Ninety-nine cents was an important figure in U.S. consumer pricing before the iTunes Music Store came along, but it has become utterly canonical since. So it’s no surprise that $1.99 is what ABC is planning to charge for episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for downloads onto the new video iPod, and what CBS and NBC are likely to charge when they follow suit.

We’re headed toward a new concept of television. Just ask anyone who owns a complete season of "South Park" or the entire run of "Firefly" on DVD. We already live in a world where nearly everything that has ever been produced for television and the movies seems to be showing on some station somewhere. But what’s coming is a world in which all that programming is showing on your personal station now.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to suspect that we will soon be watching Google TV. All it will take is a little more bandwidth, a little more storage - and, of course, the beginning of the end of free TV.

Ninety-nine cents was an important figure in U.S. consumer pricing before the iTunes Music Store came along, but it has become utterly canonical since. So it’s no surprise that $1.99 is what ABC is planning to charge for episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for downloads onto the new video iPod, and what CBS and NBC are likely to charge when they follow suit.

We’re headed toward a new concept of television. Just ask anyone who owns a complete season of "South Park" or the entire run of "Firefly" on DVD. We already live in a world where nearly everything that has ever been produced for television and the movies seems to be showing on some station somewhere. But what’s coming is a world in which all that programming is showing on your personal station now.

It doesn’t take too much imagination to suspect that we will soon be watching Google TV. All it will take is a little more bandwidth, a little more storage - and, of course, the beginning of the end of free TV.