Broadcasters and cable operators haven’t been seeing eye to eye about the cable industry’s TV Everywhere initiative, which will offer online users Internet video as a free supplement to their cable subscription. The debate so far is over compensation — with some eager to impose unskippable ads on consumers, and other even hoping to charge for the added functionality. Comcast for one says they’re going to leave the decision over what kind of ads the system imposes on consumers in the hands of broadcasters:

Comcast will leave decisions about commercial placement for its version in the hands of programmers, according to Matt Strauss, the operator’s senior vice president of new media. “I don’t know what the right model ultimately is going to be,” he said. “Our job is to provide the infrastructure to allow the programmer to decide” how to place ads.

Of course should Comcast’s deal with NBC go through, they will effectively be broadcasters, which means they should probably have an idea of what kind of ad model they’d like to see the broadband video service employ — right? The entire idea of TV Everywhere was to keep customers from cutting the cord. However, if TV Everywhere is a clunky, unskippable ad-laden mess with limited selection and bickering content and delivery partners — the initiative could have the opposite effect of the one intended.

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