Canadian Public TV to Embrace BitTorrent

The Canadian public television network CBC is set to launch a trial of BitTorrent distribution of its show Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. On the morning of March 24th the CBC will have a torrent all set for download at the show's website. The show itself airs on March 23rd at 7 PM.

Canada's Next Great Prime Minister, is a reality show and an annual competition in which young adults propose ways to improve the country. The winner gets $50,000 (Canadian). Last year the show attracted over 1 million viewers, which for a Canadian show is a major hit.

You can credit Boing Boing for giving the CBC the idea. Earlier this month they wrote about a Norwegian public TV station doing the same thing, and Tessa Sproule, the CBC manager in charge of the show's digital outreach was inspired to do the same.

According to their press release, the download will be DRM-free, legal to distribute anywhere; they'll also be distributing an iPod-friendly version. This will make Canada the first country in North America to release high-quality, DRM-free copies of a prime-time show using BitTorrent.

Of course, you'll recall that I wrote earlier that the Canadian ISP Sympatico was throttling P2P downloads, so this should be fun. As more and more legit uses for P2P emerge, throttling such as Sympatico's or Comcast's will - I hope - go out of style.