I imagine a future, where advertisers will post and seed programming (with included sponsored ads) to encourage their exposure and financial benefit.

Sure, they're losing income because no one watches the ads anymore. Between Tivo and BitTorrent (where all the crap is pre-filtered), they're desperate for eyeballs.

Consider it the second coming of brand-name Bittorrent 'scene' releases. Instead of downloading this weeks Law & Order from NoTV (a popular TV ripper famous on the 'scene'), you'll instead get it from TD Bank, with included ads, and an especially fast torrent server, guaranteeing super-fast downloads!

It's Not As If It's Hasn't Happened Before

Sure, on occasion, a pirate will release a 'scene' release that somehow manages to include (or rather, not exclude) one commercial break. For 99% of the viewers, I imagine they're so perplexed by the appearance of an ad, that most will let it slide, without a thought to the 2 minutes of wasted time.

Having giving up network television a couple years ago, the onslaught of network commercials has been ignored by me lately.

Every time I'm in front of a regular TV, I'm astounded by the commercial content. It's never-ending, repetitive, and catchy - all wooden stakes to the fragile human attention span. It's no wonder every time I find myself quoting old TV, it's an Ad slogan. While the pleasure of being train-spotted and/or recognized is high, it's seriously bad. Who wants that sort of second-hand attention? It's like being the understudy that never gets to perform - sure you've done the work, but who has proof?

In this case, advertisers serious about their media expenditures will become bandwidth sponsors, only indicated by marketing dollars.