Cable companies take aim at Hulu model
Time Warner Cable and Comcast, two giants of the cable television business, are joining forces to test a new Internet TV distribution model that will threaten Hulu and free Internet television.
The two largest names in cable television distribution have announced a joint venture that looks tailor-made to make Internet television into a paid service, just like cable. Along the way, of course, it will threaten the free television model that Hulu has been running successfully for some time. It is easy to see this cable television project as an invasion of the free internet, and just another way to make people pay for what they get from the Web, much like newspaper content behind a wall.
Time Warner and Comcast are calling the joint venture TV Everywhere. In it’s infant form, the project will give 5,000 Comcast paid subscribers the ability to get their cable content via broadband in addition to though a cable box. There are plans to add similar features in the future for smartphones. The test will be free, but experience teaches that nothing from a cable company stays free for long.
The plan of the cable companies is to prove the concept for all of the possible providers and players: other cable providers, ISP’s, mobile providers, and the manufacturers of entertainment, according to a CNN story. It is their theory that once the parties involved see a way to eliminate free internet television by replacing it with the same subscription plan offered by cable today, those parties will see that it is in their best interests to always charge for their content via, of course, the cable companies.
For people that already subscribe to cable, this might seem fine up front. They will get more convenience for no extra charge, at least during the test. One can fairly assume, however, that once the free television providers, such as Hulu, are starved out of the marketplace, cable subscribers will be hit with a fee, say $19.95 per month, in order to get their content on the Web and on their phones. The cable cabal is not saying that yet, but would anyone be surprised?
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