A report by Nat Worden of the Wall Street Journal confirmed this morning that Time Warner Cable Inc. and ESPN are preparing to offer one of their premier presentations, “Monday Night Football,” online behind a paywall to current TV subscribers. This is big news for any sports fan tired of squinting at streaming dots as they dance around their computer screen–which has been the standard online broadcast or “Gamecast” for football games.
Sure, we’ve had Slingbox–a handy third-party gadget that sends whatever is playing on your home TV to your computer screen–for a while now. This, though, is something quite different. Time Warner and ESPN are blazing an entirely new trail for cable channels. For instance, will the content across the entire network be available, or just what’s on the docket in the viewer’s area? Will fans of teams across the country soon be able to see their favorite squad on their computer screen rather than pay copious amounts of cash for DIRECTV’s Sunday Ticket?
This is all part of a transition that began in the 1980s from broadcast to video delivery. As we move from receiving broadcast feeds to interacting with video the possibilities for journalism expand exponentially.
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