Free TV Online

In general, it has seemed that the players in the conventional medium of television have been wary of making it easier to access the shows we want to watch on our own schedule without us having to somehow pay for it. I understand their dilemma. The medium traditionally relies on revenue from the commercials aired during each show to fund those very programs and keep our costs of access low. This paradigm makes for an interesting tug-of-war that entire industries have been built around - advertisers and executives can spend hours in negotiations, focus groups, etc., to ensure that everyone makes as much money as possible per minute in television. This mindset has made many of the advances in viewing convenience slow to come to market and initially expensive (e.g., VCRs to tape shows, Tivo/DVR services to digitally record shows, on-demand television options).
Accepting the internet as a venue for television has also been met with reluctance and avoidance by most in the industry. Until recently the only real options were services such as iTunes where you could buy episodes for a couple bucks a piece. But we shouldn't even have to pay those couple bucks. The major networks have always been available for free (if you use an antenna). Your subscription to cable or satellite is a convenience of service/equipment fee, not a fee for programming. So if you have the equipment to receive the programming, you shouldn't have to pay extra for the programs. Well it seems that the networks are finally started to see things as such.

Recently, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and the CW have all started offering full episodes of many of their popular primetime shows for free online. The links to these are as follows:

NBC - http://www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/full_episodes/
ABC - http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing/
CBS - http://www.cbs.com/innertube/
CW - http://video.cwtv.com/
Fox - http://www.myspace.com/fox/

Unfortunately there are still many shows that are not available through these sites (e.g., NBC's The Office, Fox's House, CW's Smallville). Hopefully as these sites are more readily used and grow in popularity, demand will push them to offer more. I'd also be very interested to see cable stations such as USA and the SciFi Channel follow suit and offer access to their original programming online. But at this point my DVR recording list has reduced from some 10 to 15 shows down to about 3 due to this phenomenon.

The beauty of this new arrangement is that it benefits everyone. I as the consumer gain free access to watch my favorite shows on my schedule. The networks still get paid for these airings because they are typically commercially sponsored. But the form of this is one commercial each break that I cannot skip rather than 5 or 6 that I would otherwise be fast-forwarding through with my DVR. I would call that a win-win. Besides the limited selection, the only other down-side that I've experienced is the fact that most shows are not available to watch until the morning after their primetime slot, where with my DVR I could be watching a show shortly after it airs (or technically during). Personally I can live with this. I just hope that the trend continues to spread.