The study, from research firm GfK Media, is the latest bad news for big media companies’ TV Everywhere initiative, which is aimed at reinforcing the value of traditional cable subscriptions. But since its launch four years ago, the effort has been plagued by delays in launch as a result of difficult rights negotiations between various entertainment companies and pay TV operators — cable, satellite and phone companies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Yesterday, Ergen’s Dish Network used the gadget show to unveil several new improvements for its “Hopper” service, including one that will certainly upset the TV networks: A feature that will let Dish customers watch any show they’ve paid to see, on any device they want, when and where they want to watch it.

If this seems like a pretty basic concept, it is. And it’s one the rest of the TV industry has been trying to roll out for the past few years.

The difference: The TV networks and the pay-TV providers working on “TV Everywhere” schemes have been arduously hammering out an assortment of deals, which means that some subscribers to some TV services can watch some shows under some conditions but not others.

Ergen, on the other hand, seems to have simply gone ahead and rolled the feature out, without asking Time Warner, Comcast or anyone else for permission. And he and his employees seem happy to go to court.

“We’re trying to be at the forefront of existing technology,” Dish CEO Joe Clayton told Bloomberg. “If that means some lawsuits, OK.”

This sounds a whole lot like last year, when Dish put its thumb in TV’s eye by rolling out a DVR that automatically skipped ads on some programs. That freaked out the networks, for obvious reasons, and some of them ended up taking Ergen to court a few months later; the case is still working its way through the system.

In theory, if Ergen wins either fight, it could be a big deal for the TV ecosystem. But I’m not sure how much consumers actually care about either outcome. After all, it’s pretty simple to fast-forward through ads on your own. And while the notion of being able to watch a new episode of “The Office” on your iPad without paying extra would be nice, it’s an incremental improvement. Not a game changer.

My hunch is that in both cases Ergen is less interested in the feature than in the leverage he thinks it will give him if gets to use it. I can imagine a scenario where Ergen gets to keep the ad-skipping feature, but disables it in exchange for a break on programming fees. Same for the TV Everywhere stuff.

But no need for me to speculate about this stuff. We’ll be able to ask Ergen himself when he appears at our D: Dive Into Media conference in February. If you want to hear his answer in person, sign up here.

But the cable guys have been working at this for more than three years, and they still can’t really deliver. Here’s a company that says it can: NimbleTV, a start-up that’s launching a small beta rollout today.

Nimble’s pitch is simple: Pay them a monthly fee, and they’ll deliver TV, over the Web, to any device you want. You’ll still have to pay for cable TV (or satellite TV, or telco TV), but then they’ll get the video to you, wherever you are.

The process behind it is a bit more complicated: Rather than connecting to a set-top box in your home, Nimble plans to set up accounts from different pay-TV providers at its own facility, then move the TV signal from those pipes to the Web.

CEO Anand Subramanian says he plans to offer the service, for free, to at least 250 users in the New York City area this month. He wants to launch for real in the first quarter of 2013, at which point he’ll likely charge about $20 a month.

That fee will be on top of whatever a Nimble user ends up paying for TV — this isn’t a service designed to help cord-cutters. But if it works, it will at least deliver on the mobility and convenience promise that the pay-TV guys have been talking about for a long time.

At least as important: Nimble could encourage competition between pay-TV providers, since users aren’t required to sign up for a pay-TV package that’s offered in their neighborhood. It could also upend lots of geographic-specific programming deals: In theory, if I wanted to watch the Minnesota Vikings in my Brooklyn apartment, I could use Nimble to sign up for a Comcast subscription package for Minneapolis residents.

All of which means the pay-TV industry could end up fighting Nimble, if it gets up and running.

Nimble argues that it’s the equivalent of EchoStar’s Slingbox technology, except they don’t require users to buy a box, and Slingbox has never really been challenged in court.

“We’re simply giving consumers the tools to be able to to take the TV they’ve paid for, anywhere they want to,” Subramanian says.

Still, my hunch is that at least some of pay-TV guys have the cease-and-desist letters drafted, so, we’ll see — I asked a couple of them about Nimble this week, and the phrase “terms of service” came up each time. And even if Nimble clears the legal hurdles, I’m not sure how big the market will be for people who want to pay extra for cable TV.

But Nimble has raised $6 million from Tribune, Greycroft Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, so they’ll have some time and money to try to prove their case.

