Showtime Dumping (Most) DVD Screeners

More symbolic dirt on the DVD's grave: Showtime is cutting back on the number of DVD "screeners" it sends to Emmy voters. Instead it will ask voters to watch shows like "Dexter" and "Weeds" online.

This would seem like a no-brainer, but by TV standards this is a sort-of big deal: Come awards season, networks and studios bend over backwards to cater to the mostly older Emmy and Oscar voters, who aren't considered likely to boot up their Web browsers when they want to watch video.

So why do it? CBS-owned Showtime gets to cast the move as a "green" initiative -- fewer DVDs in the garbage -- but there's less noble reason as well: More control over their content. The networks and studios have worried for years that their stuff moves from the screeners to online piracy networks, and this could be one way to slow that process down.