It was less then a month ago that Channel Nine was claiming to be the first in Australia to offer what they called “television downloads”, but were actually just PC-only one week rentals of McLeods Daughters, well not only were they not the first, they were about seven months off the mark.
And no, I’m not talking about my feeble attempts (here and here) to give away episodes of the Chaser. It turns out that the SBS show Speaking in Tongues was offering Mac and PC compatible downloads the day after broadcast from back in November last year.
I just can’t believe I never picked up on this, either way Speaking in Tongues is still on iTunes, and holding strong in the top 30 Australian podcasts.
Tim, who was involved in the Speaking in Tongues podcast also points out that the last episode of Thank God You’re Here is also available for download.
I just think there is so much opportunity for Australian content to be better distrubuted, and the ABC is sitting on most of it… So much of their programming is things that never end up on DVD, and even if it does, the ABC is (to my understanding) more interested in as many people as possible getting access to its content then their ability to see how tightly they can hold on it.
Shows like Media Watch, Spicks and Specks, The 7.30 Report, Glass House, Four Corners and even just the News would work perfectly in a video podcast format. Hopefully the ABC are working on something, I know there would be a huge demand for it, and its not like they don’t have experience in podcasting, they are Australia’s largest supplier of it.
All I know is that people want to “own” their downloads, they want to be able to move them around, and ideally they want them to be free, something that Speaking in Tongues pulled off fantastically.
2 replies on “Thank god you’re speaking in tongues”
I like that last line, indeed people want to own the download, not rent it or be restricted in any shape or form.
Honesty pays. Something some companies don’t understand.
Be quick downloading Thank God You’re Here: the videos disappear on Wednesday the 21st of June!
SBS have also been podcasting The Movie Show – like Speaking In Tongues, the videos are still around, even though the show isn’t! Details at http://www.sbs.com.au/podcasting.
The ABC have been podcasting audio from Enough Rope and Insiders for a bit; video podcasting must surely be around the corner. The only thing I think would hold back progress would be copyright issues on non-ABC footage, but once that’s sorted out, video podcasting from the ABC would fuckin’ ROCK.