“A landmark case is about to be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court that could affect most Americans in their daily lives,” Nat Worden writes for MarketWatch. “The outcome of the case will dictate how much our cable or satellite service costs, and it could influence how we watch everything from ‘Modern Family’ to the Oscars, the World Series and the Super Bowl.”
“The case pits the major U.S. broadcast networks, and their corporate parents like CBS, ABC’s Disney, FOX’s News Corp. and NBC’s Comcast against a small, privately held start-up called Aereo,” Worden writes. “If Aereo loses, it goes away — kaput. But if it wins, the entire media and entertainment industry could be transformed.”
MacDailyNews Note: Strike that, reverse it. It’s not “ABC’s Disney.” ABC is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company.
“Aereo, launched in 2012 and available in a handful of cities, provides online access to broadcast TV shows by leasing a cloud-based HD antenna to each of its individual subscribers starting at $8 a month. The antennas, which receive free over-the-air broadcast signals, are connected to DVRs and high-speed Internet connections, allowing subscribers to watch live TV streams and time-shifted programming online,” Worden writes. “if Aereo succeeds in making broadcast TV content easily available to consumers online without a traditional pay-TV subscription like cable or satellite, the consumer trend toward dropping such subscriptions in favor of online video alternatives like Netflix, Amazon, Apple’s iTunes and Google’s YouTube could accelerate.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Aereo wins, Apple wins.
Related articles:
US federal court suspends Aereo internet TV service in several states – February 20, 2014
By putting over-the-air online legally, Aereo clears the way for all TV everywhere – April 10, 2013
Apple is a winner in the Aereo online TV ruling, for now – July 12, 2012