More BS from the BCS - No TV

Yes, that's right, roughly 300,000 Oregonians, and possibly more, won't get to watch Oregon play in the national championship game because it won't be on broadcast TV.

Not even the Rose Bowl will be on broadcast TV.

ESPN outbid Fox and will air these games on its cable network rather than its sister station of ABC, where bowl games have been aired for decades.

The bad news for Oregon and other teams is that many fans won't be able to watch the games at home.

For much of 2010, cable companies, for the first time ever, have been losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers all across the country.

There are many reasons why, but the main one is the exorbitant cost of cable. Many former subscribers, including yours truly, concluded the benefit wasn't worth the price. There may for hundreds of channels, but still nothing to watch.

The local cable company in Bend has also been shedding customers to satellite subscribers, internet surfers and over-the-air watchers.

But the changes we see this year mean the future is clear: Internet television.

Why can't cable subscribers pick and choose which stations they want to pay for? Well, they can, on the internet.

There are many viewing options on the internet, but few for sports. One option is www.justin.tv

You can watch ESPN and other sports cable channels on this website.

You're going to see more of this and there won't be much that the cable companies can do about it.

The cable companies have refused to offer a-la carte pricing and viewers are finding a way around this limitation.

Content providers, like ESPN, believe they are indispensable. With so many cable cancellations this year, they're finding that they are not.

In case they hadn't noticed, the Great Recession is affecting all aspects of American life, including the watching of cable TV.