NEW YORK - "Desperate Housewives" on your iPod. Jay Leno's monologue on your cell phone. Brian Williams delivering the night's news on your computer. And "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" available whenever you want to watch it — not just Thursday night.
Each of those developments became possible in the past few weeks, part of an extraordinarily tumultuous period in TV.
The autumn of 2005 will doubtless be remembered as the time when all assumptions about the rules of television were thrown into the air and scattered, with no certainty about what happens when they land.
The most shocking event clearly was Apple's deal with The Walt Disney Co. in October to make reruns of "Lost" and other programs available for downloading to iPods for $1.99. In less than three weeks, Apple said a million videos were sold.
"That's a significant amount of money," said Rob Enderle, an analyst for the Enderle Group. "I honestly believe that's going to change a lot of minds in terms of providing programming for this medium."
Some worry this service will make people less likely to watch these hit shows on television. But many in the industry believe fans who may have missed an episode represent the biggest market.
NBC began offering a same-night replay of "Nightly News" online, the first network news broadcast to take that step.
America Online anticipated only a few hundred applicants for "The Biz," its online-only music talent contest. Instead, it got 9,000. AOL is expected to announce Monday a new initiative to show old TV programming.
AOL's successful Webcast of the Live 8 concert last summer opened many eyes to the possibilities of Internet TV, and so did simple demographics. About 35 million homes now have broadband access (compared to 110 million homes with TVs), and about half of those online users say they've watched video online, said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst for the Forrester Group.
"I don't think usage of the mobile phone TVs will come anywhere close to the home television as a principal viewing device," he said. "But the evidence suggests that it's a handy way of spending time when you're waiting two minutes for a bus or for a friend at the bar."
Ultimately, this fall's most far-reaching development may be last Monday's dual announcements by Viacom Inc.'s CBS and NBC that it would begin selling replays of its most popular shows on an on-demand basis through Comcast Corp. and DirecTV Group Inc., respectively.
It gives a tantalizing peek into a television landscape where viewers can decide when to watch their favorites. While the Internet and cell phone choices work around the margins of television fare, these deals involve the most popular programs on television.
"Mark down the date," Bernoff wrote after the announcement. "Today is the beginning of the end of the television schedule."
Telephone companies SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. are also preparing to roll out Internet Protocol, set-top technology that could allow consumers to choose from among multiple camera angles while watching a program or search the Internet for information about the actors.
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
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