David Barker

Aberdeen, Scotland

Network Engineer

I'm amazed people are surprised that the UK is the worst for this. After all, it's us backward folk in the UK who have to wait for months before we catch up to what is being aired in the states.

We're always at least a season behind, and in viewers eyes there's no good reason for this. I have to say, however, that Desperate Housewives is the exception and is only half a season behind.

The other reason is that the reach of cable-tv and Sky isn't as wide as they'd want consumers to believe. After moving to the North-East of Scotland (with a fairly large population due to the oil industry and large Universities) I was shocked to find that cable TV had not yet reached this corner of the country and due to architectural issues many people couldn't get Sky without paying upwatds of £250 for installation (with buildings blocking many peoples LoS for the sat).

Also, compare the costs of Sky, NTL and Telewest with their counterparts in the US. Many UK consumers now refuse to fall into the trap of paying double what US consumers do, and as a result are resorting to solutions such as BitTorrent.

The broadcast/TV industry really needs to wise up - consumers are much more informed than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

DAve :)