Hulu Blocks Access to Internet-to-TV Software by Todd Spangler Multichannel News
February 19, 2009 http://www.multichannel.com/blog/BIT_RATE/11149-Hulu_Blocks_Access_to_Internet_to_TV_Software.php If you thought direct-to-TV Internet video distribution wasnt a major concern for media companies and their cable affiliates note this: Hulu, the joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp., announced yesterday that it will block users of Boxee, an application that allows users to watch video delivered via the Internet on their TVs, from accessing its trove of TV shows and movies. The reason, according to Hulu CEO Jason Kilars blog post: Our content providers requested that we turn off access to our content via the Boxee product, and we are respecting their wishes. Boxee founder Avner Ronen has his own blog entry on the Hulu issue, claiming Boxee users generated 100,000 streams in one week and vowing to work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Kilar doesnt explain why the content providers objected. But recall the New Years Eve catfight between Time Warner Cable and Viacom over carriage fees. The MSO complained publicly that Viacom generates ad revenue from its Web content that is not factored into the equation. We dont think thats fair, a TWC spokesman said at the time. Theyre trying to have their cake and eat it too online, where anybody can get it for free. Viacom also threatened to block Time Warner Cable broadband users from accessing its shows online. Boxee must have drawn a red flag from cable and satellite TV providers, who would have pressured the programmers, because the software makes it very, very easy to access all kinds of video-on-demand from the Internet thereby discouraging the need to pay for TV. A backhanded compliment to Boxee, to be sure. Now, is the genie out of the bottle, or can pay-TV providers continue to act as gatekeepers? Note that cable operators are interested in co-opting the idea of an Internet TV set-top: Attendees of CableLabs winter forum this month honored just such a device, from Verismo Networks, as the best idea likely to succeed in cable. Entertainment-technology blogger Dave Zatzs take on Hulu pulling content from Boxee: Its just more of the same old school, short-sighted thinking that crippled the record labels. Good luck with that. ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
