Part of your quote at the end:

"If you sell me your TV shows for 99 cents -- $23 a season -- I'd either cancel or cut back on my Comcast subscription and give you that money instead..." Cut back, how?

If you watch one show or two as I, that might make sense. Indeed, I plan to skip one show completely in 2008 and just wait for the dvd. [I watch only House and Battlestar Galactica, regarding the latter when (and if) they play the scheduled long show in October, the dvd is supposed to arrive at the same time - reasonable price: I buy it. Regular season in 2008, I wait for the last season's dvd, SciFi is a travesty. Note: it belongs to Universal, part of NBC.]

I think your earlier argument that pricing shows low to entice people to watch what they otherwise might miss could flow over into greater overall revenue. They get cash for views and entice those enthralled to purchase the full season dvd. Nonetheless, the model you propose for yourself does not seem to applicable to too great number of potential viewers. Hone your arguments, I think you are on to a core truth.

[Sort of off topic - why don't more of the networks allow on-demand showing of older shows, then those showings are easily counted as part of the show's viewers? Networks are always complaining of undercounts and the cable companies certainly could provide gross counts, even by the day and hour after the original airs. Privacy could and should be protected by law if necessary. A win for the networks, cable and Telcos plus those running the numbers game.]

I like your idea and agree with it, but if the Networks can make more money keeping things the way they are....

How much money do they get from advertising?

Now compare that to how much they would get if they cut out advertising and sold the show directly to you for $1.99?

There was a similar debate that came up on a different topic at (gaps!) a different website. Some cities are trying to create "free" wi-fi for the whole city -- and some cities were giving up on their plans to provide wi-fi because the local telecome monopolies were blocking/subverting them. Why would Comcast simply allow access to the internet for free? They can make more money blocking innovations like that and maintaining their monopoly. "Want to visit Salon.com? Then give me $50 bucks a month! We're the ONLY internet provider in your area! Ha ha ha!"

AT&T did the same thing with the iPhone. Everyone on earth WANTS (nay, begs!) for the iPhone to be Skype enabled. But while that would be a huge boon to consumers, it would cripple AT&T ability to force people into one of their outrageous monthly plans. Most good consumers wouldn't want to pay AT&T $100 a month just to make a phone call and would much rather just use Skype. AT&T knows that and is actively working against the best interests of the customer for no other reason than to use their market advantage (almost monopoly) to force customers into one of their plans even though they really don't want to!

And so it goes with the Networks.

Right now they are getting ads and revenue from selling shows online.

It is in their best interest to keep the online experience BAD so that the majority will still keep watching the Network on their TV's (along with the commercials).

They want the online experience to be good enough to be an additional revenue stream -- but keep it bad enough so that it doesn't compete with their advertising stream!

I think we're starting to see that the free-market really works against consumers a lot of the time. The free market, so Conservatives argue, will work to automatically make goods and services better and cheaper. Any yet....

AT&T is blocking Skype on the iPhone -- reducing the service and increasing price for consumers.

Local telecom/cable monopolies are working to block cities from implementing "free" wi-fi -- reducing services and increasing prices for the consumers.

Networks are intentially creating bad online video options so as not to compete with their advertising revenue -- reducing services and increasing prices for consumers.

No, the free market works great. If I want to watch something I just download it from any number or Torrent sites for free, watch it where and when I want, and there are no commercials. It's great! When are the networks going to get it? I could do the same for movies, but Netflix offers a sane and legal alternative at a reasonable price, so I don't. That's the power of the free market, it just hasn't caught up with them yet.

Nobody really knows how it's going to shake out, what the business model will be so they are trying some different approaches.

The author is a technology writer - one of a niche group of people who want to watch shows online, via their TV sets. But that's you - some people just want a chance to catch up for free on the episode they missed, others want to own and keep the episodes but don't want to wait for the DVD so they'll buy them on amazon.com, and others prefer to wait for the DVD so they can watch the whole season in a weekend.

But at this point, the TV networks get their money from advertisers. If a show doesn't get a large number of viewers on the air, it's not going to make it through the season, there's no incentive to divert viewers to a direct purchase of the episodes. Maybe one day they'll just be selling shows directly to consumers, and quit broadcasting all together, but it's not clear that that day is coming any time soon.

If your true desire is to see the episodes in high definition, on your Televsion set, why not just tune in when the program airs? If that's inconvenient, I recommend a DVR service like Tivo, it's really best suited to your needs. There are bigger and better DVRs coming on the market all the time.