Showtime Makes Use of its Unauthorized Web Presence

It seems that the Web is simultaneously Showtime’s best friend and its worst enemy. Every week its most popular shows are recorded, converted and shared over the Internet via Bittorrent, LimeWire, and other P2P file-sharing programs.

But Showtime has figured out how to make use of its unauththorized Web presence when it comes to one of its most downloaded shows: The L Word.

Showtime consistently dresses L Word characters in fashions from labels like BCBG and 7 For All Mankind. Then it teams of with StarBrand e-magazine to feature those products on Sho.com. Fans of the lesbian drama log on regularly to find out which bag classic-chic Helena was carrying, or which top ultra-gorgeous Carmen had draped over her caderas in each episode.

And now the network has added a blogging and RSS component to its Web campaign with Blogger’s Corner, where it features brand-expanding avatars for blog platforms, RSS feeds with upcoming episode clips, podcasts, and a bank of commonly used “interest” tags that link users of platforms from Blogger to Facebook through their common love of all things L Word.

This would be a smart move whether or not The L Word were pirated regularly. But the presence of such rampant Internet piracy is exactly what powers this Web machine. Showtime executives can’t be unaware of the overlap between the technologically savvy youngsters who see anything available on the Web as fair game, the fashionistas who use their website to guide their purchasing decisions, and the bloggers they are now targeting as a word-of-mouth sales force.

Obviously, Showtime still abhors Internet piracy. But, by treating piracy as a resource rather than a parasitic problem, they’ve found a viable way to more than make up for lost revenue.