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ABC To Offer Full Shows Online
vitaly.friedman writes to mention an Ars Technica story on the ABC's newest bid to stay relevant in the Information Age. As of the end of this month the network will be airing certain popular television shows on the ABC website, starting the morning after their first broadcast. From the article: "All programs will be shown in their entirety, including commercials which cannot be avoided. That's a smart move on ABC's part, as it ensures that advertisers will get another shot at hawking their wares to an audience that might otherwise change channels during commercial breaks or fast-forward through them if recorded. Aside from being unable to avoid commercials, watching the programs will be similar to watching timeshifted content in that viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind."
No fast forward or rewind ability, enforced by DRM on the player.
More likely, enforced by the fact that you're streaming the data. While most video programs try to read ahead, the buffer likely wouldn't be more than enough to miss a single commercial.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Check out the press release. They're using Flash 8 encoding to prevent it from being downloaded. Available Windows & Mac.
Episodes will be available at two resolutions, the better being 700x394 pixels at 700 kbps. I might have to start watching one of these shows just to support the effort.
Also, ABC doesn't get a dime from your cable bill.
I hate to nitpick, but that's (probably) inaccurate. Almost all channels carried by cable get a chunk of the bill. It's true that premium channels like HBO, Cinemax, and so forth get a lot more, but even basic cable channels usually take between 10 cents and $2 per subscriber. For example, BusinessWeek reported in 2003 that ESPN charges an average of $1.93 per subscriber per month.
Now, ABC itself usually doesn't get paid by your cable company, but the local broadcast affiliate that carries ABC probably does. Federal law provides both "must carry" and "retransmission consent" provisions that cable companies have to abide by. In essence, a local broadcaster can try to negotiate with the cable company to permit transmission in exchange for a fee. If the cable company refuses to pay, the broadcaster has the choice to block the cable company from transmitting its signal, or to demand that it do so for free. Early this year, a dispute with an ABC affiliate caused the cable company to pull the station off the cable system at the station's request.
With these provisions, the amount of money a broadcaster can get from the cable company depends on how popular the station is. Local affiliates of the "big 5" networks usually have bargaining power to compel the cable companies to pay. Independent broadcasters and religious stations, on the other hand, usually opt for more viewers through asserting the "must carry" rule.
I agree with the rest of your post; I just wanted to point out these facts, which most people don't seem to know about.