Okay, so you know that the UK got TV shows on iTunes, right? I’m envious. I noticed with interest that they still don’t have movies. This is the same path that video took on the US iTunes. Ah well, at least they have something.
So what can an iTunes enthusiast check out under the hood? Well, the only thing I could think of was TV ratings. I changed my store to United Kingdom in iTunes Store, then switched to my TV Shows library, where I’ve tagged everything with the Australian ratings using Lostify. I clicked a rating symbol and got this rather sparse page:
When set to the US store or my Australian store, I get a long page detailing all the US ratings. Of all the countries mentioned in the Parental tab in iTunes, UK doesn’t have TV ratings, so I guess they only need a blank or an Explicit to get by.
Second thing I did was check for an Apple TV update. I thought that with UK video now out, they might update the ratings labels. Currently only the US ratings graphics are installed. This means that when one of my tagged TV shows is a PG, I get the US graphic, and when a match can’t be made, e.g. Australia’s unique M rating, Apple TV writes the value out literally in plain text. I tested using a UK movie rating and it does the same thing: plain text.
I set my Apple TV iTunes Store setting to United Kingdom and jumped back to the TV Shows menu. Sure enough, as you would expect, an iTunes Top TV Episodes menu is now at the top of the list. Here’s what’s on offer:
Not a lot happening yet. I expect this will get very busy.
Enjoy your new TV shows, UK!
Posted by tunegardener 