Slashdot Mirror
Cable Channels Panic Over iPad Streaming App
jfruhlinger writes "Time Warner Cable this month released an iPad app that would allow its subscribers to stream (some of) the channels they already pay for to their iPad, so long as they're connected to home Internet service provided by Time Warner Cable. The app probably seems like a baby step to most Slashdotters, and was extremely popular among subscribers — but it's thrown the owners of those channels into a panic, and they're threatening lawsuits. Time Warner says the contracts they've signed with the channels allow broadcast to any device in the home — 'I don't know what a TV is anymore,' says one company exec — but the channel owners fear that this will disrupt current and future revenue streams and that they need to stop it now. 'If we allow this without litigation, everyone will do it tomorrow,' says an anonymous source. 'If we litigate, we have a chance to win.'"
People are probably taking Time Warner's side because streaming cable channels to your computer is so obvious that everyone is shocked that the channels are objecting to it. The fact that Time Warner is doing it, and channels are trying to stop them, is pretty much where everyone stops reading.
Really, there should be no litigation here. Customers pay for cable service, which means channels are streamed to them; it should make no difference what type of computer they use to watch those channels.
Palm trees and 8
... streaming isn't counted by Nielsen
Then Nielsen is fucking stupid, and by extension so are the execs for the channels that are accepting what Neilsen says. Streaming views should be easier to collect and be more accurate than doing statistics on a sample and estimating how many viewers there were.