As a long-time Lovefilm user and all-round appreciator of strictly legal methods of acquiring television content (that's my story and I'm sticking to it), I opted to trial the latest rival streaming service Netflix when it launched last month in the UK.
I was pleased to see that the launch included celebrated British shows such as The Thick of It and... No wait, that's about it, actually.
In recent years (read: since discovering the last 10 years of American comedy and drama), I'll admit, I haven't been remotely interested in the majority of British television.
As a seasoned comedy aficionado (read: owns some stand-up DVDs) and TV drama junkie, I've become accustomed to expecting something more than the typically two dimensional British programming of the last decade. With everything available from the hilarious local government mockumentary Parks And Recreation to the breathtaking crime drama The Wire, I can say without a doubt in my mind that the US are leagues ahead in terms of their comedy and drama television output.
In short, Netflix, please do not assume that British people are always interested in British television. Giving me a sorting button to access exclusively British content and not a similar sorting button for exclusively accessing American television shows is only really adding insult to injury.
Instead of pursuing television shows from abroad that haven't made it to our screens, Netflix have partially wasted their UK launch providing us with £5.99 a month service to watch freely available 4OD and ITV Player programming, albeit without the ad breaks.
A paid subscription service should be designed to offer premium content unavailable anywhere else. In this respect, Netflix still has some way to go.
With the launch inclusion of previous seasons of critically-acclaimed American shows like 24, Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, Firefly , The Office (US), and the latest addition, the fantastic It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I still have high hopes for the service as a replacement for my current methods of acquiring US television programming.
We're willing to pay for our content Netflix, but please stop trying to sell us what we can already legally obtain for free.