Norwegian Broadcaster Puts Popular TV Show on BitTorrent

Experiments with making content widely available to its viewers without expensive server costs by using good old-fashioned P2P.

P2P and file-sharing services continue to change the dynamics of content and media distribution as we know it. There are a number of movies that suffered from poor box office sales or straight to DVD hell but were widely embraced by P2P and file-sharing users(Mr. Brooks anyone?). Even TV shows that languished and suffered possible cancellation on broadcast TV have have found legions of fans online that have helped to resuscitate or invigorate them (How about Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, and Dexter going to CBS).

Now comes word that the Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) Network has decided to make “Nordkalotten 365,” one of it’s most popular television series available for fans to download using the BitTorrent file-sharing program. The show is reported to follow experienced hiker Lars Monsen as he travels alone through the north of Scandinavia for one year.

Eirik Solheim of NRK notes that “Over 900,000 of Norway’s 4,6 million watched the show in [sic] average, and the marketshare was close to 50%!” This means that the move is a truly substantial one, much more than tossing say famed Huel Howser’s “California Gold”(love that show) on there for instance.

So far it would seem that the plan has been a success with some 8,000 people downloading it on the first day alone.

Solheim writes:

So far the experiment has been a huge success. After one day roughly 8000 people have downloaded the torrent file. Because of the limited statistics reporting from the Amazon S3 tracker we are using we don’t have exact numbers from the tracker itself.

Taking into account that Norway is a small country with only 4,5 million people this number is above expectations. The file has been out there for one day, and at this point only the first episode of the series is available. The bittorrent technology seems to work especially well for completely legal and high quality downloads. People happily seed the file and the download speeds achieved are reported to several megabits/s. The whole 600 MB file downloading in minutes or even seconds for the people with fast connections.

Unsurprisingly enough, people have reacted quite positively to the the plan, with ” More than a hundred comments on the article announcing the experiment (Norwegian) express solid gratitude and people that are impressed by the move.

The idea of putting content up on BitTorrent for people to download and watch at their leisure is to continue it seems.

“The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation will keep on with experiments like these and try to make more content available through this technology,” he says.

Now if only more broadcasters here in the US would recognize the power and the potential of BitTorrent to augment their viewing audience rather than seeing it as an enemy army of pirates that detracts from it. Who has the time to sit squarely in front of a TV set at exactly 8p.m. or whatever to watch a given show. Fill it with ads if you want, but put it up on BitTorrent and take advantage of an audience that’s just watching your content anyways for FREE with NO ADS? Though I’m sure that’d make ISPs and cable providers none too happy.

Related Posts

1. Norway’s State TV Sets Up Own BitTorrent Tracker
2. Viacom Puts Entire ‘Daily Show’ Archive Online
3. CBC to Offer Prime-Time Show on BitTorrent
4. Norwegian ISP Refuses to Block The Pirate Bay
5. Norwegian Student Fined for Online Music Piracy