Television may irrevocably change in the coming years as a push for digital pay-TV services could become a reality. The Supreme Court has decided to take up a dispute between small start up company Aereo and giant broadcasting corporations. Aereo recently has marketed a device that broadcasts live television through its small device. The $8 a month service enables users to watch said television online.
Broadcasters are outraged and believe the company's doing are pantomime to theft because they avoid paying any license fees to rebroadcast their television content on the web. Because of the uproar the small company has tried to force the issue, urging the highest court in the United States to judge on the case. If the Supreme Court allows Aereo to continue the service their could be serious sweeping reforms in the way people watch TV.
The way we have viewed television has already changed in recent years. Companies like Netflix, Hulu, and Crackle have grown very large and profitable with their online subscribing services. For a small monthly fee you can join these services that offer extensive libraries of movies and television shows. The selections are not broadcast live as their on air television counterparts do but instead are streamed directly to your playing device. Netflix negotiates with programming providers for the programs they stream. This new model of viewing TV has changed the way people are thinking about television.
For the most part when you buy a TV package from Comcast, Verizon, or other companies you are in essence paying a lump sum fee for hundreds of channel. But what if there are only one or two programs you actually watch on TV? Most people watch only a small subset of the entire television programming universe. This leaves the consumer asking to why they pay so much for a service they don't completely utilize. The answer in prior years was that no other option existed. Television providers could charge whatever price they wanted because it was the only way to watch TV broadcasts. However, today the internet could be a viable alternative for the TV watcher who wants to pay less.
Disney and Dish Network just recently reached a deal changing internet TV from theory to reality. Dish Network will now be able to stream live and on demand video distributed from Walt Disney Co, owner of several networks like ABC and ESPN, as part of the deal. This is the first kind of deal negotiated from content providers and networks essential for internet TV to work. It is interesting to note that of all the live TV services to gain, the sports juggernaut ESPN is important. Organizations like the NFL and MLB have already denounced Aereo's similar business model (they believe it jeopardizes billions of dollars) and would consider removing their games from public airwaves should the start up be allowed to continue the online broadcasting service. Perhaps if ESPN network becomes successful via the Dish Network's online service those sentiments will change. Even corporations like CBS have expressed interest in jumping on the online TV bandwagon if Aereo wins their suit.
For now, we wait for the case to make the floor of the Supreme Court like Aereo founder Chet Kanojia. When asked for his side of the story he argues that what he is doing is just and inevitable. "This is not a company started just so we could milk a situation," he says. "We firmly believe in the idea that change and progress should be made. There is no logic in me paying for 500 channels that I don't watch. There is no incentive on the incumbents to change, so it takes somebody like us, or the Dish guys are great, too, to come in and say, this is the trend, life is changing. The Internet is happening to us whether we like it or not."
Although I am uncertain of many of the frugal consequences of the court case I still think this change is good for television. I really feel a model where we can choose which programs or channels we care to watch and only have to pay for them is the way to go. The internet serves as a perfect medium to watch TV programming on the go. Having companies like Aereo selling live broadcasting options seems intuitive to the industry as a whole to me. I know I'll definitely be following this case in the months to come.
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