A prediction — broadcast television as we have known it will cease to exist within 10 years, if not sooner. TiVo and other forms of Digital Video Recorders are already changing viewing habits more than VCR’s ever did. Now, comes this news from CNN about a radical move by two broadcast networks:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC and CBS unveiled separate plans to make some of their prime-time shows available for viewers to watch at their leisure — without commercials — for 99 cents an episode, throwing open the door to “on-demand” television.
The back-to-back announcements on Monday from NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co. and Viacom, Inc.-owned CBS, came weeks after Walt Disney Co.’s ABC began offering commercial-free Internet downloads of its biggest hits, “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” for $1.99 a piece.
Both networks will make some of their biggest prime-time hits available for download:
NBC’s initial offerings will include the two spinoffs of its “Law & Order” franchise — “SVU” and “Criminal Intent,” as well as workplace comedy “The Office” and sea monster thriller “Surface.” Two cable shows also will be part of the mix — USA Network’s “Monk” and Si Fi channel’s “Battlestar Galactica.”
Hours after those shows first air on the network each week, they will be “pushed” to DirecTV Plus DVRs, where they will be stored digitally and available the next morning for customers to select and play at their convenience for 99 cents.
The CBS venture will initially make four of the network’s biggest prime-time hits — “CSI,” “NCIS,” “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race” — available to Comcast digital cable customers in markets served by CBS-owned TV stations. Those areas include Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Baltimore and some outlying suburbs of New York City.
Additionally, NBC News now makes their Nightly News broadcast available for viewing over the Internet. The days of the common broadcast experience are coming to an end.
