Editor's Corner

Yesterday, Walt Disney ruffled a few feathers by unveiling plans to upload some of its hit ABC TV shows to the Internet the day after they air--for free. The crux of the whole arrangement is, of course, advertising. But the advertisers aren't necessarily the same that signed on to sponsor the content distributed to the television. Disney said sponsors for the online content include AT&T, Cingular, Ford and Proctor Gamble. Given the media hype around the shift, the original sponsors are sure to reach a smaller audience than they would have if the show wasn't going to be available online 24 hours later. Disney's cable partners are also in a pickle now: Since cable providers pay content companies like Disney for the right to carry its content, they are probably looking to lower those fees considerably or do away with them completely.

The mess Disney created is a timely one. It's especially exciting for the mobile content industry, because once the online game is figured out the mobile one should follow. Given Disney's recent push into the mobile world with its second MVNO, Disney Mobile, I hope they will lead the way into ad-supported mobile content, too. At CTIA, Disney Mobile's SVP and general manager George Grobar told me the MVNO was waiting to offer video content to its subscribers until the technology has more time to mature. There's a good chance he wants to wait until the ad-supported versus subscription-based content conversation takes place, too.

Final thought: Cable companies pay content providers like Disney around 30 cents a subscriber a month to offer a network like Disney's Soapnet, which carriers reruns of soap operas; and yet, Internet service providers are looking to charge content providers to carry the content. So is content no longer king, or are Internet service providers completely out of their element? - Brian