WFAA: ABC’s Guinea Pig

In a move announced with little fanfare, on May 1 Belo Corp.-owned WFAA-Channel 8 became one of five ABC affiliates to offer a link to the mothership that makes available free videos of some of the network’s bigger hits. It’s part of ABC’s attempt to drive traffic to its own Web site, and it’s using as a carrot free and complete on-demand downloads of such shows as Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias and Commander-in-Chief (I had no idea the latter was even still on). Dunno why this has to be a “test”; seems a reasonable and obvious idea, and one that’s rather late. Next thing you know they’ll do a blog. –Robert Wilonsky