Satellite TV operator DirecTV is in talks with cable networks to launch its own web video service under standards known in the industry as "TV Everywhere." The move would allow DirecTV's 18 million U.S. subscribers to access cable TV on the Web for free, as long as they can prove they subscribe to DirectTV.

"TV Everywhere" is essentially a set of principles for pay-TV distributors that allow them to offer cable programming online. While DirecTV is agreeing to those principles, it intends to use its own technology and will create its own brand, much as Comcast has done with "On Demand Online."

Trials of "TV Everywhere" so have been limited to TV distributors that already have distribution deals with cable networks; the addition of DirecTV would bring an entirely different company into the mix. Unlike cable and the telcos, DirecTV has no Internet access business, nor does it own content. It does, however, provide content over the web and to mobile phones for subscribers of NFL Sunday Ticket through a service called Supercast.

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