The New York Times is reporting that NBC and CBS are going to make available reruns of their shows for 99 cents each. It doesn’t look like these folks are going the iPod route. It looks like the shows will require that you’re tethered to some other service, such as DirecTV or Comcast. Eh.
So far ABC with its Apple/iPod deal is on the right path.
This other stuff doesn’t do it for me. I want to take the videos with me. I want to collect them. I’d expect any tethered service to be…dare I say….free or simply bundled as part of other services.
When I read the headlines I thought, “Cool. The TV networks are going to show the movie studios how to make content available on the Internet.” Nope. Not yet anyway. Although on the plus side ABC has at least put their toes in the water with Apple by making a couple of their shows available for download. Here’s to hoping that Steve Jobs can lead the market in the right direction. Fingers crossed.
PS. I was just thinking…imagine what would be happening right now with video and the Internet if copyright enforcement periods had not been extended by Congress again and again. I bet we would be seeing an explosion of new Internet-oriented content delivery businesses on par with Ted Turner’s original SuperStation and his eventual turn to CNN. Some amazing companies would have been created. Oh well. There are plenty of other things to do.