ivi.tv just keeps getting better. After launching with most of the local channels in New York and Seattle, ivi added Los Angeles, and most recently, Chicago. The independent channels and sub-carrier channels are particularly interesting, because they provide something you might not get with your local over-the-air network stations. Plus, this week, I was able to watch the snowed-out football game that moved to Detroit thanks to a local New York station’s broadcast. At $4.99/month, it’s a great deal.

It’s also heartening to see that ivi recognizes that it will exist only as long as the courts and Congress allow it to do so. Its CEO, Todd Weaver, visited Washington to lobby Congress and the FCC to please recognize its law-abiding usefulness.

The one voice I would expect to boom the loudest in opposition to this streaming TV idea is pro football’s, but I have yet to hear anything from them. They didn’t join in any of the lawsuits, and I haven’t heard any public pronouncements against it, even though it’s a party that has a lot to lose from its exclusive out-of-market pay-TV package. Instead, the National Association of Broadcasters’ president threw down the football championship game card with regards to a loosely related topic – retransmission consent for regular cable and satellite systems.

Why isn’t football itself getting involved? I’m guessing that it sees a lockout on the horizon and doesn’t want to use any political capital until after it wins that fight. But I digress.

FilmOn is continuing on its wacky, ever-changing way. The folks who were suing it were successful in getting an injunction, and FilmOn stopped showing those channels. (Except I sometimes see KTLA, and other times FilmOn says it can’t show it.) FilmOn added some Los Angeles Spanish-language locals that weren’t part of the suit, and continued its funky set of international channels and adult offerings.

This morning’s interesting change du jour is that the FilmOn standalone player has added New York stations WABC, WPIX, and WNET. I would have thought that the injunction would have blocked FilmOn from showing any ABC stations, but it’s not like I have a copy of it in front of me. Anyway, although FilmOn is offering subscriptions, its standalone player has been running for a really long time in free preview mode, so you might want to check that out too.

Oh, and sorry about the recent blog outage. The software should be fixed now to avoid those 500 errors. If you see problems, please let me know.