For TV or movies the benefits of a private tracker are minimal. You can definitely get by with only a public tracker.

The slight advantages are:

- On average I find the download speeds faster and the seeders more reliable. Say for example a torrent has 2 seeders 0 leechers -- on a public tracker I might not even attempt it, but on a private tracker that has a good chance of being a very fast download.

- A bit more selection if you're picky about formats, size, etc. If you're trying to download _The Godfather Pt 1_ for instance, you can find that anywhere. But if you want a specific file format of a specific size to quality ratio, you're more likely to find that on a private tracker.

- Private trackers usually have some sort of request system if you really can't find something anywhere. Presumably someone will eventually satisfy that request. This can be hit or miss though since not every tracker has appropriate incentives to request fulfillers.

I mostly only torrent ebooks/audiobooks, and I use MAM. I haven't run into anything on MAM that I couldn't find on Anna's Archive or a public tracker like AudiobookBay. But I still use MAM since it has a higher chance of having the specific file format I prefer (m4b), and being a very fast download.