The Future Draws Closer; and the Future is Free

A very interesting perspective on CBS' coverage of the men's Final Four from the Canadian media.

The move to a no-charge, ad-supported model pushed the online audience to more than a million, almost immediately. This year, the network has unshackled things further by eliminating blackouts that were in place to protect local CBS stations. The company doesn't expect TV ad sales will be cannibalized. (BOLD MY EMPHASIS)

Contrast this with the shackles other networks have attempted to put on conferences, and in turn, conferences on schools. It is absurd to restrict universities from streaming live sports against network windows. All it does is reduce the potential to expand interest in the sport. It seems if interest grows, the value of the TV contract increases.

The narrow-minded see live content as a zero sum game. There are lots of very high-paid smart people at CBS that figured out they were not taking away from their affiliates, but instead opening up the games to new audiences.

And if you think it's stopping with the online video streaming:

CBS is also pushing the games further onto the Internet this year, allowing social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to link to the games directly. The network expects to shatter last year's record of 1.4 million unique users, which will also drive up ad rates for next year.

Meanwhile, Texas has taken all the subscription cost off its streaming video, turning to an advertising model to pay the freight.

The future is free.