So why did the number of pay-TV subscribers increase in just the last three months?

They didn’t grow much — a modest 422,000 subscribers, for a very modest 0.2 percent growth rate — but they still grew.

Those numbers come from Bernstein Research’s Craig Moffett, a longtime skeptic that “cord-cutting” is a real and pervasive problem for the cable guys (at least for now). It’s not the first time he’s shown evidence of barely-there growth for cable TV — last quarter, for instance, he gathered similar numbers.

But his numbers do conflict with other reports that show evidence of cord-cutting. Earlier this month, for instance, Nielsen said that pay-TV subscribers had shrunk by 1.5 million in 2011.

The easiest way to reconcile Moffett’s numbers with other reports is to note that almost all of the analyst’s data comes from the publicly traded pay-TV providers themselves — like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon — in the reports they offer up to shareholders. Most of the other stuff you’re seeing comes from polls and surveys.

Here’s his data. You’ll need to click the image to enlarge it:

But what about all of you folks who tell me, over and over, that you’ve ditched cable for some kind of combo of Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV, or even pirate streams? Surely I’ll hear from some of you again, just as soon as I publish this.

And I believe you folks, too. I can certainly imagine many scenarios where tech-savvy people — and even not-that-tech-savvy people — are able to satisfy their video urges without paying for a TV subscription. But my operating theory, for now, remains my vegan analogy: “They’re real, and they’re out there. They’re particularly notable in certain places like New York, the Bay Area and college towns. And they over-index at certain Web gathering places, like this one. But McDonald’s sales are still chugging along.”

In broad brushstrokes, one key aspect of the deal addresses a problem with Cisco’s set-top box business: Its lower profit margins. Adding high-value software to the mix will boost that unit’s overall profitability, De Beer told me. NDS, which has been private since 2009, is on a run rate to about $1 billion in sales this year. “And it’s a very profitable revenue stream,” he said.

But there’s also some pretty interesting tech in play. NDS specializes in software that creates a unified entertainment experience across several devices. You can watch your shows on the TV, as always, but if you want to switch to your PC or tablet, you can do it with a user-interface environment that’s entirely consistent and customized according to the service provider’s branding and needs. NDS has a software architecture called Snowflake that’s supposedly pretty good and is the basis of the Zon TV service that is being plugged in the ad that can be seen below, which I think is for Portuguese TV.

But there’s another Snowflake interface video that’s worth seeing first. Check out the demo reel (also below) of the user interface for SFR’s Neufbox Evolution, which I think is a streaming Internet media box.

The point, De Beer said, is to get more closely engaged with the service providers, and by those he means the cable, satellite and other TV and entertainment outfits around the world, and offer them white-label software they can build and brand as they see fit, to deliver a consistent experience across any device. “They’ll be able to constantly update and upgrade their experiences,” he said.

Another point: NDS is strong in India and China with the satellite TV outfits, whereas Cisco is strong in North America with the cable companies. “They’re strong where we’re weak, and vice versa,” he told me.

There are a few critical points. ISI analyst Brian Marshall observed that Cisco is using up about 20 percent of its offshore cash balance. Also NDS’s business is pretty highly concentrated. About 70 percent of its revenue comes from 10 customers, and a little less than half comes from the top three: DTV, BSkyB and Sky Italia.

While Marshall sees the opportunity in comprehensive digital media, he thinks the price Cisco is paying is “rich for a company growing sales at less than 10 percent year on year.” And with revenue per employee at $200,000 at NDS — much lower than Cisco’s $750,000 per employee — Marshall wonders how the deal will be accretive to Cisco right away. “We struggle identifying sources of accretion in year one other than headcount reduction.”

NDS STUDIO DESIGN & SFR AWARDED from NDS Design on Vimeo.

ZON online from NDS Design on Vimeo.

The Silicon Valley company has for several months been pitching media companies on a plan to create a “virtual cable operator,” which would offer their U.S. TV channels nationwide over the Internet in a bundle similar to subscriptions sold by cable- and satellite-TV operators, according to people familiar with the effort. Intel wouldn’t provide Internet access, which subscribers would obtain separately.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The video service, if approved, would move the Mountain View, Calif., company into closer competition with cable and satellite companies such as Time Warner Cable Inc. that sell cable-TV service in Kansas City.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

A stickler for detail, Dauman noted that while the House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act was a focal point of online protests, it was the Protect IP Act, the Senate version of the bill, which would have set the legislative precedent.

