With more spectrum space (thanks to multicasting), one can only speculate as to what programming CBS will squeeze into its new digital channels. Some thoughts:

CSI: Toledo

48 Minutes (the Canadian version of 60 Minutes.. do the math)

Canadian Football League game of the week (Go Bluebombers!)

Wide World of Curling

Real World, Topeka

Big Stepbrother

Two.75 Men (again, do the math)

Pimp my Toaster Oven

It's an end-of-the-week grab-bag. (A marketing person would refer to it as a "synopsis of important industry events." Somebody else, like my mother, might label this 'cast nothing but garden variety rumor mongering.)

In any event, Allen and Mike share their recommendations on how Google could spend the $4 billion they just raised in their secondary offering.  Allen muses on the rumors about Microsoft and AOL.  Mike muses more about the Future of Music Summit in D.C.

Word's out -- I mean even the WSJ had a story today -- that the latest version of iTunes, 5.0, is letting consumers post video podcasts that, in most cases, can be viewed from the little window in which iTunes typically displays the cover art of the CD/album containing whatever song is currently playing in iTunes. Modesty might prevent Allen from saying so, but I'm happy to point out that Allen and some other podcasters discovered  iTunes "secret videopodcast" capabilities in the previous version, 4.9, about a month ago. 

One can subscribe but you cannot view all the videocasts in the window within iTunes where album art or music videos display. This probably has something to do with the way the videopodcaster is creating their XML feeds. For those that don't launch within iTunes, for one can view them in Quicktime by calling them up from the iTunes folder. (I had to do this to view the videopodcast cited in the WSJ story.)

Given the frenzied rush by the media industry and technology companies to find some advantage in the burgeoning ecology of consumer-generated content, this move is another interesting play by Apple. Can Apple do for videopodcasts what they did for podcasts? How will they handle the inevitable posting of some copyrighted content?

Stay tuned...

Seriously, am I that impatient I cannot wait to type an entire word?

As the Internet emerges as a broadcast medium for television, the frightening notion for programming executives is in the fact that the marketplace will quickly and fairly decide what shows live and what shows die. The TV world is used to living in a world of planned obsolesce in which every fall new shows emerge only to be axed within a few weeks. It's absurd how poorly programming execs misread the public's entertainment tatses. In any other business, such a win-loss ratio could never be tolerated; in TV, it’s been a way of live. With democratization of the process (consumers as tastemakers and networks), the TV world will be forced to be efficient and more in touch with the consumer’s tastes. It’s about time.

I think it’s great that MLB has hooked up with ESPN for a long-term contract. No other network—cable or otherwise—has done a better job with baseball coverage (live games, highlight shows, etc...) than ESPN.

It leads you to wonder what ESPN has in store for MLB over the next several years…beyond the TV screen, that is. Will ESPN broadcast games to mobile phones? Will ESPN broadcast games to the PC via the ESPN 360 widget? Will ESPN brew some sort of interactive experience where fans can interact via IM during games (hence more oomph behind the open IM platform)…at the same time will it build some sort of baseball “social network” that allows fans to build personal sites and communicate ala Myspace?

All of these are possibilities as is the notion the network will help MLB usher the game into additional foreign markets. I look to ESPN to be innovative and not afraid to try and fail. It’s a great marriage.