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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.'"
" 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.
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!
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.
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.
My real problem with taking this stance is that they've pre-determined that constraining the distribution of their content is defined as, "winning." Of course, we know from the history of every type of media to touch the Net that this is absurd. The services that win (though it might take a decade or more) are those that are least constrained. The only problem is that of determining how to monetize that process.
I do feel for the networks, though. They are trapped. If the TV model dies and is replaced by the model where every device has equal access to ubiquitous data, they're screwed. There is absolutely no way that they will be able to maintain the kind of revenues that they've enjoyed on the initial distribution, which means that they need to rely on the secondary distribution to make up the difference.
It's a hard thing to be in a nearly century-old market that suddenly undergoes such a tectonic shift, and I'm certain that several companies that are pillars of the entertainment business today will be gone in 20 years as a result. We just need to remember that that's their problem, and not one that we should allow them to force the federal government into trying to resolve for them.
... 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.