Live streaming debate rages

The day may be close when you can watch your favourite TV shows live on your phone, tablet, or laptop. The question is, who will provide them?

Aereo, a New York City startup backed by Barry Diller, would like to be the company that makes live streaming commonplace. The year-old business transmits live TV shows from broadcast networks – like ABC, CBS, the CW, Fox, NBC, PBS, and Univision – to any device. It does it with lots of tiny antennae.

But it might also be broadcasters themselves – and two of them, ABC and NBC, are already working on live streaming. That could be bad for Aereo.

Broadcasters aren’t fans of the new company for a couple of reasons. First, Aereo wants to pull people away from their TVs. And it also allows them to store shows and then skip the commercials – the commercials that let networks pay for shows. (Viewers can also pause and rewind, just like they can with shows they DVR.)

Networks say they don’t consider Aereo a real threat – but they act like they do. They’re suing the company under the claim that its use of their signals amounts to illegal retransmission. And several network executives have threatened to abandon the broadcast airwaves for cable, since Aereo only picks up shows reachable by antennae. (That’s always been Aereo’s main defense – that all it does is harness the power of the humble, and very legal, antennae).

But networks’ best weapon against Aereo may not even be in court. In fact, they may be able to reduce demand for the $8 (BD3)-a-month streaming service by simply live streaming themselves.

What differentiates ABC and NBC’s live streaming from Aereo’s is that no one disputes their right to make their own shows available online at the same time they air on TV.

Not that broadcasters’ reasons for live streaming have anything to do with Aereo. They say their attempts to make their shows available across more platforms are about making viewers’ happy.

“From our own research as well as that of others, we know consumers want choice and flexibility when it comes to when and how they watch their favorite shows,” an ABC spokeswoman said. “We’ve seen there to be a huge appetite for viewing on alternate platforms, especially tablets.”

One broadcast executive told TheWrap that all networks will probably livestream, eventually.

“Through legitimate channels, content is going to be ubiquitously available,” the executive said. “In the long run, consumers are going to get their content in multiple ways – including broadcast and live streaming.

“It’s simply the way the market is going.”

Aereo declined to comment.