Breakthrough time for taking TV everywhere

updated 10:14 a.m. ET Nov. 14, 2005

NEW YORK - “Desperate Housewives” on your iPod. Jay Leno’s monologue on your cell phone. Brian Williams delivering the night’s news on your computer. And “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” available whenever you want to watch it — not just Thursday night.

Each of those developments became possible in the past few weeks, part of an extraordinarily tumultuous period in TV.

The autumn of 2005 will doubtless be remembered as the time when all assumptions about the rules of television were thrown into the air and scattered, with no certainty about what happens when they land.

The most shocking event clearly was Apple’s deal with Disney in October to make reruns of “Lost” and other programs available for downloading to iPods for $1.99. In less than three weeks, Apple said a million videos were sold.

“That’s a significant amount of money,” said Rob Enderle, an analyst for the Enderle Group. “I honestly believe that’s going to change a lot of minds in terms of providing programming for this medium.”

Some worry this service will make people less likely to watch these hit shows on television. But many in the industry believe fans who may have missed an episode represent the biggest market. So far, there’s no evidence that fewer people are watching new episodes of “Desperate Housewives” or “Lost” because they can download it later on iTunes.

Will viewers leave the living room?
At the very least, the preliminary results show the idea of portable TV has some appeal.

The big question is how many people will gravitate toward watching TV on iPods, computers or cell phones when a big-screen television is waiting in front of the living room couch.

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That remains unanswered, but it hasn’t stopped an explosion of Internet channels or programming offerings this fall — seemingly a new announcement every day.

Several of the MTV Networks have launched affiliated broadband sites. 50 Cent made a concert exclusively available on MTV Overdrive, VH1 started the VSpot stream, kids can watch cartoons on TurboNick and Comedy Central’s Motherload began operating Nov. 1.

NBC began offering a same-night replay of “Nightly News” online, the first network news broadcast to take that step. The Food Network starts a Web-only series with chef Dave Lieberman next week. HGTV debuted “My First Place,” a series about young people moving into their first homes, on the Web before TV. PBS made NerdTV, a series about high tech pioneers, available exclusively on the Internet.

America Online anticipated only a few hundred applicants for “The Biz,” its online-only music talent contest. Instead, it got 9,000. AOL is expected to announce Monday a new initiative to show old TV programming.

AOL’s successful Webcast of the Live 8 concert last summer opened many eyes to the possibilities of Internet TV, and so did simple demographics. About 35 million homes now have broadband access (compared to 110 million homes with TVs), and about half of those online users say they’ve watched video online, said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst for the Forrester Group.

Just as importantly, advertisers have warmed to the medium, and realize they can effectively present online commercials not that different from what’s already on TV.

Some of the biggest early customers for Internet TV are transplants, Enderle said. They’re following sports teams from cities they departed or, if they’re immigrants, catching the latest news from the home country.

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