Here’s a video BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield produced earlier this year, showing a fairly comprehensive demo of the service:

Myriad issues have held back the new Apple TV, from complex dealings and integration with established broadcast cable providers, to hardware design and supply issues, to the necessary evolution of iOS SDKs — but we won’t be kept waiting forever. There’s every reason to expect the new product to launch in 2013. When it does, we’re likely to see massive disruption of the broadcast and gaming industries, the rise of an age of TV apps, and an even stronger leadership role for Apple in software, media, communications and consumer devices.

What will the coming Apple TV look like, and what will it mean for our industry? There’s plenty of information available to guide our speculation. Let’s imagine Christmas 2013, and the new line of Apple TV products I hope to find under my tree.

Apple TV under the Christmas tree

What will the new Apple TV be?
The new Apple TV will be defined by three key values for consumers:

1. The best way to consume broadcast TV and any online video. A seamless touch- and TV-based interface makes it simple to consume your existing cable and broadcast content, including video-on-demand (VOD) libraries and DVR features. Via iTunes, you also get instant access to mega-libraries and subscriptions from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, not to mention YouTube. Naturally, you can also access any AirPlay-enabled videos on the Web, as well as TV apps updated with the new iOS 7 SDK.
2. The ultimate game console. The new Apple TV will be a direct assault on the game console industry, with a living-room platform that should leave Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony running scared. With a single launch, Apple will extend the iOS gaming distribution ecosystem into the living room, and invent new categories of gaming through the interaction of iOS devices with Apple TV.
3. The best way to experience all of your apps. Crucially, the new Apple TV will extend nearly every existing iOS app into being a TV app that brings the power and richness of large display surfaces to consumer computing — a task that nearly every industry titan has attempted and failed. The combination of touch and TV will ignite a new era in dual-screen software application design and development, in which it will become hard to believe that Internet software was once based solely on PCs, phones and tablets.

Fulfilling the Apple product design fetish
Everyone wants to know what the new Apple TV will look like, what it will include inside, and how it will connect all of Apple’s existing consumer and developer offerings. As usual, product packaging and design are fundamental components of Apple’s go-to-market strategy, complemented by their unique ability to leverage their existing app, content and device ecosystem.

Apple already has an ecosystem of nearly one million apps, the world’s best library of a la carte media, and hundreds of millions of device customers. In an ideal world, Apple would like to sell the majority of these customers a new device for TV. The company also needs to find new $30 billion+/year businesses to keep up its pace of growth and value creation. The key is to introduce a product franchise that defines the consumer experience, owns the extension of the app platform into the TV, and captures as many users as possible, as quickly as possible — while taking enormous share from an established, multi-hundred-billion dollar/year industry.

To do this, Apple needs a two-pronged strategy:

1. A new companion device for TV that starts at $149, attaches to nearly any existing TV, and does not require customers to buy an expensive new monitor. This is crucial for quickly establishing and maintaining platform dominance quickly, and even standalone could be a $5 billion to $10 billion opportunity.
2. A new family of ultra-thin TV monitors that bundles all of the capabilities of the companion device and includes beefed up computing power. These large-screen monitors will be a direct assault on the global TV monitor industry, a market worth hundreds of billions annually, albeit with slightly slower replacement cycles of four years versus two years for smartphones and tablets. This gives Apple that additional $30 billion+ revenue stream it needs.

Combined, these new products will radically transform the computing, media and electronics industry, and more deeply cement Apple’s role as the de facto platform for content and apps.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these products:

The new Apple TV companion
Designed with a new A7 quad-core CPU, the device will provide enough horsepower to deliver 1080p HD video and the most demanding gaming graphics; built-in front-facing sensors and camera; and enough storage for loads of games, apps, content, and recorded live TV.

The device will offer HDMI and digital audio output, a gigabit Ethernet port and built-in WiFi, as well as two Lightning ports — one for power, another for the included “co-ax dongle,” which will connect directly to most existing cable TV hookups to replace your existing cable set-top box. More on that later.

As we’ve come to expect from Apple, the product will be offered in a sleek and slim form factor that sits easily on top of or under any existing TV. I suspect a thin horizontal bar, such as we’ve rendered here:

Apple TV Companion

Apple TV companion device specs

This design will put the device truly at the center of the living room, a compact porthole into the entire digital economy. Developers will be able to leverage the front-facing sensors and camera in the same way they build on existing iOS APIs; in fact, the new platform launch will likely include iOS 7 with support for new TV apps and Apple TV SDKs.

