ABC goes all-in for on demand

Broadcasting and Cable is reporting that ABC will be doing a test in April in which the network will offer all of its primetime programming for free over the Internet eight hours after the shows air on the East Coast.

I think this is a great idea, although I have some qualms about the image quality on the Internet. But it underscores just how quickly the world is changing. It was just about a week ago that downloading TV shows to your iPod was the cool new thing. Now, ABC is cutting out the middleman.

If this sort of thing is really going to become the norm, someone needs to develop a dirt-simple Bluetooth or WiFi connection to send programs from your computer to your TV. You can do it now, but it's a hassle. Some people (mostly Microsoft, I think) believe that eventually we'll all have a separate computer just for entertainment hooked up to our TV's, but I think it's still going to be simpler to do your Internet browsing and downloading on a dedicated computer, then transmit it to the boob tube in the living room.