“On the other hand, what’s the good of losing heart now?”
Samuel Becket in Waiting for Godot.

The protagonists in Becket’s play don’t know who Godot is, when he’s due to arrive, nor do they know what will happen when he does. Much the same can be said about mobile TV. The mobile industry has been waiting a long time but still doesn’t know when mobile TV will become a viable business or how anybody is going to make money from it.

Ericsson, for one, believes that mobile TV already exists. A spokesman at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (February 11-14) said that over 170 services already exist worldwide, more than 60 of them based on infrastructure provided by the Swedish vendor. That is true, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough.

The bulk of today’s mobile video services are provided in unicast mode over resource-strangled 2.5G and 3G networks. Most of the networks lack the capacity to handle a mass market and quality of service is usually poor.

According to recent research by equipment provider Tellabs, there was a 36 percent increase in the number of mobile TV users in Europe and North America in 2007, but that was more than offset by the 68 percent of users who dropped the service.

The most frequently cited reasons for giving up the service were quality and reliability. Churn that is almost double the take-up rate does not make for a lucrative business.

For NDS, unicast networks have never been an attractive option – not only due to their inability to scale but primarily because unicast on a two-way network is a very poor candidate for conditional access. In almost all cases, network security is sufficient.

Thus, NDS placed its bet on mobile broadcast TV – the provision of real-time TV channels over broadcast networks such as DVB-H and MediaFLO. And it is for broadcast mobile TV that NDS has been waiting . . . and waiting. Most of the attendees in Barcelona seemed convinced that it would still flourish and become a credible business, but few were prepared to forecast when or how.

Technology vs. making money

The problem is not the technology, though the cost of building dedicated broadcast networks for standards such as DVB-H has certainly been an inhibiting factor. Still, about 15 million people are watching broadcast mobile TV in Japan and 6 million in South Korea. So the technology clearly works. But in both Japan and Korea, the vast bulk of users are receiving free-to-air services. No one seems to have figured out how to make money out of it. Even Tre in Italy with some 700,000 subscribers - which makes it the world’s largest paid broadcast mobile TV service - is said to be digging itself deeper and deeper into the red.

The problem is actually quite simple. Most broadcast mobile TV services carry between 10 and 20 channels and the average user views the service no more than 30 minutes a day.

Such metrics are unlikely to attract massive advertising or more than a few euros or dollars a month per subscriber in subscription revenue. Broadcast mobile TV lacks the substance to attract meaningful revenues.

For that reason, NDS’ strategy has evolved beyond stand-alone mobile TV. The focus today is on mobile as a supplementary service, either to other TV services or to the new emerging giant in the mobile world: mobile broadband.

Video on mobile devices can supplement traditional TV in two ways. The first is mobile TV as part of an overall TV package that includes traditional broadcast to the home, DVR and possibly streaming and file downloads to the PC. In that scenario, the mobile service leverages content that has already been acquired and a TV headend that already exists. It enables broadcasters to extend their footprint and branding while covering the costs of the mobile segment from subscriptions.

Mobile handset as viewing device

The second synergy with traditional TV is positioning the mobile handset as a viewing device for content that has been saved on a DVR. It is something that has been on the NDS agenda for several years. In the past the mobile device in question was a portable media player which was and remains a niche product.

Mobile phones are almost as ubiquitous as people and video-enabled phones is a growth industry. There are already over 200 million deployed devices.

A mobile handset that is capable of both receiving broadcast channels and playing choice content that has been saved on the DVR and transferred over is a very powerful proposition for NDS’ existing customers. It could also open up a new market among mobile network operators, not only for mobile TV technology but for NDS solutions such as XTV™, the Unified Headend™ and others.

Broadcast mobile TV as a supplement to mobile broadband services is the other area with great potential, even though it is still two to four years away. Mobile broadband had star billing at the Barcelona exhibition, with companies such as Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola and many others showing their wares. The technologies involved are Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX, with shorter-term options using Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Services (MBMS) and an MBMS variant called TDtv.

Mobile broadband and broadcast TV

All are being promoted as the means of providing full Internet access on mobile devices, a number of prototypes of which were displayed on the Intel stand. These so-called MIDs (mobile Internet devices) have 5 to 7 inch screens and provide very high quality video. Of greatest interest was the fact that all the Intel MIDs come with a built-in DVB-H chip.

