We’ll get to the Gossip Girl business in a sec! But first, a quick word about how you’ll be able (or unable, as the case may be) to watch it this season. Such talk involves iTunes, streaming media, Battlestar Galactica, and, naturally, Bit Torrent.

Forget about Bit Torrent being illegal—a bigger concern at this point is just how clumsy the thing is. Last year, I was easily able to download episodes of Battlestar Galactica from iTunes; for a reasonable (or reasonable enough, anyway) $1.99 an episode, one got a slick, quick, high-quality download. (There was also the nice feeling that you weren’t, you know, stealing.) Bit Torrent, on the other hand, is a time-consuming hassle that often results in shitty picture quality or broken files. It’s an option, sure, just not a very good one.

Man, I used to love iTunes—largely because it was an easy way to get my guilt-free Battlestar fix every week. But ever since NBC yanked all their stuff from the iTunes store (they reportedly wanted to charge $4.99 an episode, which Apple rightfully balked at), many have had to find other, non-iTunes ways of watching Battlestar or downloading The Office. (I can only suspect that the Pirate Bay is getting a whole lot more hits now than it was this time last year.)

It continues to befuddle me how consistently dumb corporations still are about online content. It’s a simple rule: If you offer what consumers want at a reasonable price and via an easy download system, most consumers will happily pay for it. But if you don’t do that, then they will have no problem whatsoever stealing it. At this point, you’d think it’d just make sense for companies like NBC to take whatever they can get from online sales—they might not have made much cash on iTunes, but they’re making a lot less now without it.

But okay. Digression. My initial point was that, once again, a big network has done yet another back-asswards thing involving the internet. Last year, Entertainment Weekly had a great story about how Gossip Girl got dismal ratings—but was still incredibly popular, thanks to iTunes and the CW’s decision to stream the episodes online. It was a refreshingly smart move by the CW—by acknowledging that the show’s target audience (12 year-old-girls and, uh, me) doesn’t watch TV on TV anymore, the CW ensured that a show that traditionally would’ve been quickly canceled instead became a huge hit. (Speaking of which: Gossip Girl’s season premiere is tonight! EEEEEEEEE!)

But while Gossip Girl will still be available via iTunes, the news broke last week that new episodes will no longer be streamed on the CW's website. Which is... ugh. Stupid. Here's the deal, from Hollywood Reporter, via Yahoo!:

The CW is trying to avoid being a victim of its own success: Gossip has proved to be a big draw online (http://www.CWTV.com), with each episode said to be generating hundreds of thousands of streams. Episodes routinely rank among the most downloaded on iTunes, which also will continue to offer new episodes.

CW is taking the counterintuitive step of limiting Gossip to test whether its online window is cannibalizing the TV audience....

Yanking Gossip online is a stark departure from what most TV programmers are doing this season. Full episodes have been made ubiquitous online and seeded with advertising; executives tout them as purely additive measures toward maximizing their audience back on air.

But in targeting the younger demographics that tend to consume more programming on the Web than older viewers, the CW might be more vulnerable online than other TV networks with broader, older-skewing audience bases. If teens are being conditioned to catch Gossip online at their leisure, that could lessen the lure of appointment viewing in primetime.

I guess they didn't get the memo that for a huge segment of the population, "appointment viewing" is nonexistent, and the phrase "primetime" is outdated gibberish. The ratings of Gossip Girl aren't going to make a huge jump tonight thanks to this change (though iTunes sales might go up, which could be the point). But regardless, big businesses like NBC and the CW need to figure out how to be successful in a market where computers have made television sets and cable bills superfluous. If they can't do that--or if they just don't want to, and instead keep jerking viewers around about how and why they can or can't watch their favorite shows online or download them--I can't imagine they'll be around much longer. Which would be sad. Because then there would be no more Gossip Girl.

I like the show, okay? SHUT UP.

Anyway, it's weird. No one seems to be able to quite figure out what to do here: Gossip Girl, a show that's pretty much only around because of the internet, is available on iTunes, yet won't be streaming anymore; Battlestar, meanwhile, which is a show that's targeted at nerds who spend 23.5 hours a day on the internet, is only available for limited streaming and isn't available on iTunes. It'd be great if there was some consistency here--a way for all TV shows to be both broadcast and available for easy, cheap download via a standard client and at a standard price. I thought iTunes had solved that problem, but NBC wants none of that, and now, apparently, even streaming is a threat to a network's success.

I do not have a solution. I just like to watch television, and I am frustrated.

Now, can we just talk about what's going to happen between sassy frenemies Blair and Serena this season? And what kind of sleazy shenanigans is that scoundrel Chuck going to get himself into? Because OMFG! XOXO!