Stupid reliance on DRM technology

Dispatches - The Truth About Beauty Creams is available online at this link but only through Windows Media Player enabled browsers.   It has five days left.   The thing most often put forward by pro-DRM types, such as Channel 4, is that they need to protect their ‘rights’.   Presumably that would work if programmes a) weren’t available elsewhere in non-DRM format, and b) the programmes had resale value that would be harmed by redistribution.  Dispatches is available in various places in a DRM free format (see, but, beware I haven’t checked the links for bad stuff), and Dispatches, while fulfilling a small part of Channel 4’s remit, has very little resale value.  So it’s pointless.   I really can’t work out why programme makers and television networks aren’t providing DRM-free downloads with hard-encoded adverts (adverts encoded as part of the original programme, rather than as part of a playlist).  Or YouTube-alike videos with hard-encoded adverts.  South Park Studios are taking just such an approach with their new player (although it doesn’t work in countries with decent healthcare systems, yet, presumably not to annoy television stations that have bought South Park in the last year or two).