“I think the bill that would have emerged would have been very reasonable,” Dauman said.

“It became almost religious dogma that any legislation built around the process would have broken the Internet and created censorship around the world,” Dauman said.

Meanwhile, he argued, many technology companies supported a patent bill last year. “There should be a system where patent and copyright are both protected to make these two industries grow,” Dauman said.

Dauman — or “Philly D,” as Snooki apparently calls him — addressed a number of other topics in an onstage conversation with AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka.

Regarding the hefty payments sports networks get from cable and satellite companies, Dauman said he felt they were due for a reduction.

He said Viacom channels account for 20 percent of all viewing on subscription television, and a greater portion for young viewers. Dauman attested that, according to an unnamed distributor’s set-top box data, half of its audience never turns on sports-only channels, while half of its content costs come from sports.

“I do believe that premium content should command premium value, but there’s a fine line,” Dauman said.

We’ll hear more on that topic from ESPN’s John Skipper at the conference later today.

As for developing internal technology and acquiring tech companies, Dauman said, “We prefer to work with partners.”

“Everyone who’s developing a new form of distribution or technology stops by our office,” he said.

But for some reason, this stunning new version of the “Blue Marble” photo of Earth — taken on Jan. 4 by the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite instrument on NASA’s Suomi NPP satellite — is vaguely comforting.

Perhaps because it speaks of a much bigger picture, and of how delicately and elegantly life hangs in the dark universe.

All via an amazing piece of tech, the Suomi NPP, which NASA said is the “first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.”

Enjoy:

(Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring)

None of those guys have announced their plans for that, yet. But Myspace has: It says it will offer an “over the top” service in the first half of this year.

Wait. Myspace?

Right, Myspace: The once-hot, then very un-hot social network that News Corp. (which also owns this Web site) sold for a bag of chips last year. Its new owners, Specific Media, have made general murmurs about reviving the site, but other than rounding up an endorsement from Justin Timberlake, they haven’t spelled out what they’re doing.

So here’s the idea: Offer a full suite of TV programming — the same stuff you’re paying for via cable or satellite, and sell that bundled up with all sorts of cool interactive goodies. Pricing? TBD.

So that’s a plan, at least. No idea if it’s going to be a reality. Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook says he’s talking to TV programmers about the deals he’ll need to launch the service, but doesn’t have them yet and won’t go into details. And bear in mind that the Consumer Electronics Show, where Specific/Myspace is making the announcement, is ground zero for vaporware announcements.

If nothing else, though, Specific’s announcement points out how plausible the idea of a Web-based pay TV service now seems to lots of sober people. Many cable programmers are just fine with the idea, as long as: 1) the new services pay full freight, and 2) the new services don’t want to break up their bundles. That is, if you want Viacom’s Comedy Channel, you’re also going to have to get VH1. Etc.

But if you’re ok with that, and if you your money is good, the programmers are happy to take it. In their mind, this is like the ’80s and ’90s, when the satellite guys bought their way into pay TV, or more recently when AT&T and Verizon did: More outlets for them equals more money.

Here’s Specific’s press release, which is quite confusing, because it plays up music and a connection with Panasonic and “social TV” — which is usually a fancy way of saying you watch TV just like you always do, but Tweet about it. And someone will pay us for it, maybe.

But I spoke with Vanderhook earlier, and he insists that the real thrust here is a full package of TV programming, delivered over the Web, to any device with a broadband connection.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But it’s sure fun to speculate about in the meantime.

MYSPACE AND PANASONIC PARTNER TO UNVEIL NEW SOCIAL TV SERVICE

Delivers social experience through over-the-top platform across 2012 Panasonic VIERA Connect-enabled HDTVs

CES 2012 – LAS VEGAS (January 9, 2012) Myspace (www.myspace.com), a leading social entertainment destination that lets artists and fans share and discover content, today announced the launch of Myspace TV, a new service that makes the television experience social. Available on the next generation of Panasonic VIERA Connect™-enabled HDTVs, Myspace TV puts viewers in control by allowing them to discover, share and comment on the programs they’re viewing.