WiMAX, LTE and MBMS are all capable of providing multicast and/or broadcast delivery. Their throughput, though a huge improvement on what is possible with current 3G, is still constrained and expensive – and will remain so for the foreseeable future. However, a MID with DVB-H is capable of providing the best of both worlds: full mobile broadband plus broadcast TV.

Research indicates that over 60 percent of current Internet usage is devoted to video – with ISPs and telcos not seeing a cent from it, other than their monthly access fees. Mobile broadband operators cannot afford to fall into the same trap, given the bandwidth and pricing constraints under which they will operate. NDS can offer them the means of providing a value-added TV and video service which will convert the necessity of providing mobile bandwidth for Internet video into a lucrative virtue.

For more information:

VideoGuard Mobile

CASBAA, the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia, based in Hong Kong, in association with Standard Chartered Bank, conduct an annual survey of the state of the pay-TV industry in Asia. In addition to researching changes in the market from year to year, the survey also estimates loss of revenue due to pay-TV piracy. In 2007 the total amount of revenue lost due to piracy in the region stands at $1.54 billion. This is up from $1.13 billion in 2006.

The 2007 survey covers Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Australia, Macau and Pakistan. China is not yet included in the CASBAA calculations. Pakistan was added this year.

“There is still a wide disparity in the amount of piracy in the 14 markets where CASBAA operates,” says Simon Twiston Davies, CEO of CASBAA. "Generally the more mature markets have taken a strong stand against pay-TV piracy."

"Some governments are actually very proactive, while others are still in need of education on the benefits of the deployment of communications infrastructure," Twiston Davies says.

“The fact that legitimate paid subscriptions are seeing an average 10 percent growth is a positive sign of the vast potential for the Asia Pacific pay-TV industry,” says Lee Beasley, Head of Media and Entertainment of Standard Chartered Bank.

“Some of the piracy methods being used in the regions have technical solutions,” says Twiston Davies. “But we also need regulatory support at every level – in addition to the determination not to tolerate piracy in any form.”

Mature markets; negligible piracy

On the positive end of the spectrum Twiston Davies singles out Japan, Korea and Singapore. “In these countries piracy or signal theft is not a measureable problem,” he says.

“But the pay-TV piracy situation in most of the large, emerging markets in the region needs to be addressed seriously, not just by the industry but also by individual governments,” Beasley says.

The real problems are in countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan. CASBAA reports that at least $213 million in unpaid tax revenues was lost across the region in 2007.

Several countries illustrate the general trends in the region:

Hong Kong. The cost of pay-TV piracy in Hong Kong for 2007 decreased by 15 percent to $27.4 million (HK$213.72 million), although the number of hacked connections remains unchanged. “The fall in the ‘lost revenue’ number is attributed to the reduced cost of a pay-TV subscriptions in Hong Kong. Costs have gone down because of increased competition,” Twiston Davies says.

Where pay-TV piracy flourishes

Thailand. With 1.32 million unauthorized pay-TV connections, Thailand continues to suffer annual piracy losses in the range of $180 million, the second largest dollar loss in the region, according to the study.

Despite a slight improvement in the approach to intellectual property rights (IPR) by some cable operators in the Thai provinces, the CASBAA survey notes that there has been a disturbing growth of illegal Internet-based card-sharing (via remote servers) for Direct to Home (DTH) services.

“This is a relatively new and sophisticated technical hack that boosts the vulnerability of DTH services to piracy. This needs to be watched carefully and highlights the need for industry vigilance and continued investment in technical protection supported by stringent legal sanctions,” Twiston Davies says.

Vietnam. The most positive news in the survey is a dramatic decrease in the number of illegal connections to pay-TV channels in Vietnam, where the value of industry losses has fallen from $38 million in 2006 to $10 million this year.

“The improvement is almost exclusively due to the removal of pirated international channels from the lineup offered by Vietnamese operator VTC,” Beasley says. Twiston Davies adds that VTC reached 1 million pirated boxes that were receiving satellite broadcasts for free. “The Vietnamese authorities finally clamped down on them and they are now playing by the rules,” he says.

The current situation in Vietnam indicates that governments can respond to pressure from non-governmental organizations.

“When this happens it helps bring some enlightenment to the market. In the case of Vietnam, where the pay-TV market is growing at an annual rate of 10-15 percent, the importance of IPR is now recognized. This is in a market that was virtually unregulated just a few years ago,” Twiston Davies says.

