Here's a scary thought. One day, you might have to actually pay for all that free quality programming beaming through the magic picture box in your living room.

A scary new article by the Associated Press shows that advertising revenue has not provided enough income for the free networks to support all of their programming efforts. And thanks to the rise of cable and the web, some companies are considering new business models that are cutting the "free" out of "free TV."

Given the way things are going, do you think there could come a time when free TV is a thing of the past like top 40 AM radio, Olestra chips and an ozone layer?

Nielsen Media is apparently looking to almost triple the number of homes over the next 4 years that report Nielsen ratings, according to an MSNBC article. Currently the company has 12,000 households with 35,000 people and it is looking to increase it to 37,000 homes with 100,000 people.

Frankly, I think the entire ratings system should be overhauled. Since there are now so many different methods of watching a television show, from iTunes to DVRs to DVDs, it has become impossible to track exactly how many people and of what type are watching a show. From the article, it does sound like Nielsen is trying to move in this direction with more sophisticated tracking. The networks now even want Nielsen to break down the viewership by age, race and whether they understand Linux for more target marketing. Isn't that a form of discrimination?