James Delahunty
15 Apr 2006 13:01
According to the Wall Street Journal, News Corps' Fox Network has come to a deal with its 187 affiliated stations to show reruns of television shows on the Internet. The agreement will allow Fox to make 60% of its programming available online one day after it originally airs. By the agreement, stations essentially will get a 12.5 percent cut after costs. Fox is home to many mega-popular TV shows including American Idol.
Making television programming available on the Internet helps stations to claim a new stream of revenue for their programming, or to experiment with new ways to attract viewers. This is one of the aims of ABC's latest project which will put TV shows online for free on an advertising-supported Web service. Disney's ABC is home to popular shows like Lost and Desperate Housewives.
TV show piracy on the Internet is rampant. P2P networks, BitTorrent sites, IRC and Newsgroups are most used to download the latest shows just hours after they air. American Hit TV shows are available then to viewers in countries where shows tend to fall months behind (often whole seasons behind the US). Networks need to find ways to compete with this piracy and gain even more revenue from the Internet.
Source:
Reuters