Today, Mashable ran a great breakdown of the facts in what they called “the looming content battle between TV everywhere and online streaming.” In a nutshell, that battle boils down to the question of whether networks want to make their programming available via streaming services like Netflix and Hulu or via the ‘TV Everywhere’ services offered by traditional cable and satellite providers. In a nutshell, TV Everywhere gives consumers the same access to their favorite shows on the web and mobile devices that the streaming services do, but customers must go through their cable providers to get it.
As Mashable so skillfully describes it “As demand for online content continues to grow, networks are looking to get more money for their content. Netflix, which already has a dearth of first-run content, has seen its licensing fees explode in the last few quarters. Still, the cable networks want more. That’s where TV Everywhere comes in.
The carriage rates, or amount per subscriber that networks get from traditional cable and satellite providers, far exceeds pure online deals. That’s just one reason that premium cable networks like HBO have decided to skip Hulu or Netflix, and instead offer its own robust TV Everywhere offering, HBO Go [...] That makes HBO Go and TV Everywhere good for cable providers, but that’s bad news for services like Hulu and Netflix.”
Of course, many of us here in Hollywood have been saddened by the fact that HBO Go is not yet compatible with Time Warner Cable, and just recently became available via Charter. This lack of access is one reason why the TV Everywhere approach may not be as popular with consumers as it is with big companies. But, as the networks become more TV Everywhere friendly — Fox, for example, announced today that it will limit next-day streaming of some programs – cable companies are going to have to keep their TV Everywhere offerings up to date with the latest networks and devices, or risk losing customers to less-than-legal means of obtaining the latest episodes of their favorite shows.
Which means we may soon have a new show to add to the TiVo queue — Law & Order: Pirate Bay.
