If you're a fan of hulu.com or any other free streaming internet TV website, you'll be happy to know that two internet service providers (Comcast and Time Warner) are working on measures that will prevent their customers from using these free services.
California Chronicle reports,
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Amid the rush to make programming available for free online, Time Warner and Comcast are fighting back. The companies on June 24 announced a new model that will require viewers to prove they are cable subscribers before they can stream hit shows online. The announcement puts both companies squarely into the fray of a growing debate over whether people should be forced to pay for content online instead of getting it for free.
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How are they going to do it?
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Starting in July, 5,000 Comcast subscribers will be able to see shows online from Turner Broadcasting's TNT and TBS channels, like The Closer and Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns. But first, they each will have to demonstrate that they're a Comcast cable-TV subscriber through a screening called authentication.
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As for TV networks that agree to sign on, their shows will be available exclusively on the cable service providers' sites or on the networks' own sites for a certain amount of time.
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Which means that these shows will not be made available on hulu.com or other free streaming sites right away like you used to. Why? Here's what one of Time Warner's executives was quoted, "It's a windowed approach to reward paying customers and to provide the advertisers with an opportunity to have their commercials viewed across multiple platforms,".
Is 2009 going to be considered the birth of free TV or is this just the end?
I'm only attaching part of this great article. You can read more about it
here.
Less advertising throughout
