Nialli on Mad Men viewing

I'm watching Mad Men s.5 via a US iTunes account. It cost me $31.99 (£21.38) for the HD season pass. In the UK store Mad Men season 4 in HD retails for £28.99 and there's no sign of season 5.

Personally I don't like using "alternative means" to obtain US programming - as Jerry Seinfeld once lamented, "I don't wanna be a pirate!" - but the media companies deny the content to those willing to pay so what do they expect? I watched Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire thanks to friends who have Sky Atlantic and recorded it for me, and have "legitimised" that viewing by buying the box sets of both once available, but I will be in the minority. I'm not taking a moral high ground though and think that the media companies (Sky, HBO, AMC et al) encourage piracy with their draconian content strategy. Did they learn nothing from the music industry's collapse??
That Sky Atlantic's initial viewing figures (which exclude timeshifted viewing) are so low for the premiere, despite the hype, is hardly a surprise as it wasn't a popular show even on BBC4. But Mad Men is an expensive show to produce and you would think the producers would want to reach as broad a paying audience as possible, rather than just find the show as minority viewing available to a limited audience.

Mad Men on Sky Atlantic and US iTunes, but not UK...

Sad to see that Virgin Media customers still don't have Sky Atlantic in time for the new seasons of Mad Men or Game of Thrones. What's odd though is that the former isn't in the UK iTunes store either, whereas in the US store it appeared the day after broadcast.
Surely Sky aren't so petty as to block the sale of the AMC show from legitimate purchase by those without a dish? And they wonder why people download illegally.
(Incidentally, viewing figures for last night's premiere of the much hyped season five notched up fewer than 100k viewers on Sky Atlantic. The previous season, shown on BBC4, attracted 355k viewers for the season opener.)

New stuff on BBC HD this week

In addition to the series already underway (Lark Rise to Candleford; Around the World in 80 Gardens; Damages; Torchwood; Holby Blue; Mitchell & Webb; Hotel Babylon) there's only one thing of note BBC HD this week. The godawful Fairy Tales gets a repeat airing on Sunday at 10pm. For those who missed it the first time around, here's a pity one-word review: AVOID!
What makes this risible programme even less palatable is that this time slot is, a week later, the same as BBC4 premiere of the critically acclaimed Mad Men, from one of the guys behind the Sopranos and very hotly anticipated in the Nialli household. Which means that instead of showing Mad Men a simulcast in HD, the BBC will be treating us to an entire run of Fairy Tale repeats. Laughable, but not in a good way...