'Pushing Daisies' was honored with an award from the Casting Society of America, winning an Artios Awards, the Hollywood Reporter says || James Cromwell, who played Zefram Cochrane in 1996's 'Star Trek: First Contact,' broke his collarbone in a fall off his bicycle last weekend, Yahoo! News reports. He's expected to fully recover. || ABC's 'Lost' will return to Wednesday nights starting Jan. 21. A clip show will run at 8 followed by a two-hour premiere. || All of the Star Trek movies could be coming to Blu-Ray as early as next year, Digital Bits says. Paramount had supported HD-DVD, but has conceded defeat to Blu-Ray, and is now moving to the format || SciFi Channel's 'Warehouse 13' has completed its creative staff with the likes of Jack Kenny, David Simkins, Drew Greenberg, Stephen Scaia, and others || 'Pushing Daisies' was honored with an award from the Casting Society of America, winning an Artios Awards, the Hollywood Reporter says || James Cromwell, who played Zefram Cochrane in 1996's 'Star Trek: First Contact,' broke his collarbone in a fall off his bicycle last weekend, Yahoo! News reports. He's expected to fully recover. || ABC's 'Lost' will return to Wednesday nights starting Jan. 21. A clip show will run at 8 followed by a two-hour premiere. || All of the Star Trek movies could be coming to Blu-Ray as early as next year, Digital Bits says. Paramount had supported HD-DVD, but has conceded defeat to Blu-Ray, and is now moving to the format || SciFi Channel's 'Warehouse 13' has completed its creative staff with the likes of Jack Kenny, David Simkins, Drew Greenberg, Stephen Scaia, and others ||

'Stargate: Atlantis' Gets Boost: From Web Pirates

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By MICHAEL HINMAN
Aug-27-2008

In the week following the announcement that MGM and SciFi Channel were pulling the plug on "Stargate: Atlantis," those who choose to illegally download television programs thought it would give it a nod.

TorrentFreak is reporting that "Atlantis" was the most pirated television show for the week of of Aug. 17-24, unseating the Olympics opening ceremony and "Weeds" as the most popular show downloaded by BitTorrent users. It previously filled the No. 6 position, which was taken over by USA Network's "Burn Notice" instead.

The site didn't report the number of downloads, but said larger network shows like "Lost" and "Heroes" can get up to 10 million downloads in a single week when they are showing new episodes. However, by the site's own lists, the show to get the most downloads in a single episode in 2007 was "Heroes" with just 2.4 million downloads. Site owners explain that those download numbers are from Mininova, and only represent a fraction of the overall downloads.

Also on TorrentFreak's top downloads list was SciFi Channel's "Eureka" in the No. 3. slot.

"Heroes" was the top downloaded show in 2007 with 2.4 million downloads of its most popular episode. "Battlestar Galactica" was third with one episode earning 706,000 downloads ahead of "Lost," which had 705,000 downloads of its most-watched episode. "Dexter" was ninth with one episode earning 435,000 downloads, according to Mininova.

SyFy Portal points out that downloading shows through unofficial means is illegal, and does cost studios -- and those who create such programming -- money. TorrentFreak says it releases such data to explain to the entertainment industry how it needs to embrace technology to compete with piracy rather than fighting those who pirate videos, or provide the means to do so.

"Stargate: Atlantis" was canceled Aug. 20, and will finish its fifth season before moving on to direct-to-DVD telemovies like its predecessor, "Stargate: SG-1."

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