New Deals Aim to Put The TV Into Internet TV - WSJ.com

The race for the living room continues... 

In a spate of deals that could undercut the role of cable and satellite companies, several TV networks including Nickelodeon, Showtime and Starz have reached agreements with Microsoft Corp. to let people watch their Web programming on TV sets.

Starz, a cable-movie service owned by Liberty Media Corp., has struck a deal giving viewers TV access to its movie-download services on the Web. Showtime, a premium-movie channel owned by CBS Corp., has agreed to a similar arrangement for its Showtime Interactive Web site. As with those two deals, Viacom's Nickelodeon cable channel has made arrangements with Microsoft to let people watch its Web-based TV programming on their TV sets via Microsoft's Xbox 360 or any computer equipped with its new Windows Vista operating system.

Source: New Deals Aim to Put The TV Into Internet TV - WSJ.com