[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

Could someone who has 10 million youtube video views get one million live viewers of some kind of event, like a concert? I'm going to guess that right now, the answer is no, but after 5 years of owning iPads, I think that most people will have done something like that once, and an artist won't have to both convince someone to get their entertainment that way as well as turn into them specifically. Then it will be easier to get 1 million viewers, which at that point, could be more than a network TV show. Even 100,000 viewers might be at that point.

What year do you think will be the first year that the Superbowl is broadcast live on the internet? What year do you think will be the first year that it's exclusively live on the internet?

Are you suggesting that internet broadcast will be a viable alternative to actual live performance? Because if you are you need to (a) go see some live shows and (b) have your head examined.

The Superbowl sells out every year and always will unless people stop liking football. There will always be a market for live performance, unless the performers suck.

OTOH if you're suggesting that direct internet broadcast will eventually cause the demise of broadcast (and cable) TV I'd say you're spot on the money. That why Comcast is putting so much into their internet operations - they understand that the days of cable TV as we know it are numbered. (Too bad, I hate Comcast....) That's also why DirecTv has partnered with AT&T.

As to whether this will actually cause a decrease in advertising, I'm very skeptical. The tendency is to charge what the market will bear, or in this case to load the medium with as many ads as the audience will tolerate.

The primary reason that the TV industry hates TV pirates so much isn't actually that they distribute the shows on their own "channels" and allow users to watch any time - it's because the pirates strip out the advertising.