Pakistan. Estimates for Pakistan’s unauthorized market show 4.6 million pirated cable TV subscriptions in a market with only 345,000 legitimate subscriptions to pay-TV services. Losses in revenue due to pay-TV piracy stand at $110 million.

India. According to the CASBAA survey, India has 73 million pay-TV connections, yet it suffers from heavy-handed government regulation which has created a debilitating lack of investment in infrastructure. India’s pay-TV revenue leakage reached a massive $985 million in net losses in 2007, an increase of 44 percent over 2006.

Meanwhile, a large part of the total revenue losses for 2007 can be attributed to a 20 percent US dollar realignment against the Indian rupee. “Nevertheless, the Indian pay-TV market is the most distorted in Asia because of what can only be characterized as structurally-based revenue leakage,” Twiston Davies says.

While the rest of the world is benefiting from digital roll-outs, Indian consumers are not. “The systemic shortfall in analog revenues from local cable operators is a major part of the problem,” Twiston Davies says.

"As an industry, we are disappointed in Indian regulators. I think they need to adopt a more positive approach so that there will be money to invest in infrastructure and in content protection," Twiston Davies says.

He explains that the overall approach in India is “to put price caps in place. This makes it difficult for broadcasters and MSOs to invest in content protection.” Rates are frozen and unrealistic ceilings are placed on pay-TV services. “These measures have blocked the ability to offer international content. It has even made it difficult to provide premium domestic content,” Twiston Davies says.

To make the situation worse India has different sets of regulations for cable, for satellite, for IPTV and for mobile TV. “There is no reason for government to be involved in this any more than they should be involved in the price of a DVD sold in stores,” he says.

What about the future?

“What is essential to every market is content protection,” Twiston Davies says. “CASBAA recognizes this as does every responsible participant in the Asia Pacific markets: Content protection must be part and parcel of the digital infrastructure. It needs to be one of the bases of copyright legislation and broadcast licensing legislation because this is what enables the entire pay-TV industry to get a return on their investment.”

“Fighting against pay-TV piracy goes beyond economics and increased tax revenues,” he says. “In order for a nation’s economy to flourish, the value of intellectual property rights is a given,” Twiston Davies says. “IPR encourage the growth of the local and regional communications markets and this encourages strong economic growth,” he says.

For more information:

CASBAA

The next time you stop into your local drug store or newsagent to collect your favorite magazine just think of this. The choices available are incredible. The content in some of the specialty titles is duplicated by numerous alternatives in the same market. And mostly they survive.

It’s much the same with digital TV channels – except viewers don’t yet get the sort of targeted choice that print delivers. Some might justifiably argue that online choices extend the sort of variety supplied by the news vendor. Maybe.

Until Web-based suppliers of the cat, canary and caravan channel can get their programming onto my TV set, the chances of their “broadcasting” survival is dubious.

And that programming, whatever form it takes, has to be delivered in pristine digital high-def. Viewers show every indication of accepting nothing less. The US, helped by cable and satellite distribution, already offers ample multichannel choice – even if cable is only just beginning to offer true digital delivery to the consumer.

Europe is catching up

Recent data from Screen Digest indicates that Europe is getting the digital bug. It suggests that by 2012, digital multi-channels (beamed by digital terrestrial TV as well as satellite and cable) will be absorbing 20 percent of the national TV ad-spend in Europe’s top five markets (Germany, UK, Italy, France and Spain). The other markets are by no means far behind. Moreover, Screen Digest says, ad revenues will come second to pay-TV revenues. The tipping point happens next year.

The mass-market distribution of multi-channel TV will be perfectly placed to tap into this audience with true multi-channel niche choices that begin to resemble the newsstand.

This is already happening to a certain extent in markets like the UK, France and Italy where channel choices are already pushing at the 1,000 threshold. In my view this number will keep growing.

But where does this leave HDTV? After all, high-def demands commensurate investment, quality production standards and matching budgets. Usually. However, it seems that we are on the threshold of a production revolution where low-cost “prosumer” cameras (production + consumer), edit systems and post-production tools will permit – and encourage – a new breed of lower-cost program making.

Niche broadcasters and channels

The entry of new players into the market should be perfectly well timed to tap into a growing demand from niche broadcasters. Indeed, viewers to high-quality channels like Discovery or the History Channel are already seeing locally produced HD programming that is budgeted at levels that would have been unthinkable just five years ago – and helped by exactly these new developments in program making. Go to India or most Middle East countries and the cost per hour of quality TV is one-tenth of that in the West.

