Australians download ridiculously large amounts of pirated Television shows, we are responsible for 15.6% of all online TV piracy, second only to the UK (38.4%) but when you take into consideration that the UK triples Australia’s population, it’s easy to see that per capita Australian TV piracy is the highest in the world. Another way to see the impact is the fact that the most popular BitTorrent (form of peer to peer file sharing) site is Mininova, which ranks 59th in the most visited sites in Australia.

It seems that the Australian television networks have finally realised they may need to entertain people at some point to stop it. Channel 10 was the first to test this out last year by actually airing Jericho the same week it was aired in the US, while with other shows you were lucky if they aired the episodes the same year. Now it looks like the other networks have jumped on board as of next month, with Channel 7 airing the hit shows Heroes and Prision Break within days of their US release. Channel Ten however has upped the ante and will be airing two brand new shows, Life and Californication, from next month. This is a big risk for Ten as these new unaired shows could be cancelled as little as a couple of weeks after airing.

This is all shiny things and lollypops until you realise that we have only gone from nothing to watch on Australian TV (excluding some great stuff on ABC & SBS) to four shows. Where are the US shows like Dexter, Psych, Burn Notice, The Kill Point, Jekyll, John from Cincinnati, Eureka, Flight of the Conchords, Brotherhood, The Knights of Prosperity, Rescue Me, 30 Rock, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Traveler, and Weeds? Well a few are available on online international DVD stores, and the rest are available as fast and easy high quality downloads, which doesn’t give the Australian audience much of a choice.

Australia has always been cut off from the rest of the world but now with broadband internet people are realising how easily they can get international entertainment and information, and it only makes them question why products like television shows, movies, and video games are always delayed and expensive. Ultimately this is a good step forward in Australian television but it’s far from making any kind of noticeable dent in Australian piracy.

Fun “Fact”: I highly recommend the shows Dexter, Eureka, Brotherhood, Rescue Me, 30 Rock, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which are available on DVD from stores like Amazon and DVD Box Office.