Watching the Web on TV

[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Peter Grant peter.grant@wsj.com and Don Clark]
As the Consumer Electronics Show begins in Las Vegas this week, the buzz is about Internet-delivered video services. The past year has seen an explosion of video content on the Internet as major entertainment companies have begun making thousands of hours of sports, music videos, movies, news and other programs available on the Web. While cable and satellite TV services offer hundreds of channels and up to thousands of video-on-demand choices, the amount of content available on the Web is virtually limitless. For consumers, this could mean instant access to hard-to-find content, such as films in foreign languages and old TV shows, as well as on-demand episodes of prime-time fare that networks like NBC have started to make available. Starz is set to announce today an Internet-based movie subscription service that will offer users unlimited access to more than 1,000 movies and other programs for $9.99 a month. While cable companies now make billions by selling high-speed Internet connections, TV on the Web could threaten their traditional role as middlemen between viewers and programmers. They haven't rushed to offer set-top boxes, for example, that combine their conventional menu of scheduled programming with access to the broader Internet. Leading the Internet TV charge, rather, are computer-industry players like Microsoft, Cisco and Intel, which have long been trying to muscle into the living room. To be sure, it will be a long time before viewers can sit on their couches and easily watch any piece of Internet video on their TVs. Some service providers plan to follow the lead of cable and satellite operators, cutting deals with content owners to offer only a selection of Web-based programs rather than opening up the TV to the Internet. "What you are going to see in the near future is just another walled garden," predicts Saul Berman, a global partner in IBM's media-and-entertainment consulting business. "It's not true Internet TV."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113626174309436225.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
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* DISNEY APPLIES ESPN MODEL TO BROADBAND STRATEGY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Gina Keating]
For years ESPN has thrived as one of the most lucrative franchises on cable TV, commanding high license fees for the loyal viewers who expect to see the sports network in their basic subscription packages. In addition to its splashy deal to provide existing TV shows for Apple's online iTunes store, Disney has been quietly striking deals with Internet service providers to deliver new programing as part of a basic broadband package.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2005-12-31T032346Z_01_FOR103089_RTRUKOC_0_US-DISNEY.xml

* Provider of TV Movie Channels Looks to Expand to PC's and Video Players
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/03/business/media/03starz.html
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* Portable video expected to take center stage
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/money/20060103/1b_video03.art.htm