However, creating these niche channels in HD will not be a pushover. Europe today has 78 HDTV channels spread over the region – including Russia.

In 2007 there was modest growth in terms of HD channels; they doubled from 37 at the end of 2006. Many are duplicates across territories (Discovery being a good example). Sixty-two of these channels are available on satellite, 43 on cable and just 13 on IPTV. Only two are available on DTT. Looking at the cake overall, 30 of the total are on premium pay-TV, while 29 are on “basic” pay-TV. There is a growing number on free-to-air (19 at the moment), but this number is growing fast.

Let’s slice and dice the genres. The usual suspects: sports, movies and documentaries dominate the list, and take up about 65 percent of the total. Last year saw a large number of “non-specialty” channels enter the HD lists (Channel 4, M6, Arte, TV4-Sweden), with the first all-HD kids channel (from Disney) on air in France. Screen Digest says that 2008 will see “a surge” in HD launches, and suggests the year will end with about 75 new HD channels on air – growing nicely to a Europe-wide number of about 260 pay-TV high-def channels by 2012, and another 100 or so in free-to-air.

Huge market for HD channels

That’s a spectacular set of numbers. Incidentally, for the obvious reasons related to bandwidth, the forecasts talk of satellite taking about 75 percent of these options – in pay-TV as well as free-to-air. The market for this explosion will exist, stresses Screen Digest. By 2012 France will have some 45 percent of homeowners also owning HD equipment (in the shape of suitable TV sets). The UK will have 30 percent penetration (although some others suspect this number could be higher), with about 28 percent flat-panel penetration in Italy, and the Nordic region. The Benelux countries will be a little more advanced with 34 percent, while Germany will lag behind at barely 15 percent. However some sources suggest that this is a pessimistic figure. Western Europe overall will hit 25 percent average penetration of HD Ready flat panels by 2012 and Eastern Europe about 8 percent.

Today’s European HDTV choices

Genre	No. of Channels
Kids	1
Documentaries	17
Entertainment	8
Specialty	5
Movies	13
Music	2
National	13
Premium	6
Sports	13
TOTAL	78

Note: "National" includes channels like TF1-H, or BBC HD. "Premium" refers to channels like Canal+.

It may be better to look at these market developments the way we may have initially looked at a region’s prospects for pay-TV. It wasn’t that long ago that Europe’s first pay-TV choices were measured on the fingers of one hand – then two hands, and onward to today’s 1,000 or so choices in a mix of pay and free.

Early analog TV started its road to success with the same key programming choices: sports, movies and documentaries. Today’s HDTV pioneers are much more varied in their offerings to viewers who are much more savvy about their programming options.

Screen Digest says we should expect Europe to follow America’s recent developments in HD quickly, and to expect animation, kids, MTV, CNN, Sci-Fi and the other trusted brands to pop up in HD over the next year or two.

These key entrants will kick-start high-def launches in the other important genres, and we should also expect 2008 to be the year when some locally-generated HD channels start appearing. It was just three years ago that Europe’s first brave HD channel started transmission (Euro 1080). From Zero to Hero – and 350-360 high-def channels by 2012 – is a remarkable growth story. And it is just the beginning.

London-based Chris Forrester is a technology journalist who manages the Web-based publication, Rapid TV News.

Since 1986 MultiChoice has been South Africa’s only pay-TV operator with an estimated 1.3 million local subscribers (plus another 600,000 elsewhere in Africa). Their programming was not aimed at the middle or lower demographic groups which meant that most ordinary South Africans were effectively excluded from receiving MultiChoice broadcasts.The current population of the country is 47.9 million and there are 8 million TV households.

Enter the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (ICASA) which is determined to make digital pay-TV available to more people.

“ICASA could totally change the South African pay-TV market,” says Roslyn Coldrey, NDS Market Development Manager, EMEA. “They want to make certain that pay-TV will be available to a much wider segment of the population,” she says.

ICASA began the applications process for pay-TV licenses in December 2006. “There were initially 18 independent applicants vying for a license to allow them to compete with MultiChoice,” Coldrey says. The process, which took place in mid-2007, involved three weeks of hearings to determine which prospective broadcasters were most suitable for the market.

