A Glimpse of the Future

[Terry]

TV delivered on the Internet - I think this is eventually going to be a big business.

adage.com/article/digital/radixtv-web-tv-service-a-glimpse-future/230501/

Right now I watch Glenn Beck's TV channel via my Roku box for $5 per month. And the Roku delivers, for free, these 24 hour news channels: BBC, CNN International, France 24 (in English), Al Jazeera (English), RT (Russian TV news), even Press TV from Iran.

I've often thought that once someone offers Fox News Channel and maybe CNN for less than I'm paying for Comcast cable, I'll sign up. Coming soon, to a data stream near you.

[kenglish]

Still gotta pay SOMEBODY (cable TV provider, FiOS, Phone company) to deliver those internet bits. And, then there's the fact that all those different streams of the same programming have to get across your network, too.
Seems like having a separate lane for every car on the freeway.

[CAwasinNJ]

Personally I think net streaming is still way too complicated for most people. That being said, there is an advantage to streaming. There is true a la carte purchasing available. That's something that consumers have been yelling for for years. If I'm never going to watch CMT (for example), why should I pay for it? In theory this makes sense. Then you run into other problems though, like available bandwidth and the costs involved in creating a show. That's made worse by people being used to having little in the way of commercials now on the online streaming versions. I don't see how all this scales, but we'll have to see how things work out.

[Terry]

Wall Street Journal: Sony Considers Internet Rival to Cable TV

online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204323904577040433936477866-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwNTExNDUyWj.html#ixzz1dpkYhluL