ABC’s I-View and digital TV

Ages back, I signed up for the beta of this service. To be honest, I didn’t play around with it much. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, just that the tv shows on offer at the time were crap.

Some months on, and check it out now. It’s a roaring success. Dr. Who, Hollowmen, all the top shows on ABC are on it. Well, Spicks and Specks is missing but music rights are probably to blame for that.

At first I thought “with Itunes, why bother?” They’re already offering shows like The Gruen Report for free as video podcasts. But the good thing about this is because you are not actually downloading this to your PC, The ABC can offer more. Shows from the UK like The Bill (pass) and Dr. Who are up for offer. They’re only up for a week anyway, so it’s just a good option to catch up watching TV when you feel like it. Also new shows like The Hollowmen, which probably wouldn’t be on offer otherwise because of its eventual commercial release.

It does make me think about their digital download service, though.

At the moment they also have another part of the website where you can download shows onto your computer for a small fee. The problem? You’re renting them.

Figure this – The Chaser’s War on Everything is available there. Fair enough, that show can’t be free online forever. The ABC have every right to make a buck out of it. What is stupid, however is you can only watch it for seven days. Go to the Itunes website and you can pay the same 3 dollars and keep it on your computer forever. Sure, there was talk on the website that they will be offering later on the option to permanently keep episodes of TV shows, but I bet it will cost more than 3 dollars. You shouldn’t have to rent a TV show. New up and coming movies, I get (which is still not an option in Itunes yet, come on!).

I have to applaud the ABC for going in the right direction, I just think they have a little while to go yet 🙂