Initial channels on Myspace TV will be music-focused, leveraging Myspace’s unparalleled music rights and leading library of 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs. Myspace TV will expand beyond music, however, to encompass movies, news, sports and reality channels, with a growing lineup of today’s most popular broadcast and on-demand content. Audiences will not only be able to view their favorite television programs, but Myspace TV will also allow them to chat about what they’re viewing while they’re viewing it and invite friends to watch with them virtually. The platform fully integrates social and television in new ways that add a dimension to content discovery and evolve the traditional television experience. A companion app will be available on tablets and smartphones, providing instant sync capabilities for a seamless experience.

“Myspace was the first successful social network because it allowed individuals to share their interests, listen to music, express their creativity and connect around the things they love,” said Myspace CEO Tim Vanderhook. “Historically, TV has been a shared experience, as people gathered together to watch their favorite programs. Our belief was that we could enhance the TV experience by increasing viewers’ ability to connect to both content and each other. By partnering with Panasonic, we’re bringing together the content that people love and a social experience in one service: Myspace TV.”
Myspace co-owner Justin Timberlake added, “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience. Why text or email your friends to talk about your favorite programs after they’ve aired when you could be sharing the experience with real-time interactivity from anywhere across the globe? As the plot of your favorite drama unfolds, the joke of your favorite SNL character plays, or even the last second shot of your favorite team swishes the net, we’re giving you the opportunity to connect your friends to your moments as they’re actually occurring. This is the evolution of one of our greatest inventions, the television. And, we no longer have to crowd around the same one to experience it together.”

Myspace TV intends to return the diminishing social element of television by connecting viewers around content, simplifying discovery by creating fan communities empowered to comment, rate, chat and invite friends to view programming together in real-time.

Launching in the first half of 2012, Myspace TV’s over-the-top television service will be offered across the Panasonic VIERA Connect platform. VIERA Connect is Panasonic’s connected TV platform, which offers access to Internet-based video-on-demand content and applications, ranging from news and fitness, to social networking and online gaming. VIERA Connect requires no external box or PC1 and is accessed via a single button on the television remote control.

“Year after year, Panasonic’s VIERA Connect Smart VIERA TV platform has continued to expand rapidly but with a singular focus to deliver to our consumers an extremely robust and interactive connected TV experience that can be customized and enjoyed on their large-screen HDTVs,” said Joseph Taylor, Chairman & CEO, Panasonic Corporation of North America. “We are proud to partner with the new Myspace on the debut of Myspace TV on our VIERA Connect Smart TV platform. By partnering with a brand like Myspace on the VIERA Connect Smart TV platform, we’re taking connected TV to a whole new level of engaging, interactive experiences for consumers.”

Myspace is currently inviting a select audience to participate in the beta launch of its TV service through a fully integrated experience on laptop devices. To be considered for invitation, entertainment fans can submit their information at http://www.myspace.com/tv.

We saw the first signs of that last year, when Clayton bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy, then used the video company to create a kind of Netflix challenger. Tomorrow we should see the next steps, when the company rolls out a big announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Here’s a good bet on what that will be: A new broadband Internet service, along with a super-sized DVR.

Trade pub Multichannel News has the details, gleaned from a report that went up briefly on Dealerscope, then went away, presumably because it violated a pre-briefing embargo. (Thanks to Jason Hirschhorn’s very useful Media Redfined feed for flagging.)

Since we never agreed to the embargo, happy to summarize here (not surprisingly, Dish declined to comment):

• The Internet service will be marketed to 8 million customers, most of whom can’t get fiber or cable broadband.
• The giant DVR will be called “The Hopper” and is designed to save and transmit shows in different parts of your house, and presumably outside of it, via Slingbox. You can see a teaser page for that one here, or look at the screenshot at the bottom of this post.
• There’s a cool feature that looks like it will automatically record the primetime lineups for the four broadcast networks (News Corp.’s Fox, Comcast’s NBC, Disney’s ABC and CBS).

All of which sounds interesting, and useful for existing Dish customers. But it doesn’t sound like Dish is ready to try a true “over the top” Web-based pay TV service that would rival traditional cable.

A lot of people think someone, or many people — could be Dish, could be Apple, could be Verizon, etc., etc., etc — is trying to line up one of those. But figuring out how to do that involves lots of deals with TV studios and programmers, and I don’t get the sense that anyone has those pacts yet. If Dish does, and announces it tomorrow, then it will truly be a press conference worth tuning into. If not, no worries — I’ll be watching anyway and will report back.

