"The consumers have zero influence, basically, on commercial television because they pay nothing, and don't have any kind of direct feedback mechanism. And if we put that mechanism in place (as the Net and TiVo threaten to do), guess what happens? The colossal inefficiencies of advertising get exposed. A $100 billion business worldwide is suddenly at risk."

This analysis seems all wrong. First, consumers do have influence over commercial television, an enormous influence, in the form of ratings. Advertisers are paying for consumer attention, and the ratings are what determines which shows and which ads people are seeing. Put on a show no one likes and no one will watch it, meaning advertisers won't pay for it, and the show gets cancelled. So consumer preferences do play a huge part in what shows are on TV.

The problem with TiVo isn't that it provides direct feedback, it's that it lets people skip the ads. That means that advertisers won't be willing to pay for all that expensive TV show production. But somebody's got to pay for it. So we're back to paying for content, problems with piracy, and it's the same as the music and movie businesses.

But even if you could solve this, with some kind of DRM, or government funding like Jim Griffin proposed, you'd still see the studios trying to make shows that will be popular with viewers, just as they do today. I don't see any evidence that TV producers today aren't trying to make shows that will be as appealing as possible.