Time Warner Cable's CEO Glenn Britt is watching and rooting for Aereo, the app that takes TV signals and streams them over the Internet for $8 a month.
If Aereo wins its legal battle Timer Warner would consider doing the same thing, he told the Washington Post's Cecilia Kang in an interview. “What Aereo is doing to bring broadcast signals to its customers is interesting,” he said to Kang. “If it is found legal, we could conceivably use similar technology.”
Aereo lets people watch live TV shows on their tablets, smartphones, and PCs by taking the signal transmitted the old fashioned way, for free, over the air to TV antennas, and sending that signal over the Internet. It captures television from networks like NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS and Fox.
So far, Aereo is only available in New York, but on May 15, it launches in Boston and its ramping up to launch in about 20 more cities, soon.
The networks charge cable companies like Time Warner a lot of money for their TV shows. They have sued Aereo, claiming it doesn't have a right to use their content for its service.
So far the legal battle is going Aereo’s way. Two judges have ruled that Aereo’s model is legal. The broadcasters have now asked a federal court to review their case.
News Corp., which owns Fox, has threatened to stop broadcasting over the air if Aereo wins.
What the networks fear is that the cable companies will copy Aereo's model and the stop paying big bucks for their content.
It turns out, the fear has some basis.
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