Skip to main content

Cablevision Battles the Big Media's Myopia

Reuters reports that Cablevision defended its proposed network-based digital video recording service, saying it could create revenue for Hollywood studios that have filed lawsuits to stop it.

Some film studios and TV networks, including The Walt Disney Co. and CBS Corp. say the service would break copyright agreements by allowing subscribers to store programs on the cable operator's computer servers. The studios say Cablevision would effectively be retransmitting programs. Cablevision has said its plan is legal since customers would still control the content being recorded, as with existing home-based digital video recorders (DVRs).

"We actually think it's a big opportunity for content owners and advertisers as well as the distributors," Cablevision chief operating officer Tom Rutledge told a Sanford C. Bernstein investor conference in New York. "I think content owners should embrace this."

Rutledge said network-based DVRs would give owners of programming easier access to what viewers have recorded and allow for more focused marketing campaigns, with advertisers able to update ads on programs that a user has recorded. Rutledge also said network-based DVRs were as legal as DVRs in the living room.

Popular posts from this blog

Why Every Tech Vendor Needs a Real AI Story

Every product roadmap conversation with a technology vendor now runs through one filter that has nothing to do with the roadmap itself: does the company have an AI story that a buyer's finance team would actually underwrite. Forrester Research just gave that gut check a formal structure. Its newly introduced AI Disruption Model evaluates 17 technology and service categories, spanning more than 200 individual markets, against nine factors including AI substitutability, labor intensity, and switching costs. The finding that should reorder tech vendor strategy conversations this quarter is not which markets grow. It is how few of them do, and what that scarcity means for everyone else. Only Three Categories Get an Unambiguous Green Light According to the research, infrastructure providers such as cloud platforms, data centers, and storage; data and AI providers spanning models, platforms, and governance tooling; and cybersecurity and identity providers covering zero trust and AI agent...