“Websites for Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and other networks now show that the ‘content is unavailable for your device’ rather than loading the Flash video,”Electronista reports. “It joins blocks from Fox, NBC, SyFy, ABC and CBS and now virtually leaves just Turner as one of the major networks allowing Google TV.”
MacDailyNews Take: Introducing Turner TV by Google, home of Our Lady of Perpetual Beta.™ Hope you like the Braves. 
Electronista reports, “The lack of content from major providers has gutted much of the platform’s advantage for Internet video.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You don’t want the over-priced half-assery of Google TV, you want an Apple TV.
With almost every Apple product, as time goes by, the product becomes better thanks to frequent software updates that add features and functionality.
And here, we have a product that in its very short life span has lost almost all of its original functionality, thanks to Google’s ‘perpetual Beta’ strategy.
When your product lives or dies depending on agreements with others, you may want to make sure you actually HAVE some agreements in place before you launch the product.
Looks like talking to the networks might have been a good idea!
I’m amazed by how “right” Apple was with Apple TV, compared to Google TV.
Maybe Google can live stream its developers and management meetings so we can find out what is going on there. At least they’ll be half-ass entertaining.
I certainly believe that GoogleTV is half-baked, but I’m also mystified by the networks obstinacy. Google is simply slinging content from the internet to your TV. If the net-dorks are monetizing the internet content, then they should be able to monetize the same content on your TV. If they aren’t monetizing their own internet content, then why do they allow it?
If Google were blocking the ads or pop-ups or banners, I could understand a reluctance on their part but Google is simply shoveling everything from the computer screen to the TV screen. (And I do mean “shovelling!”)
Google might be dumb, but the networks are dumber.
Can’t wait for Santa to bring me one of these! Hopefully some level of functionality will remain by Christmas Day. Do you think the keyboard will still work by then or will John Dvorak sue for copyright infringement and have it deactivated?
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It’s just like with Apple, the networks smell money, even though they give the video away for free on the net, they see Google has billions and they want a cut. I feel bad for Google, but only a little bit. I think they owe buyers of GTV refunds plus penalties!
Users of GoogleTV should google Apple TV online & proceed to the Apple store to place an order. That will result in giving them something functional to watch.
Maybe it is time to unveil the Apple iDish! The multidirectional dish antenna with the free broadcast media source for your Mac, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The rest you get from iTunes and that big BILLION DOLLAR SERVER FARM.
Perhaps, like Apple, Google should have cut deals with the networks and cable providers they were intending to siphon content from.
Apple has been able to provide so much content because they negotiate BEFORE announcing/releasing a product or service.
Google, like Microsoft, assumed they could simply ram Google TV down the throats of content providers and take what they wanted.
Whether or not the content is already available for “free” or not, at least putting up an effort to involve cable providers may have convinced them not only to agree, but directly support G-TV.
Up the Ass, Mole.
The simplicity and FUN of Airplay is going to revolutionize home audio and video… google tv is too eggheaded, difficult to use and no content
@Mr. Reee
Google did try to negotiate with content providers. But after seeing what Eric T Mole did when he was on the board of Apple, they decided that dealing with MacBeth would only end up with one of them having a knife sticking out of their back. Beware the Trojan bearing gifts in the shape of a horse.
LMAOAGTTSTBAO!!!!
@ Cubert;
????????
@Ballmer’s left nut
I would have thought that seeing what Eric T Mole did at Burning Man would have been sufficient.
@ Synthmeister
Totally agree. If the networks actually had been working on creating a new system, this wouldn’t be an issue for Google TV or AppleTV, which has only 2 networks with rental right now. However, instead they have been throwing up roadblocks trying to preserve the old system. Of course, cable is totally complicit in this – they basically could have everything the Apple TV and Google TV, etc want to have, but were either too stupid or too greedy to do it. Normally I would say too greedy, but I think the thought never occurred to them that the content provider/cable marriage could easily transition to a new system without killing the revenue stream of advertising.
Google somehow made the TV experience more cumbersome with not much reward. The only thing they’ve added is Internet, which they’ve done in a really bad way. TV viewing is mostly passive (read relaxing). Did they get MSFT’s help on this?
Heh. Totally saw this coming. Poor blundering Google fails again.
Google’s numbers are going in the wrong direction.
Usually Apple’s start low and end up high.
Google is really doing some pioneering work.
Umm, what exactly does Google TV give me that I can’t do with this:
http://www.cablebaron.com/product/788/HiDef-HDMI-19-pin-to-DVI-video-cable (+the appropriate Mac DisplayPort adapter)?
rumor is Hulu Plus is coming to Google TV, but doesn’t that kind of defeat Google’s intended purpose?
This isn’t about the Google vs. the networks. This is about the networks vs. the world. Google, Apple, et.al. want to take the video content delivery system away from the cable operators, and this obviously scares the shit out of the networks.
How is this good for Apple? This really shouldn’t even be legal what the networks are doing. It’s like if the Cable companies started buying TV companies and didn’t allow their programming on certain TVs.
Or how would you feel if they found a way to block Tivo from even seeing any content.
Ideally, Google should’ve just put a modified version of Chrome, kept the version number the same as an existing product and then to the networks, it would just look like another browser.
As long as a majority of Americans think unbridled capitalism is the solution to everything, you will continue to take it in the rear from major corporations.
Say what you will about China… but at least they’re investing in infrastructure for the people… high speed rail everywhere, first rate highways systems, excellent telecommunications networks…
Bottomline is that everything has a price on it. If Google wants access to content, they need to play ball with the networks and show them a revenue model that can viably replace the billions that they currently get in broadcast ads AND carriage fees from cable/satellite providers. Otherwise, why would they give away their programming and let Google simply walk away with all the ad revenue? Simply leeching off of the web feeds isn’t going to cut it as a long-term business model.
With Hulu, the networks are willing to give away the content for free because they own the platform. And ownership of the platform means that they can monetize Hulu any number of different ways — by walling off certain content for subscribers, with web ads, by negotiating carriage fees with ISPs (IMO, this is a hidden tax that actually has a chance of catching on), or by prepping Hulu for an IPO.
Either way, the networks that created Hulu know that they make money off of it by controlling the platform. They’ve already aggregated millions of viewers to their site, and now they want to make cash in. Allowing Google TV unfettered access doesn’t pad the bottomline (yet), so it gets locked out.