MORE CES NEWS:

• Complete coverage
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• Walt Shows Off CES Gadgets for Fox Business News (Video)
• What Kind of Web Video Plans Does Sony Have? (Video)
• Fujitsu Seeking Way Into Crowded U.S. Smartphone Market
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• Microsoft Beefing Up CeBit Presence Even as It Pulls Back on CES
• Inside the CES Lost & Found
• FCC Chairman Has New Tablet, but Same Script: More Spectrum!
• Verizon Wireless: We Want to Connect Five Devices for Every Subscriber
• Ultrabooks From HP and Lenovo That Are (Kinda, Sorta) Different
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• Schmidt-Storm Alert: The Google Chairman Didn’t Like Your Question
• T-Mobile Expands Bobsled Messaging Service
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• Exclusive: New Boss Acknowledges Windows Phone Still Has “Awareness Problem”
• And You Thought Jawbone UP Was Going to Miss the CES Party!
• Interview: T-Mobile CEO Says No Second AT&T Deal Out There
• Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It
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• Why the Future of TV Won’t Be Here Soon
• Nvidia’s Tegra 3 Tries to Save Battery in All Sorts of Different Ways
• Dynamic Dual Coverage: Ballmer’s Last Act in Vegas and the BCS Championship in 3-D
• Microsoft Phoning In Its Last CES Keynote
• Myspace — Yes, Myspace — Says It’s Going to Sell You Web TV
• Samsung Unveils “Super” 55-Inch OLED TV
• Nokia Unveils That LTE Windows Phone It’s Been Dying to Share
• Steve Ballmer Gives Ralph De La Vega a Very … Vigorous Greeting (Video)
• Interview: AT&T’s De La Vega on LTE, Tablets and Life After T-Mobile
• AT&T’s De La Vega: Shared Data Plans Still in the Works
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• Acer Introduces “World’s Thinnest” Ultrabook and a “Me-Too” Cloud Service
• There Better Be Some Cool Stuff at CES, Because CE Holiday Sales Data Bytes!
• CES 2012: Snooki and Bieber Are In, Gaga Is Out!
• Coming to a Smartphone Near You: Gorilla Glass 2
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• At CES, Expect More Gadgets Telling You to Get Off the Couch
• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
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• Intel to Detail Its Phone Plans at CES Next Month
• Dell Will Drop the Flashy Vegas Act for CES This Year
• Ultrabook Conga Line Preps for CES 2012

[Shutterstock/Marko Cerovac]

But when the Tehran family settled on the couch with a bowl of pistachios and switched on the television, all they saw was scrambled imagery. The satellite signal was being jammed.

“We were very disappointed that we couldn’t see the film,” said Shohreh, who declined to let her last name be used.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

I don’t know how to say this any other way, so I’ll be direct: Please stop with the spam.

I’m talking about crud like this, which you left in the comments of one of my stories:

Personally I’m done with Netflix. They became too much of a hassle, too confusing, and with the price hike, kind of expensive for what I was getting out of it. I have the Blockbuster Movie Pass now, and I like it a lot more. Now I realize I could be called biased since I’m a long time subscriber — and more recently an employee — of DISH Network, but Blockbuster costs less, at $10 a month, and includes streaming to my receiver and computer, DVD’s, Blu-rays and video games (which lets me cancel my Gamefly account too, saving me more money), plus 20 movie channels. And it’s all on the same bill so it’s easier too. So for me it’s a no-brainer.

Now, this pitch, written by “Andrew_K_Anderson,” does disclose that “Andrew” works for you guys. And it’s on a post about Netflix and Dish and Blockbuster and that new rental service you’re launching. So it wouldn’t seem like a completely obvious piece of spam, except that “Andrew” left the comment yesterday. And I wrote this post back on Sept. 23.

Who leaves comments on two-month-old posts? Sometimes it’s a bona fide reader who just happened across something they’ve never seen before. More often it’s a spammer.

In this case, Disqus, the commenting system we use at AllThingsD, makes it quite easy to figure out that “Andrew” is the latter. Because it tells me that “Andrew” leaves the same kind of comment on sites all over the Web.

Here’s another one he left yesterday, on SlashGear:

Now that I’ve had some time with both services, I have to say that I like the Blockbuster Movie Pass a great deal more. It simply provides more options. There’s no additional charges for Blu-rays, you can rent games (a huge bonus in my book) …

Etc.

