Internet TV's poster child is Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp., NBC Universal and Disney which offers television shows over the Internet for "free" to consumers ("free" does not really mean free, because the programming is ad-driven precisely the same way as conventional broadcast TV is not really "free"). IPTV, on the other hand, is a controlled "walled garden" approach to providing television programming over the Internet -- consumers can't choose what they want; rather, the cable companies and telcos choose to make such programming available only to consumers who also pay monthly for traditional cable TV. This IPTV approach to providing video programming over the Internet is the cable companies/telcos' attempt to preserve the status quo of the economics in their business during a period of massive disruption that is inevitable with the onset of faster and faster broadband.
Well, that epic battle begins today, as the two cable industry behemoths -- Comcast and Time Warner -- officially introduce their IPTV initiative which they call "TV Everywhere." But, as reported by the Los Angeles Times today, technology has been a hurdle to the efforts of these giants to keep their content "walled" from the outside world. If we have learned nothing else from the past several years, we have learned that content "wants to be free" -- as in freely available over the Internet (that does not mean that consumers won't pay for it via pay-per-download, subscriptions or ads). I am firmly in the camp, therefore, who believe that Internet TV ultimately will win the war in this epic battle, even if IPTV wins the initial battles (which it most assuredly will given the clout of these giants with the major TV content providers).
Posts
