We traditional broadcasters only care about verifiable eyeballs. Something we can take to the local car dealer/grocer/ad agency/whoever and say "See! Advertise with us for X dollars and you'll be seen by Y many people!"
The cable companies invested (many times heavily) into the infrastructure (physical copper and fiber in the ground, the head-ends, etc.) and sold their subscribers' eyeballs to the networks. "See! Sign this agreement and we'll deliver X potential eyeballs and even Y amount of dollars to your revenue stream. Provided of course that you play by these rules which state you can't offer your services a la carte and cut us out of the deal."
I haven't had cable or satellite for a little over 5 years now. A decrease of income (loss of good job, low unemployment income, lower-paying new job), rendered paying $30-60 or more per month for cable or satellite too expensive to budget. I've changed my viewing habits to a more a la carte form- watching favorite shows on networks' websites, on HuluPlus ($7.99/mo), or purchasing individual shows and seasons on iTunes, Amazon, or Vudu. One season of a given favorite show is equivalent or less in cost to one month of a cable/satellite subscription, and there are way less than 12 shows unavailable for free or bundled into HuluPlus that I pay for, so I end up spending less than I otherwise would for a year of service.
I would be willing to pay a reasonable price to stream a local network affiliate's broadcast, commercials and programs, or that of a given cable-only network. Isn't there a way to do this? Isn't an IP address trackable, X more potential and verifiable eyeballs, Y more potential dollars from which the Networks, cable/satellite providers, and advertisers could get a cut of the revenue? That many more people watching advertiser's messages? I would also be willing to pay a reasonable pay-per-view price for events such as the Oscars telecast, the Olympics, a season and post-season of NFL, again with shares of the revenue distributed to the traditional recipients.
It seems to me that a lot of people are in my economic boat, share similar viewing habits, and would be willing to pay a bit more than they do now for their internet-provided TV-viewing. (I'm already considering upping my $7.99 per month to $15.98 by adding Netflix). I don't know what the overall numbers and potential revenue would amount to (polling, surveys, demographics could give an idea), but I do know that, at least from me, there's money to be made that isn't being made, and can't be made in the foreseeable future.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to run to Best Buy and get myself a $50 iTunes gift card to redeem so that I can watch the new Doctor Who season ($39.99, new episodes available the next day) without having to wait until next year for it to show up on Hulu or Netflix.
