CNN has announced a beta TV news on demand service that will offer multiple news feeds and access to an archive of CNN video segments.
Why are so many players getting into this so quickly? For one, it is relatively simple. For the larger content providers like CNN and the other alphabet channels (CBS, ABC, NBC) they already have staff to throw at this. It is no big deal to digitize video (and much of it may already be recorded as digital) and stick it on a Web site. And they have enough server resources and bandwidth to support a pilot project.
But there is no free lunch. As more people start streaming and watching video via their feeble DSL and cable modem connections, those first mile networks are going to start glowing cherry red from the load and the end result will be chaos. The cable modem networks will show the strain first because of their architecture, but basically, performance will start to stink, all the time, just as it does now many evenings and when schools are out for snow.
The current connection-based fee structure for broadband simply does not work when everyone starts watching IP TV because the fee has no relationship to the actual cost of shipping bits across the network. The solution is to move toward a service-based fee structure where markets for content help set the cost of services. The current system treats all forms of services equally, and they are not. All this worked fine when the services were limited mostly to email and Web browsing. And even a little VoIP and some music downloads were too much of a problem except on college campuses, where file sharing crippled networks and forced drastic network changes.
But video uses hundreds and even thousands of times more bandwidth. The networks are jumping into this quickly in part because someone else has to pay for much of the cost of hauling their video across multiple networks to viewers. It is an unsustainable model.