Cutting the Cord: The shape of streaming things to come
You don't need a crystal ball to get an inkling of what an online video future might look like. Several recent developments suggest we'll soon have more stuff to watch in more ways.
Traditional pay-TV providers, media companies, streaming video upstarts — and courts — are all making moves. "Hardly a day goes by without evidence of major disruption in the TV ecosystem," eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna said.
Remember Aereo? That pioneering streaming company got shut down last year after the Supreme Court ruled that it needed to pay broadcasters for the re-transmission of their content. Aereo had argued that its leasing of tiny individual antennas for each paying customer made it OK to stream local channels online.
Aereo filed for bankruptcy, but another fledgling video provider, FilmOn, continued the legal fight to stream local TV broadcasts. FilmOn, which has more than 600 TV channels and podcasts and 50 audio channels, lends subscribers a software desktop presence to watch U.S. and international broadcasts.
Last week, a U.S. District Court ruled that it should be able to get a compulsory license to legally stream local broadcasts. The ruling is under appeal, but should it be upheld it means that local TV stations can be streamed by any number of services, including Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, said Mitch Stoltz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It will destroy ... existing cable and satellite systems’ comfortable position as the only ones who can transmit broadcast TV for a fee," he said.
Speaking of Hulu, the online video destination owned by ABC, Fox and NBC appears to be considering an ad-free option. Currently, Hulu can be viewed for free, but a $7.99 monthly subscription gets you access to additional episodes and full seasons of TV series — and viewing on more devices. Ads play on both tiers of service.
An ad-free option could cost a bit more — $12 to $14 a month — sources told The Wall Street Journal. That might sound good to fans of series such as South Park and Seinfeld, available exclusively on Hulu, and cinephiles who enjoy watching films from the Criterion Collection.
NBC Universal's parent company, Comcast, is doing some experimenting, too. Later this summer, the provider of broadband and pay-TV services will begin testing its own streaming video service, called Stream, among Xfinity Internet subscribers in Boston. A rollout in Chicago and Seattle is planned next, with availability to all Comcast customers in early 2016. Its twist: The $15 monthly service that includes a dozen channels, including HBO, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS, will be viewable on tablets, computers and smartphones — not TVs.
Just as cable TV became entrenched and has been challenged by satellite and telecom fiber services, traditional pay-TV providers now face competition from Net-delivered services "and innovations in technology, business models, content aggregation, distribution, presentation and ultimately viewing and interactivity," said The Diffusion Group's director of research Michael Greeson. "We’re talking true disruption."
Cutting the Cord is a regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via e-mail at msnider@usatoday.com. And follow him on Twitter: @MikeSnider.