It's been said that the spat between Sky and Virgin feels like the last grasp of a pre-internet television mentality. And it's not hard to see why.
Because while these media dinosaurs slug it out to the bitter end, Virgin customers aren't bothering to hang around at the ringside, waiting to see who'll become the victor.
Instead, media savvy and broadband-enabled Virgin customers have 24/7 access to video web sites that provide them with the opportunity to download episodes of 'Lost', '24', 'The Simpsons' and a whole host of other top shows.
The fact that this is illegal and erodes the value of intellectual property rights needs to be counter-balanced by the fact that these same Virgin customers have already paid for the privilege of watching these shows only to have these programmes removed from their subscription packages as a result of a dispute that has yet to be settled. So what's moral about that?
Perhaps the media dinosaurs are too busy to notice or to care about the damage they're causing to themselves and to advertisers/sponsors?
Whole page national newspaper ads placed by Virgin and Sky slagging each other off and pretending to be some sort of "consumers' champion" was just a bit incredulous.
It's small wonder that Virgin have been haemorrhaging customers since the spat began and advertisers are beginning to question the value of their media packages with Sky.
Meanwhile, YouTube -- "the global leader in online video and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide" -- has just signed a content deal with EMI where its users get unprecedented access to authorised videos and recordings of EMI artists, including those featured in user generated content on the site.
EMI is reported to be delighted with the new deal, which creates new ways for its artists to connect with fans and to enter into innovative business models that generate revenues for its business and its creators. And of course it won't be long before this becomes the industry standard.
The convergence of media that digital evangelists talked about in the late 1990s has now come to pass. TV over the web has arrived. And it's getting better.
What this means is that downloading bite-sized video music tracks or whole TV episodes is now how we choose to consume media.
Programme scheduling (outside of live sport) is fast becoming irrelevant as consumers construct their own viewing schedules via BitTorrent, Google Video and other sites.
So what do these changes mean in practical terms for brand owners?
Well, for one thing they should "follow the money" and take away the financial burden of downloading hours and hours of high-quality music videos and programmes by creating innovative online sponsorship deals to cover these costs on community-building social networking sites.
Such a strategy of course runs completely counter to the internet purists' view of the world that social networking sites can't or shouldn't be commercialised because this destroys the very essence of why these sites are successful in the first place.
The reality is, as anyone who knows about these things will tell you, this clearly hasn't happened. 18- to 34-year-olds who typically make up the audience for these sites are much more media savvy and media literate than perhaps the dinosaurs first thought. Brands are part of the way young people understand the world so isn't it time you "got with the programme"?
The future of broadcast sponsorship has already arrived, although looking at two bald men fighting over a comb, you'd never have guessed.
Ardi Kolah is a sponsorship consultant working with a wide variety of clients looking to maximise their return on sponsorship investment.
He can be contacted at OgilvyAction on DL: +44 (0)207 479 0706 M: +44(0)77100 77941
ardi.kolah@ogilvy.com