The Colbert Report and the Daily Show has been of the air for almost two weeks now because of the writers’ strike. The problem seems to be the fact that studios aren’t willing to compensate the writers for publishing their work over non-traditional media such as the internet. This is just absolutely ridiculous, I applaud the studios for willing to explore new territory and make entertainment more available through sites such as ComedyCentral.com but there’s also a lot in it for the studios.
They get to boost their ratings since the audience of their shows will expand far beyond the normal prime time TV audience, and gain a new source of revenue through the ads hosted on their sites. When the YouTube and TiVo generation matures, they will have much higher expectations regarding the availability of TV media. These Hollywood studios are not going to let YouTube and TiVo profit off of this trend(see Youtube v Viacom), the studios have less flattering motives behind setting up video sharing sites similar to YouTube such as iFilm.com and ComedyCentral.com(owned by Viacom).
