• by Wayne Friedman , June 17, 2010

Las Vegas, NV - TV Everywhere is growing at Time Warner and elsewhere. What's left is the interface that will control these efforts. 

Speaking at the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference on Wednesday, Jeff Bewkes, chairman and chief executive officer of Time Warner, says a number of companies, including Microsoft and Google, are working on the interface for TV Everywhere efforts.

With TV Everywhere on pace to arrive in some 50 million TV homes by next year, Bewkes says the only question is "how the interface is going to work. Now, it will just be a question of which search function you want to use."

TV Everywhere allows consumers to get programming for free online -- if they are a paying cable or satellite distributor customer. What remains is getting approval from major media companies, says Bewkes. "Most of the networks have said we will do it... [For consumers] it's easy, simple, and is fair."

Although sometimes viewed as a cable-centric TV company, Bewkes reminded his audience that Warner Bros. Television is "the largest supplier of TV shows to the networks in the country." And that means it's a big supporter of broadcast network TV.

Concerning broadcast television, he said: "We are rooting for the continued evolution [of broadcast network TV]. It's a pretty big and healthy ecosystem." He hopes networks will continue to grow into different businesses to gain strength -- either on demand and/or on broadband.

Video on Demand is a large and growing area for Time Warner. One member of the audience asked when the big media company would move the release date of its movies on VOD -- which now come about five months after its theatrical release -- to around 30 days.

Bewkes says its DVD/home entertainment partners were a major factor in the equation. Analysts say VOD and DVD sales and rentals could cannibalize each other when release dates are the same.

"The question is how early and what should it cost. I'm not saying we are trying to be the first studio -- just to be out of sequence with other studios. We want to be responsible with our [retail] partners, such as K-Mart, Wal-Mart. Everyone has to make a major investment."

Overall, Bewkes says TV is growing in almost every measure: viewership, advertising and digital. "It is one of the fastest-growing business; revenue and profits lines are up. We are trying to take this momentum and supercharge it -- and make it more powerful."