Real is in a good position to succeed with the streaming media syndication business because it controls the player and server software. But there's no reason that there can't be other syndicators, too. What about, for instance, a Publisher's Clearing House kind of site, where you'd pick from a paid list of content providers and pay the syndicator once, letting the syndicator deal with payments to the providers. On the back end of the deal, the content provider could cut deals with the syndicator for better positioning on the subscription page and so forth. Not all content providers would get the same cut from the syndicator.

This seems to me to be a particularly good business for an ISP. When you're paying your $30 to Earthlink, maybe you could pay an extra $5 or $10 for access a list of paid content sites. And Presto! You've built a cable TV business model.