Advertising and the Internet

As the internet continues to tighten its grip on media, television broadcasting companies are struggling to make the adjustment. A recent New York Times article addresses this issue in relation to the (lack of) live streaming that NBC is providing of the Olympics.The article notes that NBC is providing significantly less live coverage than it did of the Beijing Olympics in the summer of 2008. NBC's response to this includes the fact that they "would prefer for viewers to watch the Olympics on television [rather than the internet]." A large part of this is due to "financial considerations." According to the various interviews in the article, the financial aspect of allowing television viewing on the internet (in this case, specifically live feeds) is taking its toll on broadcasting companies. These companies make their money by keeping the support of their advertisers, and advertising is much more difficult on the world wide web than in the TV set. The article continues by pointing out that advertising in online streaming is a continuing dilemma for broadcasting companies, and concludes with the fact that the boundaries placed on the live streaming for the Olympics is part of NBC's effort to steer viewers back to television, which is where they make the most money at this point.
It is no secret that making a profit is the main focus of almost any mass media business (Croteau and Hoynes, pg. 58). It is equally as well known that advertising is the main avenue by which any media business makes their profit (Croteau and Hoynes, pg. 64). In this type of industry, NBC's reluctance to risk a loss of television viewers to the internet, and therefore risk losing the support of their advertisers, is understandable. In the article above, their president of research is quoted as saying, "They [NBC] have to walk a very fine line between trying to provide as great an experience as possible and making business sense.” This "business sense" absorbs much of media production, and understandably so. Media producers are constantly trying to find a balance between what their audiences are interested in and what will make them money. In this case, their audiences would like live streaming of the Olympics (this is also made clear in the NYT article), but the expense and risk of losing the money gained from advertising has caused them to place restrictions on the live feeds to the internet.
This leaves us to ask, why is this important? Other than the fact that it may be more convenient for us to be able to watch the Olympics live from our computers than TV's, is there more significance to this issue? I will leave that for you to contemplate, but consider this: it seems inevitable that more and more television shows and productions are appearing on the internet, both live and not. How is this going to influence the relationships between advertising industries and broadcasting companies? It seems as though, because advertising and media are so directly dependent on each other, the continuing modernization of technology and entertainment viewing will require these broadcasters to continue to produce innovative ways of incorporating advertising into online viewing. Any thoughts?