AOL TV (In2TV)

AOL Time Warner (or TIME WARNER aol, whichever you prefer) will soon launch broadcast content online. The long promised AOL TV that was a main impetus for the failed merger will finally make its debut as In2TV, out of fear that Yahoo and Google may beat them to the punch. Old shows such as The Fugitive and Eight is Enough will be available on demand. The merged companies will have an advantage over the other portals in that they have an extensive library of shows to draw from via Warner Brothers. With the increasing ubiquity of highbandwidth, web content can effectively compete with broadcast content. PC vendors and major computer retail stores are also selling plasmsa TV's as part of their standard offerings. A time is quickly approaching when TV's will simply be large monitors for your home computer network. Will the major broadcasters (ABC, NBC, CBS) lose viewers en masse as the major news papers have lost subscribers? The Drudge Report, consisting of one guy in a house in Florida, has a better Alexa ranking (266) than sizable institutions like The Christian Science Monitor (3136), MSNBC.com (1330), and The Wall Street Journal (485). Will micro-production companies be outmaneuvering the big three with their home grown broadcast content? Most likely. Dinasours like the networks will be caught flat-footed and no more adapt than a brontosaurus would grow hair and figure out how to start a small fire. What about the motion picture industry? Will Indy movie cafes with films transferred in via FTP start replacing the major studio's (whose real power is derived from their distribution channels) releases and the mega theatres they're shown in? Reuters New York Times