D.C. Groups Fret Over Time Warner and Comcast’s Online Video Plan
A plan from Time Warner and Comcast to put more cable programming online but limit its availability to pay-TV subscribers drew criticism from the Media Access Project and Public Knowledge on Wednesday. Time Warner and Comcast executives laid out their plans to test an online video system with 5,000 Comcast subscribers this summer and said they expect more programmers and distributors to follow suit.
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The system initially will let certain Comcast subscribers watch some TNT and TBS shows online, Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts and Time Warner Chairman Jeff Bewkes said during a press conference Wednesday morning. “As we move through time, we expect that more and more of cable networks … would grow into this ability where people could watch it online and on demand,” Bewkes said. “This set of principles is intended to be open, non-exclusive and provide consumers with more of the programing they want to watch on whichever device they want to watch it.”
The announcement riled media activists for several reasons, the critics said. The plans raise concern that the pay-TV industry will seek to restrict programming to their favored distribution methods, said Gigi Sohn, executive director of Public Knowledge. “Under the ‘TV Everywhere’ plan, no other program distributor would be able to emerge,” she said. She also is concerned that the plans go against the Internet’s openness, she said.
“By adding this additional toll lane, Comcast and Time Warner want to create their own ‘managed channel’ within the Internet and turn the Internet into their own private cable channel,” Sohn said, asking the FCC, FTC and Justice Department to look into the plans. Media Access Project said it had concerns. “We don’t want to see people locked in to MVPDs when it may become possible to ‘cut the cord,'” said Andy Schwartzman. “But the fact that they're promising that these deals will be non-exclusive is a big plus and eliminates another potential source of concern.”
Other pay-TV distributors will probably begin testing online video plans soon, said Roberts. “I think most companies see the opportunities that come from the technology changes and changes in consumer behavior,” he said. “And I think we will have other announcements that will follow this.” Other networks will probably join as well, Bewkes said. “It’s hard for me to think of reasons why other multichannel networks wouldn’t want to take advantage of broadband offerings of VoD offerings of their networks,” although that is one of the issues this test with Comcast will reveal, he said. “We'll have to see what they think.”
“Somebody has to go first, and we're fully expecting that Time Warner will work with other competing distributors and we'll work with other competing program networks,” Roberts said. “The same things happened with on-demand. There were the same kinds of questions in the beginning and they were very fair and legitimate.”
Live sports programming will probably take more time to become available online through the model Comcast and Time Warner plan, Roberts said. “It’s different calculus for the live sports business,” he said. Companies that show a lot of live sports pay huge fees for those rights, and they won’t be eager to put that online right away, he said. “I can imagine the day … companies will say, ‘OK, I want to figure out how to offer this to my customers.'”