Fox has taken the lead by keeping its new programming off the Internet for at least eight days after airing, and other networks are following
I don't have a TV. I sold the last set that I owned before moving from Chicago to Washington, D.C., about a year ago. But I still watch plenty of television. Or, well, I listen to plenty of it. Whenever I'm at home by myself and working, I open a new browser window and put on a podcast or a TV show and let it play in the background, minimized, just for the noise.
On Tuesday night, I tried to put on an earlier episode of Masterchef, one of several programs on Fox hosted by Gordon Ramsey, the foul-mouthed Scottish chef and restaurateur with several Michelin stars to his name. I don't think he'd be as popular as he is were he not "so damned sexy," as some Fox viewers have labeled him, but regardless of what you think of his looks, he's definitely entertaining to listen to. When Fox allows it, anyway.
This week, Fox kicked off what Peter Kafka at the Wall Street Journal's All Things D has called The Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011. Fox warned this was coming back in July, going so far as to launch a special website warning viewers of what they would soon have to put up with. To watch Fox content on the Web within eight days of its original air date, would-be viewers have to be a Dish Network subscriber with an online subscriber ID and password and be willing to log in every month or so. Hulu Plus subscribers can also access Fox programming, but the website makes no mention of that.