A company called CinemaNow is planning to provide single episode downloads of TV shows. NBC Universal is the sixth of seven major networks (Paramount/Viacom being the seventh) to sign on. If done correctly, this could be a really cool thing. The biggest problems I see are a) providing enough content to keep people interested, and b) balancing the quality of the recordings with download times.

Personally, I would love to get high quality widescreen DIVX versions of some shows (like Battlestar Galactica, Lost, ’24′, etc.) while it’s not as important with shows like sitcoms.

Then there’s the issue of price. What’s a reasonable price for a half-hour sitcom? Fifty cents? A dollar? Five dollars? Again, that depends largely on the quality of the episode, among other things.

The popularity of TV shows on BitTorrent networks is a testament to the fact that this kind of thing could work. It’s already being done with movies (on sites like Movielink.com), and of course music (iTunes, Napster, etc.).

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