I don’t know what else “Andrew” does for you, but he was sort of busy yesterday. He left the same comment, taking time to tweak each one by just a few words — I gather this was to defeat the Disqus spam filter — on six other sites, too: The Atlantic; VentureBeat; CNNMoney; the Washington Examiner; and two Time.com sites.

This wasn’t a one-day binge for “Andrew.” Disqus tells me he’s left 188 comments using the same account and, as far as I can tell, they’re all promotional pitches for Dish, Blockbuster, etc. Last month, for instance, he found a four-year-old blog post complaining about Dish competitor DirecTV, and chimed in on that one.

So who is “Andrew”? Disqus tells me he signed in to their system using the name “Ender Chadwick” and a Dish Network email address. Somebody on Facebook named “Ender Chadwick” says he works at Dish, so maybe it’s that guy.

But who knows. Andrew/Ender signed on using an IP address owned by Dish. It’s the same one used by people named “Rose” and “Monica” to write Dish love letters, too, as Gizmo Lovers pointed out last month.

And this gets to one of the reasons this stuff is such a downer: Look at all the calories burned on this petty little exercise, on both sides of the equation. What a waste.

I asked Dish about this yesterday, expecting them to explain that whoever was leaving this stuff probably wasn’t a Dish/Blockbuster employee. Maybe an over-zealous contractor, and that “the wires had gotten a little crossed.”

That’s what Blockbuster marketing head Kevin Lewis told me back in September, when I asked him about a story that seemed to involve the Blockbuster Twitter account offering a free year’s subscription to people who would tweet about dumping Netflix. (I wasted a bunch of time and energy on that one, too. Never bothered to post it. Glad I kept my notes!)

But Dish PR head Marc Lumpkin didn’t try to apologize for Andrew/Ender/whomever, at all.

“We require our employees who post about DISH products to identify themselves as a DISH Network employee,” Lumpkin told me via email. “This appears to be an informative posting describing the options consumers have for getting entertainment and is posted in a discussion of a similar topic.”

Really? I asked. You sure you want me to print that?

“It looks informative to me and appropriate for those Web site discussions. I’m fine with the response.”

Okay. So, Marc, Kevin, Dish Network CEO Joseph Clayton, et al. — we don’t really need to spell out why this isn’t “informative” or “appropriate,” right? Because we don’t need to explain why you shouldn’t show up at funerals for people you don’t know and hand out flyers for term life insurance, either. Right?

But think about it this way: Stuffing BS comments onto Web sites is the kind of thing that low-rent scammers do. You? You’re a big, publicly traded company. You have 14 million satellite TV subscribers, a left-for-dead video-rental brand you want to revive, and big plans to launch a new Web TV service.

That’s a whole lot to take care of. And spending time and money on tacky, clumsy astroturf seems like it won’t help, and could probably hurt. This article, for instance, doesn’t go in the “win” column, right?

Meanwhile! Here’s “Explosion,” by Eli “Paperboy” Reed, which I learned about from your newest ad campaign. It’s great. More of this, please.

[Image credit: Christina Richards/Shutterstock (litter crew);
Wikimedia (Sisyphus)]

Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen has raised the idea with multiple media companies as part of a broader effort to control rising programming costs. The programming wouldn’t include sports channels in its most-basic tier of service, according to the people familiar with the discussions. Sports channels are among the most expensive for cable and satellite operators to carry.

In part, offering channels over the Internet could give Dish more flexibility to exclude channels whose existing contracts with Dish mandate that they appear on the satellite company’s most-widely distributed tiers of service.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Which sounds cool!

But let’s be clear about what this is: An extension of the “TV Everywhere”/“authentication” concept that lets cable subscribers watch programming via alternate delivery systems.

And let’s be clear about what this isn’t: A tool for cable cord cutters or cord shavers.

Bloomberg laid most of this out last month in a story previewing tomorrow’s announcement. Steve Ballmer has been “promoting the Xbox 360 console as a way to switch easily between games, DVDs and pay TV” — not as a way to ditch cable. Which is why cable providers and programmers like Comcast and Verizon are working with him.

Another way to think about it: Look at the iPad and iPhone apps we’ve already seen from the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and ESPN. They let subscribers watch some (though usually not all) of what they can get from their various cable packages on a different device. The Xbox deals should work the same way.

A more direct analogy: This will be an extension of deals Microsoft has already put together with the likes of ESPN, which gives some cable subscribers access to the network’s ESPN3 digital channel via their game boxes. (UPDATE: Readers note that the ESPN3-Xbox deal doesn’t require a cable subscription, but a broadband Internet subscription from particular providers. So it’s theoretically possible for an Xbox owner to get Comcast broadband — but not cable — and still get sports beamed to his TV.)

