In this case, ABC and Cablevision might have been doing viewers a favor by forcing some to miss part of the Oscar's. As broadcaster's are increasingly economically challenged, they'll be looking to squeeze more revenue our of the shrinking pie whether it's from cable companies or PR agencies through increased use of brand integration (where brands pay for content placement that used to be earned media).

While the potential to drive an increases in cord cutting exists, until the broadcasters provide a viable alternative, the consumer still gets the short end of the stick. Its not like the 3 mil Cablevision subscribers could stream the even from OSCARS.com or ABC.com. That would have been nice.

Even though they worked out their issues for the time being, most of the non-media junkie world just missed out. Only those of us glued to the media reports on the dispute even found out it was back on.

Alternatively, and in the wake of LiveStream's open letter about piracy of live content, Justin.TV was streaming a version of the OSCARS. Ironically with a Cablevision IO Triple Play package banner running on the bottom. Check my screen grab: http://www.onlinevideowatch.com/

I agree. Get ready for more and more. Cord cutting will be modest in the short term. This will also re-ignite the dormant push for a la carte. What many people fail to notice is that for the past 16 years the retrans "deal" has mostly been about carriage of network owned channels. Now most of those channels can stand on their own (we shall see), so the integrated content companies have turned their attention to cash fees for the stations. Cable operators are furious that they helped create all these "ransom channels" and now they are being asked for millions in additional payments for stations. Just do the math. Four network affiliates and a couple of strong independents in each large market means tens of millions of dollars for each distributor. And to think that customers receive absolutely nothing of incremental value! It is a broken, anti-consumer model.

Ross Levinsohn, partner with Fuse Capital, provided interesting insights on the impact of the current retransmission situation when he was interviewed by NATPEtv earlier this year. To see the interview, visit http://live.vimation.com/vim/?v_launch=natpe&pl=ch:691-cid:0&sc=1&vi=5241

Cord cutting on a large scale is closer than you think. I just did an inventory of everything that my wife and I watch on network TV (practically nothing), PBS, and all the Cable channels. I then did some simple research. I find that everything that we watch (with the exception of various boxing matches) is available for streaming via the web or through my Netflix account. If I cant stream it then I can get the disks from Netflix. That is 150/month that Comcast doesnt need anymore. The cord is being cut at my house. The general public is not yet fully aware of how easy and cheap it is to get the equipment and set it up wirelessly. That will come.