To me these last few months have been interesting as we watch TV networks using broadband video to bypass traditional television distribution providers (local television stations and cable). The Chicago Tribune points out that there also is an open question of whether these owners of content should or should not also bypass the Internet portal sites (Google, MSN, Yahoo).

I encourage you to read the whole article, but here are the excerpts from the Chicago Tribune that I find most interesting:

When the CBS network geared up to show the annual NCAA basketball tournament online for the first time in 2003, ... it partnered with Web giant Yahoo Inc. This spring, though, CBS went solo and delivered more than 19 million streams of live and archived games.

CBS isn't alone in bypassing the [portals] as it moves programming online. In the last month, ABC Television Group and Fox Broadcasting announced plans to make some shows available free on their websites. Cable networks including MTV and Bravo also have "broadband channels" featuring TV and Web-only shows.

... some believe the role of portals - such as Yahoo, AOL, Google, MSN - in the growing market for video is less certain than it was only a few months ago. ... TV networks are increasingly willing to skip the portals as they set their digital strategies. ...

Rather than teaming up to get Web traffic, some TV networks are buying it. News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media acquired popular teen site MySpace.com in July as part of a $580-million deal. Last month, NBC Universal agreed to pay $600 million for IVillage Inc., a portal targeted at women.

... "Most of the others seem focused more on the prowess of their search engine than on the consumer experience," [Albert Cheng, ABC's executive vice president for digital media] said, also lamenting what he called their unwillingness to invest in promoting the shows.

ABC followed up Cheng's speech by announcing it would make episodes of "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Alias" and "Commander in Chief" available free on its website in May and June. The service won't let consumers skip the ads. Fox Broadcasting this month also said it would put its prime-time shows online, probably on its own websites and those of its TV affiliates.

... But making the transition to the Web may not prove to be easy for broadcasters. ... If the networks want viewers to find them on the Internet, they'll probably have to advertise heavily where people hang out online: the portals. And if they can't pull it off, analysts said, the networks may come crawling back to the Internet giants for help. ...

... "For people to make a lot of money on these things, you're going to have to have massive audiences," said Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer. "Sometimes it might be better to share a piece of a much larger audience than it is to keep 100% of a much smaller audience."