Further proof that the old, channel-based, analog TV is crumbling before our eyes: the typically staid BBC is webcasting new shows before airing them on the old medium.
If I were in the TV industry, I'd be looking for a job. It will take a few years, but everyone in the middle of the television food chain is going to be out of work in less than ten years. In the U.S., we still only have about 30% of Internet users on broadband, meaning the market is not quite big enough yet. Based on what we saw in Blacksburg years ago and very similar trends for other kinds of online services, once you have about a 50% market penetration, things start to move very quickly.
The biggest bottleneck to the transition is the generally feeble services we call euphemistically call "broadband" in the United States. In most other countries, "broadband" means "reasonably priced fiber capable of handling several high quality video streams." Here, "broadband" means "twenty year old copper technologies that keep customers locked into sub-standard services."