The battles to watch over what you can watch

The real fight to watch isn't on television -- Conan vs. Leno, Olbermann vs. O'Reilly. Rather, it's about television, and the future of online video -- a fight that pits cable and content companies against consumers.

Instead of being glued to our favorite shows, we'd be wise to pay attention to the various battles, mergers and backroom deals happening between big media corporations who are trying desperately to cling to a sinking broadcast media model -- and pull the public down with them.

Here are three developments worth paying attention to: 1) Retransmission consent and fees passed on to consumers. 2) Putting online video content behind paywalls. 3) The Comcast-NBCU merger.