Steve Gillmor wrote a blog post the other day that almost had me resurrect myself from a stomach bug and post a response. But hell, I just didn’t have the energy. However, when I read Heather Green’s response today I figured I was going to have to weigh in.

Essentially Steve’s point was that television is dead.

What Steve should have said, and Heather points out, is that “linear” television is dead. Heather calls it “appointment TV, broadcast TV the way we knew it, the type of TV production of the past.” The TV of old, the one we had to schedule our lives around, is dead.

In fact I’d argue, that out of all the major old media/mediums, television and the networks have responded the quickest and in more compelling ways than any other have to the Internet.

Take Ron Moore’s Battlestar Podcasts. Other than the fact that episode four of season three marks a pinnacle in television, the podcast is just so damn good. Who else sits down with a packet of cigarets and glass of scotch and provides a running commentary each of week of the behind the scenes. How transparent and 2.0 is that!

Take Chaser’s War, one of Australia’s best comedy shows in well over a decade. For the later part of the recent season you could subscribe to their RSS feed and have the weekly episode on your iPod within a day of the show airing on the ABC.

Take The OC, a show that’s a little out of my demographic, but according to this panel interviewed by Guy Kawasaki right smack in Gen Y. MySpace just announced it’ll be releasing the show a full week before it airs on Fox.

Just wait for a few innovative ways of shows tapping into the audience in real time. We’ll be seeing some pretty remarkable ways for people to create a series. Imagine a season of Lost that you can control. Maybe we’d know what they hell it all meant by the end, or maybe we’d be more confused.

I’ve only covered a few areas where I think television is excelling in it’s embrace of the Internet. Give me a short time and I’ll continue the list. There is no doubt that just blatting out a weekly show to the airwaves is dead, but it’s rapidly being replaced by a new way of “casting.” iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, and the “next big thing” are all just extending the reach, not killing television.