Free online TV a threat to industry

More and more viewers will be lured away from broadcast and cable TV to ad-funded online entertainment, available to viewers for free. But online piracy -- another form of free-to-view digital entertainment -- is the industry's biggest threat. That was the opinion of industryites at London-based media research company Screen Digest's annual Peve Digital Entertainment Conference, according to a confab report released Tuesday. By 2011, ad-supported, online TV shows will account for 10 times more U.S. consumption than paid for online content, according to Screen Digest's broadband media senior analyst Dan Cryan. He warned that the challenge for digital rights holders was persuading consumers to pay for content available now for free.