Download Squad

At this point, television networks have made some prime time content available for free online. We're not talking about $1.99 downloads from iTunes. We're talking free streaming episodes from networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and the CW.

But you can usually find just few episodes of a few programs. Mashable has put together a list of 33 services that provide online access to TV programs in one way or another. Some are 100% legal, like Joost and Babelgum. Others are a bit shadiers, like TV Links, which doesn't host any copyright-infringing video on its servers, but provides links to sites where you can (probably illegally) stream video.

Thing is, TV still wins. You've got one box that you turn on, and you have access to all the programs you can eat. Get yourself a personal video recorder and you can tape shows that air at inconvenient times to watch later. Sure, you might not get BBC America on your cable plan, or you might not even have cable. But not a single one of these services is as easy to navigate as a TV set with your remote control.
In large part, that's because none of them are as complete. Who wants to go to a network website to watch video for just that network? And who wants to turn on twelve different applications to see what content's available?

Sure, you can add a bunch of those icons to Windows Media Center in the hopes of tricking yourself into thinking you're controlling each application from one interface. But you're not.

How hard would it be for the cable and broadcast networks to come together and design a web page, or an application like Joost that lets you access all the content they're making available for free anyway? It wouldn't be that hard to split the advertising revenue, and consumers would be a lot more likely to use it than your current website.