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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.'"
"If we litigate, we have a chance to win."
Is that really the lines a business should be thinking on to advance and expand business??
" but the channel owners fear that this will disrupt current and future revenue streams and that they need to stop it now." No, me not watching your shows because they aren't in the format I wish will "disrupt your current and future revenue streams" though.
The channel owners are right. You have NO BUSINESS getting what you already pay for! Especially if it is more convenient for you.
Good god, if a tv show intended for viewing on a tv inside a home was allowed to be shown on one of those newfangled gadgets that are electronical and have viewing screens that show magical MOVING IMAGES while inside a home, who KNOWS what might happen NEXT! We gotta stop this NOW, before someone thinks of a way to somehow magically store those shows to see them later inside that same house, or, god forbid, see the shows on TWO TVs in the same house at the same time!!!!!111eleventyone
everyone panic and someone for the love of god CALL THE LAWYERS!
The fact that other companies have found a way to rip consumers off does not give you the right to do the same.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
This is way less of a threat than the Slingbox, which has been around for years. I've been streaming my TiVo and cable content to myself over the Net for 5 years. And of course they have iPad and iPhone apps now...
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
How SCOTUS decided that:
If I buy Time Warner Cable, and have Time Warner Internet, and get shows from Time Warner and this app requires the above, wouldn't displaying the stream on an iPad instead of a television simply be space-shifting the stream.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This should come at no surprise to any one. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Of course they're going to panic when they see control of the distribution channels slip away from them. What these idiots don't understand is that if they adjusted their business model, they could make a decent amount of money with current technology. Maybe that's why they're idiots.
I'm sure they'll come up with some bullshit argument as to how this is "stifling competition". That seems to their answer for everything. Kind of like "OMG TERRORISTS!".
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
for their subscribers. For a company that is loated and hated by most of their customers who feel trapped in a dictatorship of ever escalating pricing, poor quality and lack of innovation, this iPad app is a serious step towards them doing something great for their customers.
I have been doing this with a Slingbox for 8 years now, and I can (theoretically, since I have not really watched TV in at least 5 years now, beyond some BBC news here and there) watch my cable TV anywhere in the world either on my computer or mobile device. I don't remember anyone ever suing Slingbox.
Besides, you would think people wanting to watch your crappy, commercial riddled programming would be a good thing? But no, these fuckers are so set in their ways that any change is perceived as threat.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
They're trying to preserve theoretical income they don't have yet.
Time warner is a middle man. The channels want to bypass the middle man and sell streaming content over their (Time warner) internet connection to end users for retail price (instead of discounted prices you sell to a middle man at), while still charging Time warner high prices deliver the same channels to the same subscribers' TV.
Hey execs, call Charlie Sheen. He's #WINNING all the time, right? Seriously. This app is basically, "Turn your iPad into a TV while it's tethered to Time Warner service," which is effectively the opposite analog to TVs that now have Netflix/Vudu support built into them so you can turn it into a quasi-PC. If anything, the TV channel execs should have been more pissed about that, because eyeballs that used to watch reruns of Dawson's Creek are now checking out Netflix and other cheap/free streaming video options on their TV. This app is doing nothing more than making their content get seen by more people in more ways. The reason they're pissed is because THEY want to sell streaming apps of their own, so you can buy the Glee app and pay every month for that. What they're not seeing is that you have to be tethered to home (and your TW internet connection), which makes this app only marginally useful. If you wanted to take your iPad to the beach and watch Glee, this app wouldn't help you and you'd need to buy the silly Glee app from the network anyway.
In other news, buggywhip makers decry the surging popularity of horseless carriages.
No, as far as i can tell from the description they're not worried that people don't want to buy buggywhips anymore. This is buggywhip makers complaining that people have discovered a new way to use their buggywhips, but each person is using the same whip for multiple purposes instead of buying a separate whip for each way in which they want to use it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The right solution here is for somebody to make a TV/Internet service that allows 100% a la carte channel/content offerings. I have to pay $80 for TV to get all the stuff I want to see, but I have interest in fewer than 1% of what's available. I don't want your Music Choice, or your porn (I have my own of both). I don't want Martha Stewart. I don't even want football games other than the ones my team plays in. Seriously, the best model for stuff like this is iTunes right now. For the last season of Stargate Atlantis, I didn't have a cable subscription, so I paid $20 for a 4-month season pass for SG:A, effectively paying $5 a month for the one show I cared about rather than $100 a month for a zillion shows that I couldn't care less for. I got all the episodes, in HD, when I wanted to watch them, and without commercial interruption. My only gripes are that the people who watched on TV got to see it a few days earlier, and that the video purchase ratings don't count as heavily when determining whether to renew a show. Maybe that's the solution - let's take a recently cancelled show (pick any of the ones SyFy recently axed). Set a production budget for a season of the show, and then post online, "We need X dollars, which is X/20 subscriptions at $20 each. If we can get at least X/20 pre-order subscriptions, we'll have a season." I bet they'd make a pretty nice profit, and have nobody to share it with (except maybe Apple/Amazon/Netflix).
