Bad news for broadcasters and closed content delivery operators (cable, Uverse, so on). Some NBC/Universal season premieres will be available on Hulu before they are broadcast. The bandwidth capping behavior of cable guys Comcast and Time Warner seems to be anticipating much more of this is coming.

While this is the first time that Hulu has streamed season premieres from a major network, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. NBC.com did it last year and according to Chris Albrecht over at Newteevee, HBO released Flight of the Conchords on the Web last year as well.

Still, the trend of premiering TV shows on the Web continues to illustrates how much TV networks and cable channels are beginning to respect the Internet as a distribution channel.

While Hulu is hosting a season premiere from one of its founders, the next step for the company is to convince another top studio or TV network to unveil a show at the site. Since launching last spring, Hulu has been out trying to sign new partners and boost it’s content offering. (Cnet)

The NBA is joining the growing list of content providers going direct to the consumer. This is no different that any other content owner who has found a new audience via IP instead of broadcast or cable. NBC’s experience with the Olympics has shown that offering content on the net is an audience builder. That goes against the grain of the broadcasters (and most of the old media’s) official line on net content.

Local Sports bars may soon be operating media PC’s on broadband connections to stay competitive. Conventional Third Pipe wisdom states that the zero sum game does not apply to audience building. Ears and eyeballs found on the net are also broadcast viewers, often never found in the ever accelerating ratings driven turnover of broadcast programming.

The National Basketball Association plans to break a new barrier for U.S. sports leagues by streaming live games to local markets on the Web.

According to a story published Monday by the Sports Business Journal, the NBA plans to negotiate contracts for its member teams so they can stream live games to targeted local online audiences this fall. Bill Koenig, executive vice president of business affairs, told the industry publication: “We hope to have a model in place this season. Our opening up of the rights will certainly be done.”

The rights Koenig referred to have been a sticky issue since the advent of streaming video and the rush of sports fans to the Internet. Cable operators and regional sports networks hold various exclusive rights to broadcast live games via network TV, cable, radio, and satellite; and they haven’t wanted to see the Internet cannibalize their prime-time business by allowing anyone to access games on demand. (Cnet)

I’m eager to see the usually outspoken Mark Cuban chime in on this. He owns both one of the teams and a cable channel and has not been a big fan of net content “sucking up” his precious bandwidth. Time for some Third Pipe thinking Mr. Mark!

When NBC announced plans to serve up massive amounts of video from the Olympics online, US broadcasters could be heard screaming as far away as Bejing. Could it be that broadcasters believe that their business is a zero sum game. It turns out ratings for Olympics boradcasts are exceptional along with a huge online audience. Maybe braodcasters will soon grasp that offering content online is a great way to build an audience for the broadcast.

After paying $900 million for broadcast rights to this year’s Summer Games, NBC Universal executives are determined to protect the television business by drawing viewers to NBC and cable networks like USA.

At the same time, they are also resolved to build an online audience through the NBCOlympics.com website, with the aim of drawing in more Internet advertising revenue for future events based on the success of this one.

It’s a delicate balancing act: Concentrate too much on TV broadcasting, and risk missing the boat on the next generation of Olympic fans online. Or put too much content on the Web, and there’s a chance some viewers will ignore coverage on TV, where advertisers have paid NBC top dollar for commercial time.

“I think this is really about tapping into both online and offline,” said Bob Jeffrey, chief executive of advertising agency JWT, a unit of WPP Group Plc. “I think that’s also a big part of what marketers want to do.”

NBC Universal has posted strong numbers so far for both its TV broadcasts and online coverage. Nearly 25 million people have visited NBCOlympics.com, viewing 456 million pages and watching close to 22 million video clips, NBC said on Thursday, recording more page views than for the entire 2004 Games in Athens. Meanwhile, U.S. TV ratings are running second only to the 2000 Games in Atlanta. (Yahoo)

Dear AT&T and Comcast, we know that this has to be driving you crazy. You’ve added bandwidth at great expense and dedicated it to pay TV via Digital cable or a closed IPTV system. Who could have predicted viewers prefer to watch programming on demand rather than on your schedule? Since they are watching commercials either way, why would they they prefer to not pay extra to view?  How dare consumers prefer a big dumb pipe that they control? Now, you’re pushing triple play and bandwidth caps in a soft economy. No wonder your take rate is starting to suck. We’ve told you before, but lets rey again: The world wants a big dumb pipe, not a bundle of scheduled programming with broadband on the side.

Now about that 20%. It comes from a new survey:

It showed that 50 percent of people viewing TV on the Web are watching programs as they become available and “appear to be beginning to use the computer as a substitute for the television set,” Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), which conducted the poll, said.

The other half are using the Internet to watch programs they have missed, or to re-watch segments or episodes they have already seen, IMMI, a company which links media exposure to consumer action, added.

