NBC Universal plans to take Trio, its arts and pop culture cable channel, off the air and move it online by January 2006, according to MediaPost (via MediaBuyerPlanner). Trio will offer online viewers - under the BravoTV.com banner - much of the same content that is available on cable, including documentaries, music videos and its "Brilliant, But Cancelled" series.

Early this year, DirecTV stopped carrying Trio, which reaches only about 8.8 million subscribers out of 110 million TV households. Although the channel wasn't thriving on television, the move to online will likely be seen as a demotion.

However, according to Robert Thompson, director of the Center of the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, "this could be the best thing for them, if they can pull it off."

He said it could be seen as a "cool and hip" move to be the first channel to go online.