September 21, 2007

Free Fox Season Premieres On iTunes

For those of you who have your desktop computer or laptop all setup for television viewing, the LA Times has reported today that Fox Broadcasting will be offering seven network season premieres for FREE on iTunes beginning next week. These will include such hits as Prison Break and Bones. Fox hopes this will act as an incentive for viewers to either tune in to Fox for follow-up episodes or download them for a fee at the iTunes store.

This is following similar announcements by Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal who stated they would be offering free downloads of select primetime shows through AOL and NBC Direct respectively.

Why are they being so generous? What's the catch? I'm sure that's what you're probably thinking. No catch, it's more of an act of desperation than anything. Thanks to services such as TiVo, networks are losing heaps of viewers who would rather watch their shows when its convenient for them. Networks are now trying out different Internet delivery systems with the hope that they will once again regain the number of viewers of past years.

This is definitely an exciting development in the television broadcasting world and one we'll look more at in the future.

Via Techcrunch