THAT 24-hour window has now stretched to a six-day wait.
SingTel mio TV's Season Pass, which was touted to offer broadcasts of top-rated American TV shows like Prison Break and Lost as early as 24 hours after their US telecast, has hit a delay and local viewers must wait until Monday for the first episode.
The new TV season in the US started yesterday with season premieres of hit drama Prison Break and teen shows Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill being aired.
Over 50 shows are premiering or returning to the small screen over the next two months and SingTel's video-on-demand deal with Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros comprises the bulk of these shows.
When it was announced in July, SingTel promised a September launch without specifying any date. Given the time difference, new shows should have been available for subscribers as early as today but SingTel's mio TV website has the premieres of these three shows slated for next Monday instead.
SingTel also announced the pricing for its service, which varies from show to show, only yesterday.
'The reason we were only able to release our pricing today was that our content partners in the US were unable to confirm the total number of episodes for some of the series,' explained Ms Selena Ho, SingTel's director of content acquisition and marketing.
'We waited so that we could finalise and reflect the prices accordingly. This is one of the necessary drawbacks when we strive to be so close to the US' telecast.'
Subscribers to SingTel's Season Pass can expect to pay an average of $2.68 per episode on a per-season basis.
For the other shows premiering later, the mio TV website puts the local premiere two days after the US', to make up for the time difference.
From Monday, viewers will be able to watch the Season Pass series of their choice within 24 hours of the US telecast.
StarHub, which is offering a similar service for four shows, namely the three CSI franchise ones - original, Miami and New York - as well as procedural show, Numb3rs, says it will stick closely to its 24-hour promise.
'We fully understand that a major part of the attraction of having US TV series on demand is the short window period, in addition to the convenience of accessing the content any time,' said Mr Patrick Lim, StarHub's head of cable TV services.
'Hence, viewers can rest assured that we will make available the new series in the shortest time possible.'
The earliest of StarHub's offerings, CSI: Miami, starts in the US on Sept 22.
This story was first published in The Straits Times on 2 September 2008.