“NDS representatives attended all of these hearings to get a feel for the plans and the real business potential of the various license applicants. We also wanted to understand who the successful applicants were likely to be,” Coldrey says.

The winners

ICASA was very particular that applicants should offer a varied range of programming and ensure that local companies and local investment are involved. Making certain that the country itself benefits from the new pay-TV market is a primary concern.

When the process ended in September 2007, four licenses were granted. In addition to the incumbent MultiChoice, the winners are:

• Telkom Media, part of South Africa’s national PTT and third largest mobile operator which plans to offer both satellite and IPTV to an estimated 1.8 million subscribers by 2013.
• On Digital Media (ODM) which plans to offer 40-50 channels.
• Walking on Water (WOW TV) which plans to offer religious broadcasting.
• e.Sat, the satellite division of e.TV, South Africa's first private free-to-air broadcaster.

The drama continues

Within a few months of the licenses being granted, platform launches were being planned for mid-2008. However, there have been some unexpected developments.

First, e.Sat announced that it concluded a deal with MultiChoice to supply its 24-hour news channel to the incumbent pay-TV platform – effectively ruling itself out of launching a DTH platform.

Then at the end of 2007, Free2View, a new hopeful TV operator based in France sprang on the scene and announced the establishment of its free-to-air satellite platform. It will begin with one station: MSNBC, the US news giant. Subsequent plans call for adding more than 30 other channels.

As the name implies, the only cost for Free2View is the satellite dish and decoder. But this represents an outlay which may still be prohibitive for much of the population.

Subsequently, ICASA announced that Free2View has no license to broadcast and therefore cannot operate in South Africa. Stay tuned to see how this sub-plot pans out.

All of this drama is taking place at the same time that the government has mandated the migration to digital terrestrial TV. “They plan to begin the digital rollout in November,” Coldrey says.

For three years – until the analog signal is switched off in November 2011 – there will be dual illumination.

“This is a big step for any country because of the requirement to provide digital receivers to the bulk of the population. This is particularly true in South Africa where many of the set-top boxes will have to be subsidized,” she says. Officials in the South African Department of Communications are optimistic that local firms will be capable of supplying STBs not only for the local market but also for the entire continent.

NDS in Africa

“Although South Africa is clearly the continent’s largest pay-TV market, governments in other countries such as Nigeria and Kenya are also interested in starting their own digital pay-TV services,” Coldrey says.

NDS currently has two customers in Africa. Gateway TV which is broadcasting to Kenya uses NDS VideoGuard® conditional access. Multi TV Afrique has deployed NDS MediaHighway® middleware solutions.

“We anticipate South Africa becoming an important pay-TV market,” Coldrey says. “While NDS has started to work with platform operators in sub-Saharan Africa, the liberalization of the South African market is just beginning. NDS is well placed to play a role in this exciting growth market,” she says.

The “stupid computer” is a repeated target of the dimwitted office manager Michael Scott on “The Office.” But the show itself may be motivating viewers to put down their remote controls and pick up their laptops.

When the fourth season of “The Office,” an NBC comedy, had its premiere in September, one in five viewings was on a computer screen instead of a television. The episode attracted a broadcast audience of 9.7 million people, according to Nielsen Media Research. It was also streamed from the Web 2.7 million times in one week, the executive producer, Greg Daniels, said.

“The Office” is on the leading edge of a sharp shift in entertainment viewing that was thought to be years away: watching television episodes on a computer screen is now a common activity for millions of consumers.

“It has become a mainstream behavior in an extraordinarily quick time,” said Alan Wurtzel, the head of research for NBC, which is owned by General Electric and Vivendi. “It isn’t just the province of college students or generation Y-ers. It spans all ages.”

A study in October by Nielsen Media Research found that one in four Internet users had streamed full-length television episodes online in the last three months, including 39 percent of people ages 18 to 34 and, more surprisingly, 23 percent of those 35 to 54.

“I think what we’re seeing right now is a great cultural shift of how this country watches television,” said Seth MacFarlane, the creator of “Family Guy,” a Fox animated comedy that ranks among the most popular online shows. “Forty years ago, new technology changed what people watched on TV as it migrated to color. Now new technology is changing where people watch TV, literally omitting the actual television set.”

Although people are watching their shows, the networks are loath to release data about how many people are watching TV shows online and how often. The reason? Possibly because Internet viewers are worth only a fraction of the advertising dollars of television viewers.

