​In a deal believed to be the first of its kind between a major programmer and a technology giant, Viacom has tentatively agreed to let Sony stream Nickelodeon, MTV and other popular channels through its still-developing Internet TV service.

Through its PlayStation video game console, which is already hooked up to TV sets in tens of millions of homes, Sony hopes to deliver live cable channels to subscribers in the way of Netflix, Hulu and other on-demand libraries. Other tech giants like Intel and Google want to do the same thing, but Sony is the first company to receive permission from one of the major programmers to stream its content. With Viacom on board, Sony now has a shot at completing carriage deals with other programmers such as Disney and Time Warner.

The deal comes as major distributors call into question the sustainability of the traditional cable bundle subscriber model in general. Tim Hanlon, head of the Vertere Group media consulting firm, told The New York Times that younger viewers are “cobbling together their own workarounds to all-or-nothing content packages” and that the “smart programmers are starting to carefully position themselves to take advantage, just in case the classic carriage model starts to break.”

Read more at The New York Times.

Brief Take: If Sony’s Internet cable TV service (or another one like it) gets off the ground, mainstays like Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon are also likely to sell their own versions, furthering a new type of competition.

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