“According to Torrentfreak Lost was the most downloaded TV Show on BitTorrent in 2008. ABC has two other shows on that Top 10 list (Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy). it is clear ABC is producing great content, and it is no surprise that our users want to stream it on boxee,” Avner Ronen reports via the boxee blog.

“We have released a new version of boxee for Mac that includes support for ABC, click here to download. we hope to release an Apple TV version within the next few days (not available for Windows and Ubuntu),” Ronen reports.

“We strongly believe that given the option most users will opt to stream a TV Show (with a reasonable amount of ads) rather than using a file-sharing service. especially now that they can get most mainstream network content through boxee,” Ronen writes.

“The online streaming offered by ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, etc. has made great progress over the past 12 months in terms of quality, breadth of selection and release windows (i.e. the time it takes for the show to be available online after it originally aired),” Ronen writes. “In my opinion they have created a great alternative to file-sharing networks. if they want to really eliminate illegal downloads they should release it simultaneously online (in HD) and remove the geo-restrictions, but i’ll save that discussion for another post.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: During Apple’s Q109 conference call yesterday, COO Tim Cook stated that Apple TV saw “tremendous pickup year-over-year. In fact Apple TV unit sales were up almost three times versus the year ago quarter. However, let me be clear. We still consider this a hobby. It is clear that the movie rental business has really helped Apple TV and there are more and more customers that want to try it. And we’re going to continue to invest in it, because we fundamentally believe there is something there for us in the future.”