And go out and play! Do hobbies!
I've been 'free' for 32 years.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Apparently these hacks missed the whole DVR revolution? They never ever heard of slingbox?
As far as I can recognize TV viewers fall into the following categories.
* Traditional TV watchers who structure their lives around watching specific shows at a specific time.
* DVR TV watchers who sit down and watch a previously recorded show. Maybe at some specific time (such as after the kids are in bed, etc) maybe not.
* Content consumers who watch their show of choice on their device of choice, may it be a tablet, laptop, smartphone, etc.
It's quite possible there's a Venn diagram of the latter two.
The executives want the first kind, stubbornly tolerate the second kind and absolutely hate the third kind (it would appear). What it comes down to is that their revenue model is breaking and they can't adapt fast enough.
I'm of the opinion that we need to move to an ala-carte system where you'd pay for the channels you want.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
If you worked for a cable co such as TWC (I'm an ex-employee), this is nothing new. In-fighting between your local Cable Co and the broadcasters is an age old non-stop holy war. Both the providers and the conduit want a cut of the profit. The only thing new is that you guys on Slashdot are just now figuring this out. So the next time your sporting event gets blacked out, or your rates change, it's quite possible that your local Cable Co is passing the costs down to you along with other inflationary expenditures such as fuel and electricity.
Life is not for the lazy.
Except that there isn't anything stopping them from streaming directly to the consumer. If they do it better, more seamlessly than TWC people will get it directly.
The channels have way more power than TWC does now thanks to the internet. They're just too stupid to realize it.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
"I don't want to work for my money. I'd rather rest on my laurels."
Except that there isn't anything stopping them from streaming directly to the consumer. If they do it better, more seamlessly than TWC people will get it directly.
Time warner can stop them, by not providing a sufficiently high quality internet connection, for the streaming to be successful. They could limit the longevity of a connection (so you can't watch a long program uninterrupted), shape certain bandwidth, or give the channels poor access to TW's network.
People streaming significant amount of Television will be using a lot of bandwidth (probably beyond the capabilities of their own internet connections, if everyone does it), so TW can discourage by capping internet usage... E.g. Verizon-style 2GB per month cap.
Time warner cable internet can provide much better access to their own streams, since they themselves are streaming it -- the stream data doesn't need to cross congested transit links (to other providers they pay for limited amounts of transit internet access needs)
The cable operator could also block/disrupt the channels' websites, or demand they pay for the ability to use their customers' internet connections.
And all of that is why we want net neutrality.
At the end of the day content producers and owners need to recognize that there is value to having people seeking out your show. Whether that is watching it live, later on DVR, or on TWCs iPad app because the DVR missed the episode it is contrary to their interest to make that content difficult for a fan to find.
The ecosystem also needs to clean up the rights to broadcast/stream so it is clear what is being purchased when a show is sold to a network. This should include a plan for getting content everywhere that Netflix streams to. They currently have 35 hardware devices on their supported tech list. They range from game consoles to Roku boxes to phones. If you own content you should have a plan to get your content to a sizeable chunk of this list. Having TWC send it to iPads is a good start. Clean up your contracts so it is clear if they can.
The crazy thing is they could probably get me to watch a non-skippable commercial on the TWC/iPad stream which I would skip right past on my Tivo.
[cc: any thread about hulu on non-computer hardware]
Oh the horror, that technology might actually improve people's lives without first being productized, monetized, marketed, legislated, litigated, and consecrated by all the proper authorities.
Technology has the power to break down so many barriers, to streamline so many stupid little inefficiencies in daily life, but a few big businesses are so invested in wringing profit out of those barriers and inefficiencies that we just can't seem to get rid of them -- instead we go to great lengths to preserve and enhance the barriers instead of just rolling right over them! (e.g. DRM)
In most people's houses in the US, the only tangible difference between a streaming TV show and a broadcast TV show is that the signal uses different protocols. They even both come over the same cable from the same provider.
My actual TV (samsung LN52A750) is really a computer. it has an ethernet connector and apparently runs some form of Linux. An iPad (not that I would ever own one) is more locked-down and DRM-ridden than my TV actually.
Apparently you won't even be able to save the show on the iPad for later viewing, just view it in your own home. _Exactly_ identical to your TV service other than its on demand.
I really don't see what all the fuss is about.
If the content providers win and they start to stream their own content to us then I can get what I always wanted in the first place, that being "a la carte" pricing of cable TV content. I refuse to pay $50/month for the 4 channels I'd like to watch, so I just don't have TV. If all the cable channels start to stream their own content for a buck or two a month then I can finally get a little content which I for one would like. PBR on VS for the win!
So the Channel owners sue ComCast and Apple... Comcast and Apple then put more ridiculous restrictions on their apps. Then people get annoyed with Apple, Comcast and the Cable Channels... This is a plan with no drawbacks!