The next episode of America's hottest reality show, The Amazing GOP Presidential Race, will air on CNN on Wednesday, Sept. 16. But unlike the first party debate, which ran last month on Fox News Channel, next week's showdown won't shut out cord cutters.

While FNC's live debate coverage was streamed across its many digital platforms, viewers needed to log in with cable provider credentials. CNN's debate, however, will be available on the network's various apps (as well as on CNN.com)—no cable credentials necessary.

The move is a refreshing about-face for CNN. Last month, a network representative told PCMag that only a 10-minute stream of the debate would be available to viewers before they needed to log in with their cable credentials, a very 2013 approach. That regressive stance was particularly disappointing as CNN has—to its credit—been fairly forward-looking in its use of technology (including making its livestream available sans cable provider via Sling TV).

I would love to say that CNN's reversal was purely in support of the democratic process (indeed, there is an argument to be made that all presidential debates should be available to everyone for free). However, the decision was likely due more to self-interested economics (and that's not necessarily a bad thing either).

The previous GOP debate starring attention blackhole Donald Trump was the highest-rated presidential debate in history. And, keep in mind, the true number of viewers was probably even higher than the official numbers—lots of people had debate-viewing parties or watched through other means (for example, I watched most of it on a stream on Periscope. (Come at me, News Corp.)

There was huge combover-inspired interest in this year's nomination race. Surely the advertisers for that first debate would have LOVED to have been in front as many official viewers as possible (and FNC would surely have loved to rent out those additional eyeballs).

This was a big missed opportunity for FNC, and it's a misstep that CNN is determined not to repeat. A CNN rep told PCMag in an email yesterday that it has "had huge advertiser interest across platforms for the debate, and by opening up the free preview, this will give advertisers additional exposure across platforms. Additionally, we're digitally inserting ads into the CNNgo experience, which offers additional revenue."

However it got there, the general thrust of things is going in the right direction—i.e. the cord-cutter's direction. All content should be streamable in 2015, be it supported with ads or available via a subscription (and the important stuff like political debates should probably be available for free). Cable companies are unnecessary relics of a past media age. They need to get out of the content game and concentrate on providing reliable Internet service.

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