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The disruption of cable television at the hands of the Internet and its premium video streaming services has been predicted for some time now. Perhaps there's something about the size and demeanor of the cable industry that makes some people long for it to be conquered by the free and open Web. Maybe that skews the imminence of the predictions. Either way, to many, cable's disruption just feels inevitable.

Cable is indeed losing subscribers, but it's happening very slowly. According to the latest data from Nielsen, the number of U.S. homes with cable subscriptions has declined 4.1% in the last year. Meanwhile, TV service provided by telephone companies like Verizon increased 21.1%.

YouTube's statistics continue to boggle the mind. It revealed today that it serves 4 billion videos every day, a 25% increase in the past eight months. YouTube users upload one hour of video every second, which has prompted Google to create an annoyingly cute website to visualize this awesome stat. At the end of 2011, YouTube reported that it served a trillion videos that year, about 140 views for every living human being.

As Reuters notes, Google reported that only about 11% of YouTube views are monetized. That's not all the revenue Google makes from YouTube, since its Universal Search features YouTube video results prominently alongside search ads. But the YouTube business is still under construction, and it's growing fast. As YouTube's reach begins to dwarf even television, the whole landscape of video content changes.

You might call me a cable cord cutter, except that I never subscribed to a pay TV service in the first place. Instead, my HDTV set is hooked up to a Boxee Box, with a MacBook waiting in the wings in case any Web TV content isn't available via Boxee.

Yet every now and then, even the most ardent cord cutter still has a need to tune in to something in real-time. It could be a sporting event or a local news broadcast. For me, it's the fact that members of my family are being featured on the current season of PBS's This Old House, something I like to check out when each episode first airs. Soon, I'll be able to watch those broadcasts without leaving Boxee.

The start of the current fall television season has highlighted the importance of social media in driving awareness and tune-in for new and established TV series as audience consumption habits continue to fragment across device and social platforms.

With multiple apps being promoted by shows, networks and even TV service providers for checking-in to these broadcasts as well as fan pages and hashtags used to centralize the conversation around each episode, there is a growing need for audience measurement beyond the traditional Nielsen ratings.

DreamWorks Animation is betting big on the future of the Web's popularity for consuming premium video content. The major Hollywood animation studio has signed a deal with Netflix to stream its library of content exclusively to Netflix subscribers, the New York Times reported.

The deal, which covers such popular film series as Shrek and Madagascar is expected to net DreamWorks Animation $30 million per movie for the duration of the agreement. What makes this deal significant isn't so much its price tag or the content involved. Its significance lies in the fact that this is the first time such a major Hollywood content provider has inked a deal that skips over pay TV distribution in favor of the Web.

A new mobile app platform called WiO is set to revolutionize the TV watching experience by allowing customers to immediately get information about the products and services they see advertised on screen, both in TV commercials and within the shows themselves.

Through a mobile app running on customers' phones, marketers can offer a variety of follow-up actions to the TV viewer, including coupons, reminders, contact info and more. In total, there are 10 follow-up actions offered. And the consumer is in complete control of which ones, if any, they respond to.

The video and voice calling service Skype is coming to a TV near you, thanks to a new partnership with Comcast, a leading provider of cable TV services here in the U.S. This morning, the two companies formally announced a deal that will allow Comcast customers to use Skype's HD video calling on their HD television sets, made available through a Comcast-provided adapter box which works in conjunction with an HD video camera.

Customer trials of the new service will begin in "the coming months," but no exact date was given for the service's wider launch, only that more details will be made available "later this year."

Ses0nPass, the jailbreaking software for the Apple TV media center, has been updated. The new version now allows for the much-desired "untethered" jailbreak - meaning, the device does not have to be connected to a computer during startup. At present, the software is only available for Mac users, but a Windows version is said to be "coming soon."

But why would you want to jailbreak your Apple TV? How about access to streaming music from Last.fm, an HDTV-optimized Web browser, RSS feeds, weather forecasts, Twitter, additional support for video file formats and more?

YouTube is in talks with the National Basketball Association and other major sports leagues about winning the rights to broadcast games live on the internet, a Google executive in charge of partnerships in South Korea has told Business Week. Could Google outbid the major TV networks, who pay hundreds of millions of dollars in multi-year, multi-billion dollar licensing contracts to broadcast major US sports live? It certainly seems possible.

Disney and TNT are currently half-way through 8 year contracts with the NBA for an undisclosed sum that will conclude with the 2015-2016 season. Google began covering live cricket matches in India last year and another company staff member told Business Week's Jun Yang that "It's fair to say that there will be a lot more appealing sports content you'll see on YouTube." Live NBA games though? That would be insane. Such is the nature of the media disruption underway, though, is it not? Update: Staci Kramer at Paid Content got a denial from the NHL and asserts that NBA talks were only regarding broadcast in Asia. If that's the case, that's too bad.

The BBC has clarified its plans for the release of its Android and iPad-compatible versions of its popular iPlayer application - the British TV and radio service that delivers streaming content to the desktop and mobile devices - in light of a flurry of recent speculation. According to a post on the BBC.co.uk's Internet blog, the media company plans to have its new Android and iPad applications in their respective app stores by the end of this week.

There were a few caveats to the use of these new apps, however. And oddly enough, there was no mention of an iPhone application.