TV Everywhere -- As Long As You Pay for It

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes hopes to put more TV on the Internet, but he's going to make consumers prove they've paid for it. He has a plan to put all cable programming on the web in places such as Hulu, MySpace, Yahoo TV, or even YouTube. Of course, there's a catch. To get it you'll have to prove you subscribe to pay TV through cable, satellite, or telco. He calls it "a natural extension of the existing model." Cable TV is one of the few sources of subscription-based content that most Americans have shown a willingness to pay for. Yet that's what keeps most of its programming off the web, as the networks fight to keep the 50% of their revenue that comes from cable subscriptions from suffering the same fate as newspapers or record labels.