You’d think things would slow down as summer gets going, but aside from less interesting primetime, there are still things we didn’t get to this week. We blame the holiday.
1) We’ve written about TiVo’s recent push with its Roamio device and Aereo’s assets, but this piece looks at TiVo’s strategy for a “legal Aereo.”
There’s a few problems with TiVo’s plan. One, cable operators aren’t eager to embrace any service that’s actually disruptive, lest it cannibalize existing pay TV subscribers. Two, Aereo’s appeal was largely price; the company offered cheap service by using micro-antennas to skirt copyright law and avoid paying programming fees. Any legal version of Aereo would likely be notably more expensive and rife with broadcaster restrictions.
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Good luck with that.
2) The New York Times is on it, again. But really. This week, in light of Charter Commuincation’s announcement to buy Brighthouse and Time Warner, James Stewart looks at how Netflix, somehow, remains on the right side of all these battles. Have you heard of the N.C.C.?
Indeed, the corporate philosophy of Netflix, which was once thought to be outgunned in Washington by the East Coast media conglomerates and their vast lobbying forces, now seems so pervasive that the Federal Communications Commission, or F.C.C., is being referred to by some media executives — half-jokingly and half-enviously — as the “N.C.C.”
3) I guess we’re just supposed to give Facebook everything, right? Over at TV Rev, Trevor Doerkson examines Facebook TV and its news feed — which autoplays videos — as a sort of program guide. An “alpha version” of what Facebook TV could be:
But this is early Facebook TV, an alpha version, and it’s already arguably bigger than pay TV and YouTube, outside of the Super Bowl. At 8:00 AM, I check the Facebook video news feed/program guide and I see that there is a new video about the war in Syria and another one about Hernandes scoring a goal for Inter Milan; both videos have more viewers than a Lakers game. Facebook’s program guide is an algorithm. A secret algorithm that delivers entertainment to more viewers than ESPN, HBO, ABC, NBC, CBS, Netflix, and all US TV networks combined.
I don’t know if I can handle Facebook TV. Tweet with us this weekend over @LostRemote and let us know what you think.