Politblogo

Battlestar Galactica returns

The hit science fiction space opera, Battlestar Galactica, has finally returned for its third season.  For the two or three people not in the know, this is the "re-imagined" remake that uses the old show's starting premise to forge an excellent, original, non-campy plotline.  It only took a few episodes for me to decide that it had exceeded Babylon 5.

(potential spoilers after the fold)

Television downloading and distribution models

Via this babble thread on the new Battlestar Galactica semi-season, I came across this article on television piracy and its future effects on television production.  The problem is that many very popular shows are now available for free over the Internet via bittorrent sans advertising.  The author correctly notes that given the nature of television and the very distributed nature of bittorrent, this is not going to change any time soon, but nevertheless, we have a problem: how to fund cool expensive shows like BSG.  This is a particularly immediate issue since Canadian channels are showing BSG months late, and impatient fans are simply downloading it in advance, preempting broadcast companies' business decisions.