Illegal TV file-sharing on the increase

More people are now using illicit file-sharing networks to download and stream unauthorised versions of TV programming, new research has revealed.

According to a report by media agency Big Champagne, US drama Heroes was the most illegally accessed programme this year, with 55 million illicit downloads. The second most popular show was Lost with 51 million, reports BBC News.

Visitors using so-called torrent sites have doubled over the past year, with the proportion of film and television downloads rather than music also increasingly strongly. However, the UK accounted for just 4% of all download activity, with the majority (47%) being seen in US.

All top ten illegally downloaded shows were also from the US, although the BBC's Top Gear was found to be accessed over 300,000 times immediately after each episode in the current series.

This made it one of the most pirated programmes worldwide, largely due to US viewers wanting to see the show early as it is broadcast on BBC America much later than the UK transmission.

"Millions of television viewers now access free, unauthorised versions of favourite shows at least some of the time," said Big Champagne chief executive Eric Garland. "This is a socially acceptable form of casual piracy - and it is replacing viewing hours."

In terms of illegally accessed films, Watchmen came top in the research with almost 17m illegal downloads, followed by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with 13m.

Big Champagne will present this research on Saturday at the Edinburgh Television Festival during a seminar about the ways in which TV providers can learn from the music industry's experiences with online piracy.

However, Garland stressed that TV and music industries are very different, and so the impact of piracy on television may not be as testing as once thought.

"We may see a lot of disruption but it is premature to say 'we're next'," he said. "The effect on the business is going to be very different."

Meanwhile, the government this week signalled its intention to boost the powers recently put forward in the Digital Britain report to combat illegal file sharing, including new measures to cut off the broadband connections of persistent offenders.