There’s always a miniscule chance that one of Microsoft’s partners will stray way outside the reservation and actually offer cable-like programming without requiring a cable subscription. One day, for instance, I could see Time Warner finally giving its HBO unit the go-ahead to start selling a la carte subscriptions to the pay service, at the same rates that it’s charging the cable guys.

The cable guys wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t like when HBO, et al, did the same with the satellite guys in the ’90s. There’s not much they can do about it.

But given that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is the chief proponent of the cable-protecting “TV Everywhere” plan, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

More tomorrow, once Microsoft makes it all official.

The last part isn’t getting much attention, but Google itself mentioned its interest in Motorola’s big set-top box business during today’s call announcing the deal. And some Wall Street analysts and other observers are making positive noises about the possibility of Google, which has tried and failed for years to make headway into the TV business, to finally make inroads.

Could be! I’m skeptical, though.

A couple basics: Motorola’s “Home” unit accounts for about a third of its revenue. It’s not a sexy or high-growth business — last quarter, revenues increased 2.3 percent — but unlike handsets, it is profitable. Last quarter it generated operating earnings of $67 million on $907 million in sales.

It is also the biggest cable set-top box business in the world. The reason that you, the average consumer, don’t know or care whether you’ve got a Motorola box next to your TV is that you don’t really have a choice — Motorola sells its boxes to the cable and satellite guys, and they turn around and rent them to you. As long as you’re getting pay TV, you’re using a box from Motorola, or perhaps Cisco’s Scientific-Atlanta unit (Cisco is going to stop making the boxes itself, but will stay in the business.)

The reasonable notion is that Google, which hasn’t had much success getting the cable business to work with it in the past, could do so now, via Motorola’s longstanding relationships with the cable guys.

But I don’t think Google hasn’t made progress with the TV business — both the cable providers and the networks that provide them with programming — because the guys from Mountain View can’t get meetings. It’s because the TV business is paranoid about what Google could do if it ever did make headway in the TV business.

The cable guys don’t have a problem working with Motorola, Cisco, etc., because those companies have never shown any inclination to compete with their core subscription business, as GoogleTV theoretically does.

And while the cable guys do want better, cheaper, more powerful boxes — ones they could upgrade without sending out a guy with a truck, which gets very expensive — it’s highly unlikely they’re willing to let Google offer to help them out. Note Comcast’s “Excalibur” project, which in many ways is supposed to be a GoogleTV alternative, controlled by the cable company itself.

And even if Google does make headway in the box business, it’s still going to face plenty of challenges with the programmers who push stuff through those boxes. They’re the same ones that kept their stuff off of GoogleTV when it rolled out last fall.

And while it’s possible Google could change its mind — some big checks might help — I don’t see them getting more comfortable with the notion any time soon.

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And they do! But they also require subscribers to do some work.

Part of that is because the cable guys really haven’t worked out the technology yet (Facebook could help here).

But it’s really because the point of The Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011 (alternate title: The Great Web Video Piracy Boom of 2011) isn’t to make it easy to watch TV shows on the Web. It’s meant to protect the traditional TV business.

And it looks like the new “authentication” program that Fox announced last night, which will pull back free TV shows on Hulu and Fox.com, will follow form. (News Corp., which owns Fox, also owns this Web site.)

Take a look at the Web site that Fox rolled out last night in conjunction with the move. It warns surfers that in order to watch shows on the Web, they’ll need to:

• Be a Dish Network subscriber.
• Create an online Dish Network subscriber ID and password, which will require them to dig up their account number from their paper bill.
• Be prepared to log in again every 30 days.

This is about standard for authenticated TV, and while it’s not rocket science, it’s also not much fun. (Quick quiz: Where is your most recent cable bill?)

On the other hand, it is easier than being waterboarded, as “Glee’s” awesome Jane Lynch reminds us in a 15-second video. But it’s certainly nowhere near as easy as the instant gratification you can get by going to Fox.com or Hulu.com and watching last night’s “MasterChef” (or just stealing a peek from a pirate site).

Speaking of Hulu — it’s interesting to note that there’s absolutely no mention of the site on Fox’s Web page, even though Hulu Plus customers can also get access to the Fox programming. But also not surprising.