Disney warns cable on restrictive Web TV [The Washington Post]
I mentioned yesterday that I was going to fill-in on a panel here at The Cable Show. The Washington Post has posted an article about the panel's discussion on several issues, including the convergence of television and the Internet when it comes to video content. It's a debate that I've written about in previous posts .
Prior to my panel, I was honored to introduce Disney CEO Bob Iger for the keynote speech. I spoke from the heart when I said that he has proven to be a guy who "gets it." That he is a true innovator.
But I was confused when he warned cable distributors to think twice about making plans to create subscriber-only portals. He was specifically directing his comments toward Comcast's announced plan to launch Online On Demand and Time Warner's TV Anywhere. Both portals are being designed to extend the viewing options of their current customers to include online capability. Sounds pretty user-friendly to me.
Here's what Bob said:
"Preventing people from watching any shows online, unless they subscribe to some multichannel service, could be viewed as both anti-consumer and anti-technology, and would be something we would find difficult to embrace."Why was I confused?
Because Disney, which owns ESPN, created and operates a major subscriber-only portal, ESPN360. Although ESPN360 is available to all Insightbb customers because we have a deal with Disney, it is not available to millions of Broadband customers whose ISP does not have a deal for distribution.
Perhaps Disney thinks of their service because they don't bill customers directly -- they require the ISP to pay. But I don't accept that differentiation. Why don't I? Because, in the real world, it simply means that consumers indirectly pay Disney, through their ISP.
This morning, as I was writing this post, I tried to access ESPN360 from my hotel room and here's what I got, in the form of a big red pop-up:
ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their
high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com affiliated internet
service provider. ESPN360.com is also available to fans that access the
internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases.Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com....
Isn't this a double standard?
Don't get me wrong. I fully approve of the concept of ESPN360. During the panel discussion that followed his speech, we spoke specifically about how important it is for programmers and distributors to embrace new technology, including the use of the Internet to deliver video. But I also cautioned that there has to be a business model that won't destroy the economics of content creation which could pile on to the woes of the economy. ESPN360 offers a viable solution to my concern.
What's really in play here is not whether it's good or bad to offer content over the Internet on a subscription basis. I guess I'm just troubled by the use of this issue to wage a fight over who gets to aggregate that content.
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