Television becoming more Internet-like is always a promising development. But IP doesn’t mean Free TV. There is a contractual production and distribution infrastructure that won’t be “disrupted” so easily.

“The BBC’s Broadcast network faces many of the problems which computing grids are designed to solve. It is a distributed network , with processing of broadcast material taking place at many nodes, carrying material (broadcast video) that has very high bandwidth requirements and mixes ‘live’ and stored events. The BBC also places high demands for reliable and consistent performance on its systems and networks. Special purpose broadcast processing equipment (e.g. video editing suites or image rendering devices) are located at specific points in the network but, in general, are not available for use outside these locations. As an example of this, a producer from BBC Northern Ireland will have to travel to London (taking his programme material with him) should he want to edit his programme on an advanced editing suite not available at the BBC’s Belfast site.”

http://www.qub.ac.uk/escience/dev/article.php?tag=gridcast_summary