The really bizarre part of this is... We aren't his customers. His customers -- the people who actually give him money -- are the advertisers. If he already has their money, why should he give a leap whether we watch ads, or not? His contract is between AOLTW and Proctor and Gamble. We ain't in it.

About the only thing I can figure is that he's feeling pressure from his real customers. But then, advertising revenues are down in all media, mostly because the customer base is finally wising up to the fact that advertising has only a tenuous relationship to sales.

(This is why I warned any old media types who would listen that their schadenfreude when Internet ad revenue started plunging was probably not a wise idea, because once the paying customers started questioning the efficacy of advertising in one medium... Anyway, you can connect the dots.)