BBC Learning English
Words in the News
4th September 2009
TV pirates
New figures show a surge in the numbers of people using the internet to watch unauthorised
copies of television programmes. While American drama series are the most popular, millions
of people are also downloading the British programme Top Gear. Rory Cellan-Jones reports:
Visits to web sites offering illegal access to music and video have nearly doubled over the
last year, and increasingly it's television and films which are being sought out.
The media measurement firm Big Champagne has compiled a top ten of illegal downloads.
It's dominated by American drama series, with 55 million people downloading episodes of
Heroes in the first half of this year. But the BBC's Top Gear is also amongst the most
pirated programmes, with hundreds of thousands of people, many in the United States,
downloading each episode of the recent series.
Despite the apparent surge in piracy, the researchers say television should not suffer as
much damage to its revenues as the music business has faced.
Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News
Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2009
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Vocabulary and definitions
offering illegal access to allowing users to download without paying, which is
against the law
nearly doubled become almost twice as high
sought out here, looked for/searched for actively and extensively in
order to download
compiled put together, collected information about
it's dominated by here, the biggest number of illegal downloads are of
amongst the most pirated one of the programmes that are downloaded illegally most
programmes often
the apparent surge in what looks like a sudden increase in
suffer as much damage to its be as badly affected, as far as making money is concerned
revenues
faced had to deal with
More on this story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6151118.stm
Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2009/09/090904_witn_tv_pirates.shtml
Words in the news © British Broadcasting Corporation 2009
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