Alternate TV Takes the Hill

ALTERNATIVE TV TAKES THE HILL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a hearing on alternative ways to receive television content. The committee, which has held a series of hearings on fair use and digital rights management, said it wanted to hear about some of the content-delivery systems currently in use from the supply and consumer side as the Congress tries to balance fair use rights with content protection, which will happen either through legislation -- to loosen or tighten copyright protections -- or by spurring industry to reach a marketplace solution.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6320236?display=Breaking+News

TV DOWNLOADS BREAK NEW BARRIER WITH "SCRUBS" DEAL
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Steve Gorman]
In another first for the fledgling world of "on-demand" television, NBC and the sister studio of rival network ABC have teamed up to make a prime-time show of shared interest, "Scrubs," available for Internet downloads. The NBC hospital comedy, produced by Disney-ABC Television Group's Touchstone Television, has been added to the catalog of shows that can be purchased as a download from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music store for $1.99 per episode. While TV series for network broadcast are routinely produced by and licensed from studios of competing media companies, the "Scrubs" deal marks the first such partnership for a prime-time program offered via the Internet for commercial download, NBC and ABC said on Wednesday. Until now, programs made available for online purchase, like ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and NBC's "The Office," have all been productions of their respective "in-house" television studios.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID...