TV addicts get fix on the net

Television addicts are increasingly turning to the internet to get the latest American shows.

New episodes of programmes such as Friends and The Simpsons are available online months before being shown in Britain.

Analysts believe the trend is exploding in popularity, with around 30 million computer users sharing video files worldwide. They expect downloading TV shows to increase "exponentially" in the next three years. The Evening Standard was able to download and watch entire episodes of Friends, The Simpsons and Dawson's Creek. Most appear online hours after they are broadcast in the US.

The rise of high-speed internet connections that are "always on" allows users to leave their computers running overnight to download the video files, a process that can take several hours.

Once downloaded, users can either watch the show on their computer's monitor, or copy it to CD or DVD to watch on television.

The files are shared online using the same illegal file-swapping systems used to down-load music and the latest films. Figures are difficult to pinpoint but experts believe that about 400,000 TV and film files are downloaded every day.

Analyst Josh Bernoff believes the internet could eventually kill the DVD market. Mr Bernoff, of Forrester Research in Boston, warned: "Within three years TV companies are going to be in trouble if they don't work out a legal way to distribute their shows and films online."

In the UK 2.3 million homes now have highspeed broadband internet access, and illegal file sharing is believed to be one of the biggest uses for the technology.

Although the quality varies between files, particularly when viewed on a TV screen, several of the files the Evening Standard downloaded appeared to be near TV quality.

People who download shows claim they are not ripping anyone off.

One London computer user who has been downloading TV shows for several months, claims he still watches existing TV stations regularly.

He said: "I really just use this for shows I really like. For instance, I downloaded the final episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer way before it was on Sky. The quality isn't always great but it's certainly good enough most of the time."

A spokeswoman for Sky claimed the company was not concerned, adding: "We are focused on delivering television to people, and we think quality and security are the keys."

Dario Betti is a technology analyst with Ovum in London and has studied the file-sharing market. He said: "This is a huge problem for TV companies, and one that is only going to get worse. We are seeing the number of users doing this increase exponentially each year, as services become easier to use.

"The only hope for the TV companies seems to be to develop their own, legal download service. This is exactly what the music industry is doing now, and I think it is inevitable we will see companies like Channel 4 selling their programmes to computer users."

Mr Betti said the popularity of downloading could lead to UK channels being forced to show US programmes earlier. He added: "The only thing they can do is show these programmes as soon as possible. In the film market we are seeing this happen a lot as DVDs are released worldwide on the same day to avoid piracy. It seems inevitable that will happen in TV as well."