“The four and a half billion we make on broadcast is never going to equate to four and a half billion online,” said Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive.

The most popular television shows tend to be the most-viewed online as well. While the doctors and nurses of the hit ABC drama “Grey’s Anatomy” look a little pixelated on a computer monitor, episodes of the show have been streamed more than 26 million times on ABC.com in the last six months, adding the equivalent of two full ratings points to each telecast.

“Heroes,” “Ugly Betty,” “CSI,” “House” and “Gossip Girl” are among the other online hits, analysts say. Just how many shows are being streamed is unclear because there is no widely recognized version of the Nielsen TV ratings for the Internet yet.

Regardless of the content, the shift is forcing the networks to rethink the long-held axioms of network schedulers and advertisers.

In an address in January to television executives in Las Vegas, Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, noted that NBC.com had measured more than half a billion video streams in just over a year.

"Our challenge with all these ventures is to effectively monetize them so that we do not end up trading analog dollars for digital pennies,” Mr. Zucker said, calling it the No. 1 challenge for the industry.

Some people pay for episodes via Apple’s iTunes Store and Amazon’s Unbox service, but many more appear to be watching streams of free, advertising-supported episodes on Web sites. In a closely watched effort, NBC Universal and the News Corporation are about to introduce their joint streaming site, called Hulu.

One piece of good news for the networks and advertisers is that viewers are more likely to remember ads on the Internet versions of TV shows, partly because the commercials are less numerous and more demographically aimed online, according to many studies.

For the moment, at least, conventional wisdom holds that the television and the Internet will essentially merge in the foreseeable future. Already, the hardiest of online viewers are letting PC screens replace their TVs altogether. Others are merely letting broadband connections supplement their digital video recorder.

About six months ago, Peer Gopfrich, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, bought a high-resolution liquid-crystal display TV screen for his living room. Around the same time, he discovered that the television networks were offering some shows online in a high-definition format, so he hooked an old computer up to his TV monitor and started streaming. Mr. Gopfrich’s computer became a free and seemingly endless source of on-demand television.

“All of a sudden, we could watch pretty much every popular show we wanted, when we wanted, in high definition in our living room,” he said.

Mr. Wurtzel has found that most consumers — at least 75 percent in his studies — prefer to watch higher-quality versions of episodes via their trusty TV sets. They make distinctions between dialogue-driven comedies like “The Office,” which are better suited to laptops and iPods, and special-effects-laden dramas like “Heroes,” which look better on a big screen, he said.

For a variety of shows, the Web proves valuable as a time machine, permitting users to catch up on missed episodes. The Web site for “Jericho,” a show that was canceled by CBS but revived last year because of Internet-savvy fans, had roughly 1.3 million video views in the first week after the show’s second-season debut on Feb. 12. Less than half of those views were of the premiere episode; the rest were from viewers catching up on the first season or sharing clips.

In addition to tracking the episode views, CBS measures the amount of online conversation happening about shows.

“We’re still midstream,” said Nina Tassler, the president of CBS Entertainment. “We’re still learning about people’s behaviors and we’re still learning about what shows really resonate with an online audience.”

Other consumers use the Internet to discover new shows. Jason Kilar, the chief executive of Hulu, heard rave reviews of the NBC comedy “30 Rock” last year but never took the time to watch the show until he could stream it online. After one episode, he was hooked.

“After I put my kids to sleep and I have a few minutes to spare, I’m able to catch up on the show,” he said. “It provides an opportunity to both sample and consume content without having to schedule the DVR, without having to think about the on-air schedule.”

For the time being, broadcasters are harnessing the audience interest in different ways. Hulu content is widely distributed on MySpace, Yahoo, AOL and a variety of other sites. Similarly, CBS has chosen to syndicate its shows across a range of sites called the CBS Audience Network.

ABC, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, has been more guarded with its content, making episodes available for streaming on only its Web site. Mike Shaw, the president for sales and marketing for ABC, said ABC.com has served up more than 220 million ad impressions, or views, in the last six months, up 188 percent from the same time period a year earlier.

And in the last month, all the broadcast networks have added classic series to their Web sites, making shows like “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” “The A-Team” and “I Dream of Jeannie” available online. For companies that have sold all their available advertising space, tapping into their show libraries creates new opportunities.

“We would love to have more inventory,” Patrick Keane, the chief marketing officer at CBS Interactive, told reporters last week. “The advertisers are raring to go.”