Walt Disney Co.'s ABC on Monday announced a similar distribution deal through Time Warrner's AOL, a Web
portal. NBC, three weeks after pulling its content from Apple's iTunes, announced that it would offer free, ad-supported downloads of its shows one week after they air. NBC also has a joint,
ad-supported, content distribution deal with News Corp. called Hulu. CBS Corp.'s plan is to distribute its content to just about anyone who will carry it.
Analog TV has been a lucrative business for the major networks for years, but Web-based media, with smaller audiences and cheaper advertising units, hasn't proved to be a suitable replacement for TV's diminishing returns. The same problem plagues the print newspaper industry, but on a much larger scale.