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Seven offers Heroes online

Seven will try to lure viewers back to Heroes by offering a return episode online for free before it screens on air.

heroes-season31Channel Seven will try to lure viewers back to Heroes by offering an online episode of its season return before it screens on television.

“A Clear And Present Danger,” which begins the “Fugitives” compendium of Season Three, will stream from Thursday  April 16th at 4pm (AEST). It won’t air on Seven until Thursday April 23rd at 10:30pm.

It will remain live for 10 days after broadcast while episodes for the rest of the season will become available online each week after they air.

It isn’t the first time a network has launched seasons on air. Nine premiered Sea Patrol online before it screened on air in 2007.

The episode will be available at yahoo7.com.au/tv.

25 Responses

  1. Wow, Ch7 are so progressive they’re making months-old content available for free on the interwebs!

    Keep up the great work guys, maybe Leckie will reconsider offloading his shares yet!

  2. I disagree that “most” fans will have watched it online already. However, I also think that the people who would watch it online have probably already done so.

    I’m happy to wait to see it on the larger screen on my tv. I don’t care about the timeslot, so long as they show it when they say they’ll show it and it doesn’t run more than 10 minutes overtime.

    I may wait and save a few episodes up on my iQ and watch them all in a row anyway.

    However I wish I wish that 7 (and 9) would take advantage of the ‘series link’ functionality that Foxtel offers. 10 does and I don’t miss a show even when they put shows back on after a week’s break.

  3. thats how they do it in the US…..

    Unfortunately for 7, most fans are already up to date with the US airings of shows like Lost, Heroes, GA, and others like House, Fringe, Mentalist, Gossip Girl, etc etc

    Time to get with the program FTA networks 🙂

  4. It aired in the US in early February. It’s now mid-April.

    Those interested have already found ways of watching. Those uninterested don’t care. Those who _might_ become interested aren’t going to be because of the timeslot.

    All in all – meh.

  5. So Seven is trying to tap into the Heroes fans who will want to view their show from the internet. Surely logic would tell them that these same people would have already seen them through other means. Even on the most pathetic ‘broadband’ connections, people will still obtain their shows from the internet and will not put up with the networks’ unreliability. I see they are *still* overrunning shows, among many other faults…..When will they learn?

  6. At least it’s a step in the right direction, I’ve been saying for the last 5 years that all the FTA networks need to do is sign better contracts for digital distribution with the American production companies, and it’d be fine.

    Here’s how it’d work in my utopian society:
    Episode screens in the US, and is available for free ad-supported streaming at Channel 7’s website, or paid ad-free download from the website or iTunes Australia at the same time it hits Hulu/iTunes USA.
    Then, when it fits in with their schedule they put it on FTA TV, and play it as per normal. Superfans are catered for ASAP, and Channel 7 still makes a little money out of that situation, while the more casual fan gets to watch it when it hits FTA…. Everybody wins…

  7. @PJ, I completely agree with you. I’m a big fan of iview, ever since I found out that iinet had unmetered access. So until seven and the other commercial networks offer unmetered access, I won’t be touching streamed programs because it’s just too expensive.

  8. Sorry 7 too late, seen it already…

    What I’m waiting for is them to standardize the downloads like on Bt the most common size for a 1 hour (45 min without ads) drama is 350Mb but with higher quality for those hwo want to DL bigger files.

    Oh and for the local channels to wake up and smell the ADSL people show wanted these saw them months ago!

  9. It started airing overseas in February. Most people have probably already seen it online. And I agree with Sillygostly, 10:30 isn’t a very good time. Then again, Seven’s delay in getting it on the air probably means that it doesn’t get the ratings to justify putting it at a better time.

    Too little, too late?

  10. Freeview is sounding more and more of a joke when shows are treated like this by Free to air channels. Foxtel would be laughing their butts off right now……

  11. I’ve been watching it the day after it is shown in the US. The series just gets better an better!

    Now my soapbox rant, Wake up 7, 9 and TEN. Everyone is going on the internet, combat it by creating your own ‘Hulu.com’ or ‘TV.com’. Geez, even the ABC, yes the ABC ‘gets it’ with their iView website, showing the ABC1 and ABC2 shows online and on demand.

  12. well i didn’t download it before so why would i spend my limit on it now, if i waited all this time why would i not wait 1 more week. i’d much rather watch it on my big screen tv than in a tiny little streaming media player that they use. but others do seem to watch on their website so i guess any publicity is good publicity and the play count is actually accurate unlike the ratings.

  13. Seems a bit unfair that they would give a poor quality show such as heroes more of a chance by offering online eps instead of giving a great show like Lost that kind of treatment.
    Lost will be at 11pm next week, ridiculous.

    Heroes was once good, but it’s completely lost me with its story line that makes no sense.

    Lost on the other hand is one of the greatest shows to hit television, it’s too bad seven didn’t try harder at promoting it by airing encores of each ep and giving it the online treatment to ensure people didn’t miss eps, as I definately agree that Lost is one show that you can’t miss an episode of.

  14. Ahh who cares, fans will watch, others won’t. whatever Lucky to be airing it at all, 10.30 onwards is the perfect slot for shows like 24, lost, prison break, heroes etc because they have a continuous storyline. They all had fantastic premieres and were real hits at first, but u cant just come in and start watching, therefore they rate sh** in 8.30 and 9.30 slots.

  15. I’m already up to episode 23 of this season!! That’s 8 episodes ahead of Seven!! It’ll take til Mid June to catch up to where the US is!! What a joke. And this new volume is actually pretty good, even though as I said before the first ep or 2 are a bit boring. I predict it’ll get higher ratings than Lost, at any rate (which got 330,000 or something for its last ep)

  16. The 10:30 timeslot will be the killer for this show. I like Heroes – a lot – but it’s clearly not finding an audience outside of the reality TV/ infotainment / crime-dramas being spoon fed to the masses.

    We now return you to our normal programming…

  17. LOL, How typical of Australian Television Networks. Fix the barn door, years after the Barn burned down, and horse has bolted.

    At worst, i get to watch Heroes around 2 Hours after it has Aired in the USA. Advert free in High Def.

    Compete with that Channel 7.

  18. 7 is going to have to work hard to make this work. this is obviously one of the things they are doing. if i were in charge i would have put heroes on during the summer where the ratings don’t matter as much and left the scrubs reruns where they were.

  19. I’ll wait for it live on 7HD as I prefer quality over immediacy. Good on them for giving it a go though.

    I am pretty sure, however, that the die hard fans would have downloaded already from elsewhere long ago.

  20. i hope this works, and whatever else that is done works. heroes is going to struggle so much to find an audience and i don’t want it to go later into the night.

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