My friend Jon Lachonis of BuddyTV interviewed me for an article about pre-air TV show leaks on BitTorrent.

I Asked Smaran, an author for the file sharing news blog torrentfreak.com, if the number of people downloading and sharing screeners has increased at all in recent years. “It sure has. The funny thing is that there weren’t as many pre-airs being leaked, even a year ago. And of those that were being leaked, none were leaked a year before they were scheduled to be aired. But now, we have shows like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which is going to be aired in early 2008, show up on BitTorrent sites.” Smaran said.

The piece is about how the availability of pre-air shows to the average viewer is taking control away from the “professional critics”. I’m quoted once again.

The result is, the voice of the people is now louder than that of the critics in the online community. Professional critics are simply outnumbered by opinionated viewers with access to the same amount of information they have to base an opinion on. The result is, the popular consensus has a tendency to rise to the top, regardless of what the industry leaders have to say.

Is the television market onto this fact already, though? Smaran seems to think so. “It has increased to such a great amount that we’re starting to wonder if it’s merely a coincidence or if TV houses are purposefully leaking them in order to promote their shows. A lot of times, producers try to generate buzz for their show online by uploading teaser clips to YouTube. We’ve seen this with Jericho; its pilot was offered for free on the iTunes Store. Battlestar Galactica also had a series of ‘webisodes’ (short clips only made available online). At this time, one can only wonder if the studios ‘get’ BitTorrent, and are utilizing it as a promotional tool.”

Networks Grapple with Leaked Pilots