“This is the first study to show there are a significant amount of people watching primetime shows online who are not watching some portion of those shows on television,” Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI, said in a statement. (Reuters)

Here’s something a few of you may not know that is food for thought. If you use a mobile phone, more often than than not, the backhaul from the tower is done via a DSL connection. So, if you use a mobile, you been using VoIP for some time. With the entry of WiFi and 3G enabled smart phones, a few applications and services have emerged that will enable some to use VoIP their mobile outside of the wireless providers closed network. The obvious benefit for the end user is using no premium minutes via WiFi, and the ability to bypass outrageous international calling rates. The consumer benefits are also the main reason why the cartel of US wireless providers would prefer to keep VoIP capability off of their customers devices.

The current state of mobile VoIP software and services are not perfect, but they are improving - with or without the carrier’s blessings. In a recent post on GigaOm, Jason Harris details Seven ways to VoIP from your mobile. It’s a good read if you own or are considering the purchase of a smart phone.

There’s a little known (before now) thriving business of attacking open Bittorrent servers the reduce MPAA and the RIAA’s “losses”. While I have no way of being certain, it would seem that the one company in question could be operating automated attack and destroy systems that cannot differentiate between illicit and legitimate trackers. The liability should be huge, and the RIAA and MPAA have already accumulated a huge karma debt.

CEO Jim Louderback revealed today that the outage was caused by a massive denial of service attack that he says was perpetrated by MediaDefender, a file-sharing mitigation firm that gets paid by Big Content to disrupt peer-to-peer networks.

A SYN flood aimed at Revision3’s BitTorrent tracker clogged the company’s tubes and brought down all of its web services. The traffic logs indicated that the network was getting slammed by over 8,000 packets every second. Revision3 tracked the source of the packets and discovered that the attack originated from MediaDefender, at which point Louderback confronted the company’s executives. ArtistDirect CEO Dimitri Villard and MediaDefender vice president Ben Grodsky admitted to Louderback that they had been exploiting the lax security configuration of Revision3’s BitTorrent tracker and using it to conduct decoying operations, but they disavowed knowledge of the denial of service attack and claimed that their servers were only pinging Revision3 once every three hours. (Ars Technica)

According to Cnet, Amazon will be entering the pay per view business with a TVoIP video streaming service. The assault on closed content delivery networks continues….

In an interview with Walt Mossberg at D6, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said, “We are working on a new version of video on demand, a for pay streaming service we will release in the next couple of weeks. The streaming service will start instantly and it’s a la carte, for pay.” (Cnet)

Consumerist has an interesting expose here on the BS that CableVision is dishing out to its customers that they will lose services if they don’t upgrade to digital cable and they are blaming the FCC for the reason why. What I think of these kind of dealings I can’t print. –

Cablevision is lying to customers by claiming that the FCC will require all subscribers to upgrade to digital cable boxes in 2009. Digital cable boxes cost $6.50 per month, plus an extra $10.95 for digital service. Cablevision recently sent a letter to all boxless subscribers threatening to cut several channels unless they forked out a bundle of extra cash for digital service. When one of our family member called for an explanation, Cablevision shirked responsibility and placed the blame squarely on some crazy new FCC mandate. We called shenanigans and decided to call back and record our chats with several customer service representatives. Inside, the recordings of Cablevision lies and the FCC’s flaccid response.

This is what happens when you have a service monopoly in a particular area. I can’t support some wrath that Consumerist pushes in the article. But it is telling that a major corporation will out and out lie. Its just bad marketing and it forces customers to look around for alternatives.

The alternative? There are a few. Netflix and Netflix Online come to mind. But the bigger threat is TVoIP in total. Walling yourself off looking for ever higher revenue streams is not going to work in the end game for the cable co’s. Given TVoIP is just starting the major movie producers won’t be far behind. When the MGM’s and UA’s are streaming movies there too goes the Pay per View channel.

So go ahead CableVision, cheat your customers. You will pay for it in the end — literally.

Well TVoIP has a new partner, CBS. They are now releasing many original series in a high quality format available right over the net. The quality if better than what Hulu provides. So the bar has been raised on TVoIP content.

For example the entire 3 years of Star Trek classic is online here. So as much as I berated CBS News in a previous post; the entertainment division is getting the message. Here’s what I find surprising — why has not the TW and Comcast’s made a move to the legacy networks for affiliate parity? They way they could garner additional revenues. But I guess they are not that smart to see what is coming at them in the next 2-3 years.

The NHL will begin testing online video this month with a total of 7 channels. No plans to offer full games were announced, but I’m sure that it’s on the minds of team owners are always looking for new ways to increase revenue.

The playoffs that begin this week will provide a bit of a test run for the player on NHL.com. The site will then be relaunched in the new format in the fall before next season. For now, the broadband media player titled “NHL Network Online” will be an option on NHL.com.

The centerpiece of the site will be “The Hockey Show,” a daily live broadcast from the NHL’s studio in New York. It will be on five times a week during the season and sporadically in the offseason.

Each day’s telecast will include news, highlights and features.

In conjunction with all 30 NHL teams, another channel called “LiveWire” will feature sights and sounds from around the league - such as morning skates, news conferences and behind-the-scenes material that would otherwise be unseen.

There will also be a channel devoted to playoff coverage during that portion of the season. (SI.com)