Another First: WRAL-TV Pilots Localized Net Streaming (Network programing going onto net)

WRAL-TV ^

[LK44-40]

RALEIGH - WRAL-TV is taking the next step in the delivery of its signal to viewers by offering live local programming over the Internet but only within its coverage area.

Ultimately, the CBS affiliate hopes to offer the entire CBS lineup and commercials live on the Net and also to sell programs as part of a video-on-demand service.

At a news conference Wednesday, Capitol Broadcasting President and CEO Jim Goodmon and Jack Perry, chief executive officer of Decisionmark Corp., unveiled a product called TitanCast that delivers virtually instantaneous TV programming through the web.

Much more at http://www.wral.com/news/6652148/detail.html

[LK44-40]

This seems huge to me. If they can make this work -- and they seem to have their ducks lined up -- it looks like the total content of TV might be available over the Internet in the not to distant future. Is the pipeline adequate? Maybe others have insight.

[Keith in Iowa]

Who wants to see SeeBS programming on-line? I don't watch it on cable now...

[BigSkyFreeper]

I haven't watched network TV since Seinfeld left the airwaves at NBC.

[LK44-40]

I realize that network TV and especially CBS is not so popular here (and I hardly watch it myself).

The significance here is that both the legal and technical barriers are being broken down to allow any and all TV channels, broadcast or cable, to distribute over the net.

[taildragger]

"It looks like the total content of TV might be available over the Internet in the not to distant future."

I am thinking other content.

Not I want my MTV, I want my "FRTV" (FreeRepublic Television).

Another potential nail in the old-media's coffin.

Russert and Matthews, consider taking an early retirement package if offered.

[LK44-40]

I am thinking other content.

I am thinking of ~other~ content, too, although I wasn't very clear about it. I am thinking of the existing niche channels with 3-digit numbers and others not yet conceived.

This is to the existing TV industry what the Internet has already become to newspapers....pretty much what you said.

[BigSkyFreeper]

They're gonna find out that those barriers won't come down. Internet radio has been trying to fight those barriers, to no avail, and have ended up having to blackout copyrighted material, or material not deemed cleared for wide distribution over the internet.

[BigSkyFreeper]

The upside of all of this is, I won't be forced to pay them if I don't want to. Unlike my satellite provider, who is forcing me to pay them for networks I haven't watched in years. If I told them I didn't want them, they'd shut my whole box off.

[wolfcreek]

Why hasn't this been done before? They've had the 'Naked News' on for years!

[TomGuy]

I am surprised that the TV media has been so slow to use Internet broadcasting.

One CBS affiliate in Ohio has been doing that for several years. However, their servers are easily overloaded and they remove access during 'popular' broadcast events.