“As the big picture comes into focus though, it looks like the cable guys are playing the lead roles, using the fees they pay content providers as leverage. Cable, satellite and telecommunication companies pay $32 billion a year, according to media research firm SNL Kagan. The alphabet soup of newbies is still waiting in the wings for a moment that might never come,” Grover, Lowry and Edwards report. “What happened? Part of the answer is TV Everywhere, a service in its infancy, conjured up in strategy sessions by Jeff Bewkes and Brian Roberts, the chief executive officers of New York-based Time Warner Inc. and Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. They took a lesson from the music labels, which looked up one day to find that Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. had taken control of their inventory.”
“The cable guys came up with a quick, technologically simple fix: Viewers can watch shows for free, but only if they’re cable subscribers first. As long as you tap a subscription code into your device — any device — you can watch anything you want, whenever you want,” Grover, Lowry and Edwards report. “It’s worth hitting pause here for a moment. Right now, Time Warner is offering the service in only a few markets. Comcast has rolled out a trial, or beta, version to about 80 percent of its subscribers, according to the company. There are plenty of kinks to be sorted out.”
Grover, Lowry and Edwards report that when “Apple CEO Steve Jobs began renting out TV shows online, the cable companies beat back that onslaught by beefing up their video-on- demand offerings and giving subscribers free shows with a few clicks of the remote.” Still, “TV Everywhere has a ways to go before the cable guys can declare victory.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “84 Mac Guy” for the heads up.]
Seriously…. that’s a big link MDN.
DirecTV on demand is useless and uninspired! Apple TV all the way!
For starters u need to be a cable tv customer. Not so with iTunes.
excellent idea, now if we could only punch those codes into itunes/hulu and rent/watch the tv shows for free
Cable guys want to sell subscriptions — because they can rake in insane amounts of money with it. Which is precisely why I don’t have cable TV — I know I’m being ripped off with it.
I like iTunes and Apple TV; I pay for what I want to see, and nothing else. And I feel that the makers of the content I like are (or at least could be) fairly compensated with a business model based on iTunes/Apple TV.
If I wouldn’t get the content on iTunes (or other legal channels) — well, there’s always the not so legal channels, where I get the content truly for free (cash-wise, there are other hassles attached to it). It’s not what I want to do, since I’m circumventing compensation of the makers, but if the big guys don’t give me any other choice, I am not above it.
It’s the last point the big guys need to really understand: It doesn’t matter when their content appears on some legal online site a day after airing. It’s already out there for free. If you don’t offer it online, and try to get at least part of your money back, you will lose ALL of it.
Got enough TEXT in that “link”, guys?
The cable TV model of paying a monthly subscription for all-you-can-eat video, is like subscribing to so much shovel-ware. Its akin to a Roman food orgy, replete with vomitorium. Why be charged for all that ‘bundled media’ that you’ll never, ever watch?
With so many things screaming for our attention in this modern world, the video-on-demand model seems much better suited to today’s media-rich, mobile culture. Pay for what you want to watch, not what you don’t..
Apple is creating a new video distribution model where all parties in the supply chain benefit, from content creators to content consumers. The iPad is poised to benefit from this emerging paradigm. TV a la carte anyone?
Yeah, MDN seems to be having big problems with the stories today. Something’s getting messed up, and it even looks like we’re missing the first paragraph of each story.
I think you might be looking for this: </a>
“media research firm SNL Kagan” — I didn’t know Saturday Night Live did media research.
——RM
This question is a bit off target for this article, but perhaps someone here can answer it. I like to check out clips from the Daily Show and Colbert Report since I don’t always watch them live.
Since Adobe did a security update to Flash Player last summer, it has run horribly on my iMac in both Safari and Firefox. I often get a variety of error messages, including “adjust local/global storage” etc.
Long story is, I can’t watch the videos on the Comedy Central site. Hulu worked great until Viacom pulled both shows from there. And unfortunately, recent stuff is hard to find on YouTube. Some clips of the show guests are there, but usually not the opening monologues.
So, can someone suggest another site for Daily Show/Colbert
clips?
Thanks.
@islandgirl: Just tried it in Safari on my iMac, and no problems here — I’m still running 4.0.4 so not sure if new one will screw me up.
@ Islandgirl,
I have had the same experience as you describe. Just another example of how video distribution is in a current state of flux..
In the mean time, both the venerable Daily Show and the excellent Colbert Report are available on iTunes for (currently) 1.99/show. But then, you probably already knew that.
So, where’s the funny now?!
@iWill – Which is exactly the problem with the current TV pricing structure on iTunes. Watching Stewart and Colbert on iTunes would cost $64 a month, a big chunk of the monthly charge for cable or satellite service. Still searching for the value equation here.
iTunes is renting out TV shows? That’s news to me… I’m aware they’re selling them.
Renting would be nice, with prices a lot less than the current $1.99 per episode for a whole bunch of talk shows like Stewart, Colbert et al.
@justme2
I’m running Safari 4.0.4 too, albeit on OS X 10.4.11. Flash broke for me after a security update last year, but maybe the issue doesn’t affect 10.5 or 10.6. I know it’s Flash Player itself because it doesn’t work in Firefox 3.6 either.
I work out of my home and my iMac is company-issued. They pinch pennies so upgrading the OS, which then would mean upgrading QuarkXpress, etc, isn’t high on their priorities.
@iWill
Yes, I could buy it on iTunes, but as lurker pointed out, that would get pretty pricey, especially when I mainly just want to see the opening monologue. A subscription fee would be workable.
Oh well, maybe one day I’ll be able to get a new Mac mini and display, assuming they still make them by then.
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@iWill
Main Entry: Vomitorium
Part of Speech: n
Definition: In a theater or stadium, esp. ancient, a passageway leading to and from the seating
Etymology: Latin vomitorius, alluding to the path’s discharging of the spectators
For most people, a la carte TV is what they want. The ability to watch whatever shows they want, when they want either for a nominal price (iTunes) or for free (Hulu). Some people, like me, would even fork over some change each month to subscribe to a few networks of value like Comedy Central and Syfy. That arrangement, in fact, is what AppleTV is made for.
What the Bloomberg story tells us, however, is that we are going in the opposite direction. The cable companies (Comcast & Times-Warner) are swimming in so much cash that they have ripped off from their customers, that they are using it to lock up the market for video entertainment. They are making deals with media providers and networks that prevent these providers from selling/renting individual shows through outlets like iTunes and Netflix. Hell, that’s why Comcast bought NBC, to gain more content and eventually (mark my words) pull it from free TV and onto cable.
I suspect the only way this monopolistic behavior by the cable companies will be stopped is the same approach that forced the record companies to allow Steve Jobs to sell individual songs. That approach is rampant piracy of TV shows.