It’s no secret that I’m critical of the BBC’s decision to buy into Microsoft’s DRM solution for its recently launched Internet TV catch-up service, iPlayer. In a post titled ‘BBC’s iPlayer and the Windows DRM monopoly‘, I expressed my bemusement that, after four years of R&D and three million pounds of funding, the corporation needed to outsource its DRM solution in the first place. However, I never went as far as to accuse the BBC of being corrupt, which is precisely what The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has done, alleging that the public service broadcaster’s management is too close to Microsoft.

First there were three: CBS, NBC, ABC. And three became four with the addition of Fox. Now it’s time to officially recognize a fifth major television network in the U.S.: the Internet.

The Internet is nothing new to television, or television to the Internet. A lot is happening here, and lately the Internet just feels like a fifth network. I’m excited to “tune in” to an Internet “channel” like MySpace or YouTube to catch the season finales of shows like “LonelyGirl15” and “Prom Queen”, just like I was anxious to see what happened in the network finales of “Lost” and “Heroes.” I’ve even caught myself during the day wondering, “What’s on the Internet tonight?”

Tomorrow it will be “LonelyGirl15.”

The “LonelyGirl15” season finale will be shown exclusively on MySpace, and it will be a unique culmination of the series to date. Twelve episodes will be released, one an hour, beginning at 8 a.m. Pacific, a sure way to generate buzz and drive traffic to MySpaceTV.

Launched yesterday, “My Damn Channel” is the latest online video venture that puts professionally produced content at its heart, rather than the user-generated affair found on sites like YouTube. The creation of former MTV and CBS Radio executive, Rob Barnett, the new venture appears to take its inspiration from the buzz created by the Will Ferrell video “The Landlord,” which helped launch Ferrell’s own site, FunnyorDie.com.

“My Damn Channel”currently features original productions by comedian Harry Shearer (“This is Spinal Tap”) who makes his debut as an all-singing Dick Cheney; music producer Don Was; indie filmmaker David Wain (“Wet Hot American Summer,” “The Ten”); and Andy Milonakis (“The Andy Milonakis Show,” MTV).

According to a study carried out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 57% of U.S. adults online have used the Internet to watch video, with 19% doing so on any typical day. And, perhaps predictably, the percentage increases as we move further down the age range.

More interestingly, over half of those that had accessed online video said that they share links to the videos they find with others — evidence of the viral opportunities offered by Internet TV — with young adults being the most active sharers of online video. Two in three (67%) video viewers ages 18-29 send others links to videos they find online, compared with just half of video viewers ages 30 and older.

With the BBC’s Internet TV service, iPlayer, set to launch in open Beta tomorrow, the public service broadcaster is facing mounting criticism because the application runs on Windows-based computers only. An e-petition on the UK government’s own website is calling for the iPlayer to be made compatible with computers running the Mac OS and Linux, and has so far collected over 10,000 “signatures”, prompting the BBC to reiterate its claim that a version which supports other operating systems will be made available “as soon as possible”.

Joost co-founder, Niklas Zennström, has revealed that the Internet TV service now has one million Beta testers, and is on track to fully launch by the end of the year. Speaking at a Skype press event, Zennström also acknowledged the challenge of scaling the peer-to-peer video platform, and stressed that the company’s main priority was ease-of-use.

While the numbers are impressive — as Mike Arrington notes, that’s a lot of Beta testers — the way the application has been marketed through a viral invite-only strategy, combined with a disproportionate amount of media coverage (compared to rivals such as Babelgum), I’m not that surprised that they’ve persuaded 1 million users to sign-up. However, trying the application once, and actually using Joost as a regular source of ‘television’, are two completely different things. My experience, and anecdotal evidence from friends, is that there simply isn’t enough compelling or unique content available yet (especially in Europe) to warrant regular use. To that end, it may well be that the chosen launch date won’t be based on technical considerations, but on securing enough new content to satisfy a major marketing blitz.

Since we launched last100, just over eight weeks ago, I’ve been obsessively trying out every Internet TV application that I can get my hands on. To assist some of our newer readers, here’s a quick recap of the Internet TV apps we’ve profiled so far.

Note: Many of the following applications offer very different features and solve different problems. This post isn’t designed to be a product comparison — because it would be like comparing apples with oranges — but instead serves as an overview of some of our coverage to-date.