SubscribeTime Warner Cable TV subscribers in Southern California can now access local over-the-air television signals on the company’s TWC TV app, expanding the lineup of hundreds of cable channels to now include the major network affiliates — a significant gap in the “TV Everywhere” app for most customers.
Residents in Los Angeles and San Diego join those in New York and Kansas City that can now receive local over the air programming on their home computer, tablet, game console, or Roku box. Time Warner Cable requires viewers to subscribe to both its television and broadband services to watch, and only from your home’s Wi-Fi network.
The service is designed to bring value to Time Warner’s cable TV package and offer subscribers the opportunity to watch cable programming without an additional set-top box. Current licensing restrictions keep Time Warner from offering most television programming while on the go, but the cable company is attempting to negotiate those rights when programming contracts come up for renewal.
The major networks are not waiting for cable operators to negotiate with them, however:
- ABC: The network’s Watch ABC app has been available since the spring and offers live streaming of the local ABC station in eight major markets including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Viewers must live within the viewing area to watch;
- CBS: The network has purchased part ownership in Syncbak which specializes in digital content delivery, but the network has not announced plans for a streaming app;
- FOX: In addition to Hulu/+, FOX wants to adopt mobile broadcast technology using the Dyle Mobile platform, which allows device owners to receive over the air television with the use of a special add-on antenna;
- NBC: NBC will follow ABC and offer live viewing of local affiliates over an app starting in large cities early next year.
What I can’t understand is why Americans are so averse to watching OTA TV. My mother-in-law recently downgraded her cable subscription because she’d had three Time-Warner Cable set top boxes fail on her in a year, but she still subscribes to basic cable. I think a lot of people like her aren’t even aware that it’s possible to receive TV with rabbit ears, and she lives close enough to the bottom of the stick that she could probably get a good signal with a paper clip for an antenna. In South Korea, many phones and tablets have a digital television… Read more »
Unless you live in a big city you often don’t get enough network channels to make it worth it, and even if you have channels the signal is often too poor to bother. Even if I had more than the one good channel in my area, I don’t think I could deal with the massive amount of advertising that you get on OTA TV now days. I do think it’s a little of people over the last decade not knowing they could get those basic channels, or in the case of signal not interesting in putting up an antenna. May… Read more »