Lost Remote - - Well, you knew someone would try this sometime soon. Cox Communications is teaming with ABC and ESPN in an “unprecedented digital platform trial” by making top shows available on cable video on demand for free but with the fast-forward button disabled...In essence, they’re TiVo-proofing VOD in the hope it will attract new advertisers. (Some questions come to mind: How are the affiliates involved in this arrangement? How many commercials will VOD viewers sit through without getting frustrated and leaving? Would this supplant any DVR recordings of the same shows because people know it’s available on VOD?)

Is this a good trade off? Probably. Your TiVo fucks up and records the wrong show or it's gonna flip, but you'd rather watch the game, then having the show On Demand will be great. So you're stuck watching the ads. You would have to do that if it was live anyway.

What really sucks is that they plan to do it with sports on ESPN. The only times UB ever records a game is if he's gonna be late by about 10 minutes or so, meaning that it may not be possible to catch up during the commercials.

This could, however, be the beginning of the end of appointment viewing. From this point on you may find all networks moving their programming over to a VOD format, instead of giving people only the option to watch or tape at say 8pm.