one of its most popular shows. Sproule was inspired by the Norweigan experiment and pushed for something similar at CBC.

While plenty of TV networks have experimented with offering shows online for free, it is CBC's use of DRM-free BitTorrent downloads that is the most interesting. Guinevere Orvis, one of the interactive producers on the show, told me that the motivation for this choice was their desire for the "show to be as accessible as possible, to as many Canadians as possible, in the format that they want it in." As for DRM, she said: "I think DRM is dead, even if a lot of broadcasters don't realize it." She added that "if it's bad for the consumers, it's bad for the company."

Michael Geist, a copyright guru and law professor at the University of Ottawa, hailed CBC's move, writing on his blog that "this development is important not only because it shows that Canada's public broadcaster is increasingly willing to experiment with alternative forms of distribution, but also because it may help crystallize the net neutrality issue in Canada."

Rogers Cable, one of Canada's largest Internet providers, has adopted Comcast-style BitTorrent filtering, so CBC's use of the technology is sure to heat up the debate.

CBC is conducting the entire BitTorrent effort in-house. The show will be encoded into multiple formats (including an iPod-friendly version), Orvis said, and the BitTorrent server will be running on a CBC server.

The BitTorrent version will be available for download to anyone in the world, which is a significant change from previous online TV efforts. The iPlayer platform made by England's BBC is only available to consumers with U.K. network addresses. Similarly, Hulu, the joint effort between Fox and NBC, blocks Net users who are outside the United States. Orvis told me that BitTorrent made the global distribution possible, as it meant that Canadian taxpayers were not subsidizing the cost of delivery to foreign viewers.

Sadly, here in the U.S., TV networks are nowhere nearly as enlightened. NBC and Fox have some of their shows available for free via low-quality streams online. Comedy Central, seemingly tired of sending take-down letters to YouTube, made its entire archive of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report available online, via low-quality, free streams. Even PBS provides streams for some of its content.

The only way for U.S. consumers to download high-quality shows is, unfortunately, via iTunes, which charges $1.99 for a DRM-locked copy of the show. Linux users need not apply.

Of course, Net users can always turn to BitTorrent for DRM-free, high-quality downloads. It's is easy to use--easier than iTunes in many cases--and offers a wider selection. However, it remains, for now, illegal.

When will U.S. broadcasters get a clue, ditch DRM, ditch iTunes, and adopt BitTorrent?

[streamOG]

Chris,

While a good piece of entertainment, your article seemingly glosses over the much more important issues at play here.

CBC is going to give away free content. That's amazing. Such a novel idea. What are they going to do to make money to generate revenue so they can afford to pay their people and expand their business?

This is the same tired old dreck that "Free" writers like yourself conjure up and it just continues to fall flat. I would suggest you take into account some basic business regiment and think about how to generate revenue. All the desire for free content in the world won't put food on the plates of CBC's employees.

Regards,

Christopher

[csoghoian]

CBC is paid for by Canadian tax dollars. They don't need to turn a profit, they just need to keep their viewers happy.

And they can always embed ads in the BitTorrent files.

[ricksterto]

Seems the old comment by streamOG was removed....maybe we should note that streamOG is the CEO of a company that provides DRM software. Taking this into account, the comment is hardly surprising. The old model of delivering content is the only model that works for his company.

And yes, CBC is funded from public / taxpayer money. And they don't resell their programming (at least not to any great extent) through DVD box sets.

Oh by the way, lack of DRM material won't put food on the plates of employees of BuyDRM will it streamOG?

[decmo]

I think this is a good move by the CBC. It gives the public a chance to view some quality programming and maybe bring back some viewers to CBC. Give the viewers a taste at their leisure and if they like it, it'll bring back some viewers. Increased viewership will bring back advertising dollars and benefit everyone in the long run.

[John W. Cowan]

StreamOG: Are you aware that CBC makes no money on its content? What puts food on the plate of CBC's employees is the Canadian taxpayer plus CBC's advertising revenue. I hardly think that making their content available over the Net will cannibalize either of those sources.

[Mergatroid Mania]

I'm a Canadian.

CBC employees get food for their tables out of MY pocket. As long as my taxes don't go up, I could care less what they do with their content.
streamOG, are YOU a Canadian? Maybe the comments should be left to them, since they PAY for the CBC whether they want to or not. So, if your question is "What are they going to do to generate revenue?" the answer is "Get their revenue from taxpayers, like they already do".

I suggest you take into account some basic business regiment and realize that a business that runs off of government handouts can do anything they want, since they aren't paying for it anyway.

I'm with the group of people in my country that believes the CBC should be privatized. The days of governments paying for news/information/entertainment media should be long over.

As a matter of fact, I don't think it's quite fair to even call the CBC a business at all, is it? Since there is no risk in running it, and any shortfalls will just be paid for by the government, how can it be called a business? Don't businesses generate profits?

Chris Soghoian shouldn't be so hard on the US networks (at least not for this reason), after all they have to pay for everything themselves, unlike the CBC.

I'd be more concerned about the networks thinking their shows are worth not only $1.99, but the ill will they generate from the way they make them available. DRM on an episode of a network television show is just insulting. People who want to collect shows will get their copies from cable or other sources. They only inconvenience people who might want to make a copy to show their friends, or play on another media. Just how many copies of The Colbert Report do they think people want?