Television is going online.

Shows are streaming over the Web. Seventeen percent of television viewers watched at least one or two shows per week online. Next year it will be 21 percent.

About 1.3 million people watched at least an hour of golf on the CBS Sports Masters Web site last week.

In the last two years, more than 800,000 consumers “cut the cable” and stopped their cable or satellite service, probably because they can watch what they want over the Web.

Next year, that number is expect to double to 1.6 million.

The content is the same — shows, sports, movies — but the avenues for consumption are changing. Content is finding Alternate Avenues to Consumers.

What about in your business?

Can you think creatively about your Alternate Avenues to Consumers?

Broadcast media, sure. It remains the best way to reach moms and dads with your devices.

Social networking? I argue that it’s a terrible way to reach consumers. More on this in another post.

But what about partnerships and licensing? If you have a great device that people don’t know about, how about getting it to consumers via a bigger company, with larger reach:

• Consider Google, with its Android OS. Do you think HTC would be a brand people know without Google’s partnership and obvious endorsement?
• Consider all those app makers. Would they on consumers’ home screens (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) without the endorsement and access of those major firms?
• Consider Vizio, the low-cost HDTV maker. Where would they be today without Costco, which put them at the front of the store.
• Consider the top-selling Kindle downloads, some of which you’ve never heard of. Where would those authors be without Amazon?

Who can you ally yourself with that already has a major reach to your target consumers?

They’ve already done the work. Now all you have to do is convince them, once, instead of thousands of consumers, one at a time.