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CBS head Les Moonves is ready to take the CBS television network off broadcast television and move it to a pay television platform where he can protect the network’s revenue should the Aereo video streaming service be deemed legal.
Aereo’s fate is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in April, and if it should prevail providing local television signals over streaming video without paying the network for the programming, CBS is prepared to walk away from over 50 years of free over the air television.
“If Aereo should win, which we don’t think will happen, we can go ‘over the top’ with CBS,” Moonves said on Tuesday at an investor conference. “If the government wants to give them permission to steal our signal, then we will come up with some other way to get them our content and still get paid for it.”
“Over the top” refers to streaming programming over the Internet.
Cable, satellite and telco TV customers would be unaffected because CBS already receives compensation from those pay television venues. But those watching over the air would lose CBS unless they maintained an Internet-based subscription to the network.
Moonves said he will play hardball against any “systems out there that try to hurt us.”
That’s not what Les Moonves was saying last month.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/amid-threats-to-decamp-to-cable-cbs-chief-admits-aereo-doesnt-hurt-us/
Les Moonves is an idiot… no way he’ll take CBS off the air and risk his NFL contract.
Well, then go ahead and stop broadcasting over the air. My quality of life has no connection to a television network or channel.
Sounds good to me, we could then re-use that TV spectrum for something useful like a publicly owned super WiFi network that’s shared for any company that wants to provide services over it.
I don’t think the contracts are in place to change the delivery system.
Moonves cannot simply take CBS off the air, as the multi-year contracts with affiliates have yet to run their course. Moonves could only pull the plug on the O&O stations, which are in the biggest markets — which would immediately impact ratings ~20%. That would affect the promised ad-rates as well.
So Moonves is all talk.
It’s definitely a bluff, he’s hoping to make the situation sound as dire as possible in order to get his way. Same strategy RIAA/MPAA used for years claiming piracy was negatively affecting their business, which in every case technology since the dawn of the VCR, MP3’s, MP3 Player, and Streaming have been helping save them despite the industries attempt to fight an evolving market. TV and media consumption is going 100% in the direction of IP based delivery, there is absolutely NO denying that. National infrastructure to support that has a long way to go, and we still have to… Read more »