This year, it’s looking more and more like the major broadcast networks are going to be taking baby steps into Internet media, experimenting with a variety of different methods of delivery while trying to protect their traditional business model:

• Fox plans to offer the season premiere episodes of seven programs for free through Apple’s iTunes store, a move that highlights the TV industry’s race to harness the Internet and try out potential business partners. Fox hopes to get people hooked and then get them to pay for future episodes.
• NBC has announced a new service, NBC Direct, which will let you download and view NBC‚Äôs primetime and late-night programming to Windows PCs to watch for up to a week after the shows are broadcast. It’s basically a proprietary podcast platform – meaning that NBC’s adding DRM and limiting what you can do with downloads.
• ABC has announced that it will make its primetime programming available through AOL Video. Shows will be available one day after they premiere on TV through an “ABC.com on AOL” player, which will also display identification from the local ABC affiliate station.

Broadcasters know that attention is moving to the Web and, with it, advertising dollars. None of these moves, though, is an especially bold move to try and capture those dollars.

Fox’s approach is probably the most promising. They’re offering free, ad-supported downloads of their premieres on the most popular Internet media platform, Apple’s iTunes. This means that millions of people will be able to catch the premieres on their computers, iPods and iPhones, at their own schedule.

NBC and ABC’s offerings seem hesitant, by comparison. They want you to check out their new shows, but only if you use an approved system, download their software and watch the show when they will let you.

If Fox’s content is appealing, expect their approach to give their shows an advantage over NBC and ABC’s.