No Video For You: Full Episodes Absent for Canadian Viewers

While placing full episodes (replete with full commercials and no fast-forward button) on the web is all the rage for U.S. networks, all of the networks have “U.S. only” filtering in place to prevent non-U.S. viewers from tuning in on the web:

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Here in Canada we’re thus limited to watching TV, well, on TV. There are, however, a few exceptions:

  • Global is making full episodes of Survivor: Cook Islands and Brothers & Sisters available, as well as some of their games shows and Canadian programming like Falcon Beach.
  • CTV is making some of their Canadian shows, like Corner Gas and Whistler available online, but none of the U.S. shows they carry here. They don’t make it easy to find — you have to hunt for the “CTV Broadband Network” to load the players, and it seems to be Windows-only.
  • CBC is making some content available on Google Video, although it’s mostly news items and short clips.

If you come across anything else, let me know.

If you’re resourceful, of course, there are ways of working around these U.S.-only restrictions. They are, after all, simply checking your IP address to see if it’s in the U.S. So if you set up your web browser to use a U.S. proxy server you will appear to be “in the U.S.” and you’ll be let in the door. Here’s some basic details about how to do this.

Comments

David's picture
David on November 12, 2006 - 01:02 Permalink

There’s also Allfg.org, which despite its low quality, offers next day watching of almost every show on american tv.

Ni's picture
Ni on January 12, 2008 - 16:33 Permalink

Just letting you know that mtv.ca has full episodes on their website that can be watched in Canada.

Anony's picture
Anony on September 23, 2010 - 19:21 Permalink

Unfortunately the canadian viewing websites are thoughtless to the point that they restrict the episodes that they have available on canadian websites. If you are working during primetime hours but have started watching a show, there’s no way to get caught up on the show that you enjoy like you have the choice in the states. Canadian laziness or canadian website ignorance. Canadian websites tend to suck.