The Wall Street Journal does a check-in on the state of the TV Everywhere effort launched a few years ago by Comcast and Time Warner. The idea was to provide online access to cable TV programs for customers who are already paying for those channels on regular cable. It hasn’t really gotten off the ground for a few reasons, says the Journal. One, there are a lot of cheap online programming options available, including Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and Hulu Plus, and (although the Journal doesn’t acknowledge it) just pirating the dang shows.

The second problem:

Each cable operator, phone company and satellite-TV provider must negotiate separate agreements for online rights to every cable channel. So far, just a few companies have reached wide-ranging deals.

Also, the online advertising isn’t always easy to understand for people used to a broadcast/cable model.

In short, TV Everywhere is failing because it’s trying to put the square peg of cable into the round hole of online. Meanwhile, an entire ecosystem of programming is springing up on online-only outlets. While it’s not exactly of HBO quality yet, it’s getting better in a hurry.