Net Neutrality and Access to Content
The media industry is whining and pissing off all the Googleheads. Apparently, several networks are blocking access to their content when it’s being connected to via GoogleTV. Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures in NYC wrote about this twice over the last week and stirred up some opinions with his viewpoint on net neutrality. Let me preface this with saying that I am not a traditional tech person and my understanding of net neutrality is from a different school of thought than most of the individuals in the tech and online world.
Here is what I comprehend: net neutrality and its proponents advocate that the government and ISPs should remain unprejudiced when it comes to online content -meaning that the government and ISPs can’t interfere with content simply because they don’t like it. For a more lengthy explanation, anyone can head over to Wikipedia and search for net neutrality.
There’s no word from the networks -such as CBS, ABC, and Hulu- as to why there’s the block. There’s also not too much specifically coming from Google camp -yet… but I don’t think this necessarily has to do with net neutrality.
A network blocking access to it’s content when accessed via X-platform has less to do with net neutrality and more to do with web syndication. Syndication has been around for decades in the entertainment world -from radio syndication during the early 20th century to television and film syndication over the last thirty or forty years- and it’s big business. Between selling the rights for a certain show to air in syndication to format sales (e.g. Britain’s Popstars show and American Idol = result of format sale), people make lots of money. Some shows and films even earn more money in syndication than they did during the original airing, such as the original Baywatch. Because of the financial aspects involved, of course networks are going to get fussy about which platforms have access to their content -they want to make sure they get paid!
I don’t suspect that the block for GoogleTV will be a permanent thing, however. Hulu and Netflix have continually grown their inventories, so it’ll only be a matter of time before Google has access, too -it’s only getting so much fuss because it concerns GOOGLE.
Today Hulu’s CEO said that they are not a Cable killer, but I’m not so sure. It’s not hard to do the math on watching all of your favorite shows on demand for $10/month vs a ton of channels/content that you don’t watch for $100.
I REALLY wish they had this in Canada. One day?
“For $9.99 per month, subscribers will be able to watch their favorite shows — including those from seasons past — on a multitude of internet-connected devices. Mobile devices are a go, with iOS devices including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch (3rd generation) being the main attraction at this point in time. The best part as far as mobile is concerned is that streaming will work on both Wi-Fi and 3G networks.”
And if you’re interested Hulu has put the official release on their blog.
(via Eddy Chan via Hulu Plus gets official: $9.99 per month, supports iOS, TVs, Blu-ray players, and more « Boy Genius Report)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cable as we know will be obsolete in five years and regardless of Hulu’s intention, they are pioneers (alongside platforms like Netflix and Crackle) in the next generation of “television”.
Source: boygeniusreport.com
