Commentary

Who Has Stolen The Thunder Of TV Everywhere?

On Wednesday, Netflix stock rose sharply -- some 4%. It’s poised to grow its offerings through adding billions of dollars from potential new investors. The company is truly embodying what TV Everywhere means — which might be ironic to some.

TV Everywhere was a concept derived from traditional TV producers and pay TV distributors — one that talks to the ability to watch TV programming on all things digital.

Still, according to Cable TV pioneer/financial player John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media, “TV Everywhere is TV Nowhere.”
In particular, Malone is pissed that the likes of Netflix has rocketed ahead of traditional TV to become essentially a “national” video-on-demand brand.

Others continue to hope that they can get into the field. At a recent conference, Alison Moore, general manager/executive VP of TV Everywhere, Content Distribution for  NBCUniversal, said NBC will ramp up promo efforts this summer around its simplified tagline: “Watch TV Without the TV.” That’s in fact, a better description of what watching TV is these days, when one is not watching on a traditional set.

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But the situation will remain complicated, especially when pay TV providers and media networks struggle over the idea of consumers being “authenticated” in order to access content -- which doesn’t sound very consumer-friendly.

Until then, consumers will work hard to get TV programs on mobile phones, tablets, laptops and connected TV systems.

For the rest of us, all this will be a shrug of the shoulders: TV Whatever.

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