The interactivity it affords promises to make cable television a richer, more useful product.And, thanks to its compression algorithms, internet television can be a veritable speed freak.
But there are so many games locally and nationally that the league-owned channels need to distinguish themselves with original and archival programming to make cable operators notice.
Canoe Ventures is trying to make cable television a more attractive place for advertisers; Elections '08 is the first product it has worked on.
While the Nederlander group went into business with RKO in the 1980's as RKO/Nederlander to make cable television movies based on plays, it never "bought RKO Pictures," which still exists as a separate entity.
Along with the introduction of FXX, FX Networks will also introduce its own version of TV Everywhere, the shorthand term for efforts to make cable programming available beyond cable television to authenticated subscribers who want to watch shows on devices like smartphones and tablets.
In important ways, it drove C. Michael Armstrong, the current chairman, to make AT&T the nation's biggest cable operator, seeking to make cable lines the replacement for the links to millions of homes that the company lost in the 1984 breakup.
"Trends now are causing us to stop and look at these individual cable operators to say, 'How can we compete in the world of the Internet?' " Canoe Ventures aims to make cable a more desirable place for advertisers by standardizing the way ads are bought and measured, and the way that technology is used.
As users watch more television online, Bewkes is pushing a plan to make cable programming available over the Web, but only to paying subscribers.
The fact is, even reducing our lineup we already have too many entertainment options to make cable even a consideration.
