Internet TV faces big obstacles

You say TV, I say Internet. Toe-mate-o, toe-maht-o. Technology increasingly blurs the lines between computer, television, phone and tablet. Online video options grow almost by the hour. A screen, in the era of cyber choice, is a screen is a screen. You can now plug the Internet straight into the newest TVs. You can buy gadgets that will bring the Web to your old set. Or you can use your phone, tablet or other electronic gizmos to tap into the Internet to give you TV on the go. Still, to fill your screen with popular sports, comedies and dramas from the brands that dominate your television, generations-old economic models will have to be rearranged for the wild, wild Web. Some entrepreneurs are toying with new models that tap into an Internet specialty — the ability to tailor choices to the individual viewer — that might give advertisers a better platform on the Internet than they have in one-size-fits-all cable TV audiences. But true Internet TV is facing a big obstacle: It’s the old-school cable and cable-like services, after all, that have got the makers of programming locked up in mega-contracts.