Hasta La Gadget!

Television networks aren’t happy at all about the Aereo TV service. Aereo recently won a court decision upholding its right to stream broadcast television without paying retransmission fees. Previously, television studio Fox had threatened to pull its programming off the over the air airwaves to prevent Aereo from accessing its signal.

Television network CBS has also announced that it will consider pulling its programming from over the airwaves if Aereo continues to broadcast its signals to customers. CBS says that it would consider moving to a subscription only model in the New York area. If CBS made good on the threat it would mean that no one in the New York area would be able to access CBS programming using an antenna over the air.

Many see this as an empty threat because if Fox and CBS stock over the air broadcasts, it would mean that they would lose some viewers who don’t subscribe to cable and access programming exclusively over the air. A Fox executive previously claimed that the network needed to build a revenue stream model of retransmission fees and advertising to sustain its business.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves stated this week that he “wholeheartedly” supported Fox’s statements and that CBS had been in talks with cable operators about taking its broadcast signal off the air. The latest row in the Aereo saga came after a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling in favor of the Aereo service. The service uses a network of small antennas to pick up over the air broadcast signals that it streams over the Internet to subscribers making the content viewable on just about any Internet connected device.

[via CNET]

CBS may also ditch OTA broadcasts if Aereo continues is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Quick: what’s the difference between a broadcast TV network (Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC) and a cable channel (TBS, TNT, ESPN, etc.)? Oh, only millions and millions of viewers. Nevertheless, Fox’s COO Chase Carey is perturbed enough by the mere thought of Aereo getting its way, that he’s already claiming that the network will go dark in favor of becoming a cable channel — if and when OTA network streaming over the internet is completely legalized, that is. Causticism aside, Carey’s remarks are certainly indicative of how the networks feel about the potential disruption of their revenue stream, and moreover, showcases just how far we are from living in a world that isn’t dominated by the same old processes when it comes to entertainment.

Carey stated: “We need to be able to be fairly compensated for our content. This is not an ideal path we look to pursue, but we can’t sit idly by and let an entity steal our signal. We will move to a subscription model if that’s our only recourse.“

Is it possible that Fox would suddenly vanish from over-the-air antennas everywhere, screwing up countless programming agreements with a near-endless amount of partners? Sure… but it’s also possible that the ninth circle of Hades will be converted into an NHL arena. We’re calling your bluff, Carey.

Update: According to the New York Times, Univision chairman Haim Saban joined the saber rattling, stating that his network is ready to consider all options, including converting to pay-tv.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: Bloomberg

Aereo has survived another legal attack on its web TV service, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejecting an appeal by the big broadcasters angry with the streaming system the start-up offers. The networks had hoped to overturn a 2012 ruling that gave Aereo the green light to launch in New York City last year, but the appeals court decided that Aereo’s service basically follows the path laid down by Cablevision’s web-based RS-DVR.

That had been the subject of a lawsuit – and subsequent appeal – by copyright holders angry that Cablevision was hosting a copy of their movies and TV shows in the cloud without separate licensing. Cablevision argued (and won on the argument that) it was not a video-on-demand service, given it was recording individual copies of broadcasts for each user, and only if they had initially requested that recording.

Aereo’s system, the appeals court decided [pdf link], works in the same fundamental way. A copy per user is stored, rather than a single master from which all broadcasts are shown, and it is not a public broadcast.

“When an Aereo customer elects to watch or record a program using either the “Watch” or “Record” features, Aereo’s system creates a unique copy of that program on a portion of a hard drive assigned only to that Aereo user. And when an Aereo user chooses to watch the recorded program, whether (nearly) live or days after the program has aired, the transmission sent by Aereo and received by that user is generated from that unique copy. No other Aereo user can ever receive a transmission from that copy. Thus, just as in Cablevision, the potential audience of each Aereo transmission is the single user who requested that a program be recorded”

In fact, the appeals court compares the Aereo system and the precedent set by the Cablevision ruling in-depth, with particular emphasis on the fact that each user has dedicated access to a specific Aereo antenna. The minutiae of the 1976 copyright act – and the fact that the current media technology landscape differs significantly from the “environment of 1976″ – also gets investigated.

One member of the appeals court, Judge Chin, disagrees with the overall ruling, describing Aereo’s system as “a sham” and arguing that the antenna array is “a Rube Goldberg-like
contrivance, over-engineered in an attempt to avoid the reach of the Copyright Act and to take advantage of a perceived loophole in the law.” However, his opinion won’t provide much solace to the broadcasters, who now face a supreme court battle if they want to stop Aereo’s service.

That service could well get a kick thanks to today’s appeal court ruling. The cloud of litigation had reportedly been a thorn in Aereo’s expansion plans, which include chatter of a deal with AT&T and/or DISH. That could see Aereo service bundled with AT&T broadband plans, insiders claim.

[via The Verge]

Aereo wins in appeals court is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Nielsen Company has monitored TV audiences since 1950, but soon it will expand that definition from solely households with antenna, cable or satellite access, but also those that have dropped those options but still get video over the internet. Reflecting the changing times, the move was first noted by The Hollywood Reporter and confirmed later by company executives to the New York Times and LA Times. Nielsen hinted at changes two years ago when TV ownership dropped for the first time in decades, which may turn around since the new definition includes viewers with internet-connected TVs, and could go further to include viewers with just a tablet or laptop. According to senior VP Pat McDonough, that means views over services like Aereo can be counted, since they still contain advertisements, which is what broadcasters rely on the ratings for, unlike ad-free Netflix or Hulu streams with different ads. Because of that, it seems unlikely the change will boost the numbers of internet darlings like Community or Arrested Development, but we can dream, right?

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter, LA Times, NYT

Ever since its humble (and very ambitious) beginnings, Aereo has suffered a few hiccups along the way, but that’s not stopping the service from kicking off the new year with a rather striving scheme. The company today announced that it’s expanding outside of NYC and bringing its over-the-air TV broadcasts to 22 more US cities in 2013, with said move expected to reach cities such as Boston, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Baltimore, Denver, Detroit and Washington, DC. According to Aereo’s CEO, Chet Kanojia, the firm’s been “working hard to bring Aereo to consumers across the country and we’re excited to expand our reach to these 22 new cities,” adding that “consumers want and deserve choice.” Dear, Chet, we wholeheartedly agree. The full list of new markets can be found in the PR after the break, and we can only hope there’s plenty more to come as the year progresses.

Continue reading Aereo plans to launch its streaming TV service in 22 more cities this year

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Source: Aereo