Have I Lost Lost?
Published on 19 October 2006 in Television, Digital TV, television
As a Lost addict, the news that Sky have poached the programme from Channel 4 so that they can put it on Sky One, is not one I especially wish to hear. Especially as I don’t have pay-TV.
Of course these days, Sky have a habit of putting stuff on the free to air Sky Three some months later after its showing on Sky One, and (rather cryptically) someone from Sky is quoted on the Media Guardian website as saying
“Today’s audiences demand more quality and flexibility than ever before, so we are intending to use various digital media platforms to make Lost available to our customers when they want and how they want … ensuring that they never miss the mysterious goings on of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.
Which must give us Lost heads some hope. On the other hand, there’s nothing to say that Lost will actually appear on Sky Three at all – in which case, expect to see an increase in the illegal downloading of that particular show. Not that I condone that kind of behaviour at all – far from it – but Lost is certainly one show where almost everyone I know who watches it, downloads it before its broadcast in the UK. I appear to be some kind of oddity being about the only person I know who tuned in every week to watch it on Channel 4. If huge numbers of people who could previously get the show free to air, can no longer do so, will they start going out looking for other ways to get it?
The reports say that Sky have paid a whopping £20m for the show, although how many years that covers isn’t said. Let’s just hope it wasn’t a waste of their money…