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I was in London last week for the ePublishing Innovation Forum and flew over on Virgin Atlantic. As you may know, Virgin Atlantic has those wonderful personal video screens that allow you to watch whatever you want along with the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward. While flying over I caught the first 50 minutes of a UK show called Torchwood. It is kind of like X Files on steroids. Alas, we were landing at Heathrow and I missed the ending.

Upon arrival I checked out the BBC website to see if I could watch it but they did not make it easy. However, I found out that the episodes can be purchased on iTunes in the states. I also learned that the show can be viewed on a BBC channel here in the US which I don't subscribe to.

What the heck does this have to do with content, you may ask? Well, I think it is an interesting parallel to a B2B business model where some of the content is given away for free (1 episode), then I have the option to buy by the drink for $1.99, and then finally I can cough up another $50 bucks a month to upgrade my cable to some super duper forced bundle.

I'll probably wind up buying the seasons from iTunes for $25 each and skip the cable upgrade. However, had it not been for that free sample, I would not have even heard of Torchwood an anagram of Doctor Who.

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