Mr Scott’s comments echo those of News Limited chief executive Kim Williams, who recently called for new online copyright laws to protect content owners from online piracy. Mr Williams is the former chief executive of Foxtel, in which News Limited has a 25 per cent stake.
Mr Scott agreed that rights holders need to be protected. The ABC recently negotiated a deal with the BBC to show the new series of Dr Who as soon as it finished screening for the first time in the UK — at 5.10am on Sunday mornings in Australia.
Mr Scott said 80,000 people streamed the show from iView on the first Sunday. “But if we hadn’t put it up on iView, the ratings would have been down anyway – because it is reasonable to assume that many of those 180,000 would have found another way to watch the program before it was shown on ABC Television.”
