The beginning of the end for traditional TV networks?

I may be about to lose access to some of my favorite shows.

Virgin viewers could lose hit shows | | Guardian Unlimited Business

Hopefully things like this will soon become a thing of the past as new technology allows the creators of content direct access to worldwide audiences without the need to go via networks like virginmedia and sky. Networks who seem on the face of it quite willing to use their customers as leverage in a corporate spat. Technology like Joost is going to change the landscape, would firefly have been cancelled if the fans could have bought it directly?