For existing iPhone and iPad users who already own a flat-screen TV, this new TV companion device will be a great bargain that also radically expands the value of their existing devices. This will also be a highly popular form factor for multi-monitor households, offices and even retail establishments.

The new ultra-thin Apple TV monitor
Likely coming in 46″ and 60″ models with a solid glass front and aluminum back, and stand and rear-mounting options, this ultra-thin monitor will mirror the design aesthetic of the latest iPhone and iPad.

Apple TV basic form factor

Apple TV specs

Apple TV stand options

The full capabilities of the companion device will be complemented with additional audio, video and lightning ports, storage of up to three terabytes, and, of course, gorgeous display quality (probably 4K resolution) and exceptional design for a modern environment.

How TV works on Apple TV
While Apple TV will support voice- and motion-based input for global menus and navigation, the preferred control method for basic everyday use will be either the bundled simple remote — or, more likely — new iOS 7 apps from Apple that let you control Apple TV with your iPhone and iPad.

Apple TV app and Apple TV

Apple TV app closeup

Channel surfing with the Apple TV app

Apple TV app detail and TV

With the iPhone, Apple created a simple “phone” application on top of existing telephony carrier infrastructure, improving the consumer’s user experience and creating an additional product sales opportunity for carriers. The company will take a similar approach to existing broadcast cable TV and, in so doing, put one or two major U.S. cable operators in the same privileged position that AT&T enjoyed following the iPhone launch. Around the world, cable TV distributors will battle for national sales and marketing rights for the Apple TV.

To accomplish this, Apple has likely created a new API for interacting with the IP-based cable broadcast infrastructure that providers such as Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable have been moving to for a number of years. This will enable Apple to present a consistent user experience worldwide for accessing live broadcast channels and recording content for later consumption. With program guide data, VOD metadata, and the ability to use network or local DVR APIs, the new TV app for iOS will become the simplest form we’ve ever had for watching broadcast television.

Cable companies may initially resist supporting this offering, viewing their ability to cross-promote offerings in their guide and VOD menus, and the customer relationship in general, as their provenance. This would be as misguided as the mobile carriers were who thought they could control and customize the home screens, operating systems and bundled apps of mobile phones as a strategic advantage. Smart operators will understand their role as broadband and infrastructure providers, and will continue — for now — to be the primary packagers of broadcast content with its lucrative tolls for subscription programming. For all of the hope that Apple would help to blow up existing cable packaging, for now, the company’s priority is to navigate and establish global partnerships with multi-system operators (MSOs) and multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to sell their new TV and TV companion devices.

With natural hooks into the iTunes a la carte content library, Apple will be able to combine premium cable subscription content with their on-demand library to offer users the broadest choice for video content.

Apple’s TV app in iOS 7 is also likely to take ownership of the core second-screen category for companion content to broadcast shows. Apple can easily provide rich, contextual meta-data about shows, characters and social chatter, while providing new APIs that broadcasters can use as a launching point into show- and channel-specific iOS apps. These apps will give broadcasters the greater brand control and direct consumer relationships they’ve wanted, with the added benefit of cross-promotion from within Apple’s own TV app. Because Apple TV users will be linked to a cable provider just as your iPhone is linked to a mobile operator, broadcasters will also gain a simple and seamless way to authenticate consumers into apps that offer their full slate of catch-up TV programming.

It also seems likely that AirPlay updates will include streaming from an Apple TV to your iPhone and iPad (e.g. the inverse of current AirPlay use-cases), allowing you to access and stream content from your Apple TV via your iPhone and iPad, including live television and DVR content — like the original innovation from Sling. This is presuming Apple’s deals with MSOs will include wireless streaming rights, which seems to be increasingly becoming the market standard.

Viacom Nick/Nickelodeon dual screen TV App

Nick app close-up

As with iPhones and iPads, the new devices will come with many preinstalled Apple and third-party apps; in this case likely including leading online video services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon VoD, and YouTube, as well as TV Everywhere apps such as HBO Go. More importantly, any developer will be able to build content and apps for Apple TV. Just as nearly every app you download for your iPhone is also available in a version that fits the iPad display, new iOS 7 Universal Apps will include code for deployment on Apple TV.

Apple continues its disruption of the gaming industry
Putting all of this together — the new hardware, the new APIs, the new input capabilities — adds up to nothing less than a full-frontal assault on the game console market, as Apple and iTunes become the distributor of choice for everything from casual to hardcore 3-D gaming.

While the large installed bases of industry incumbents provide some advantage, it pales in comparison to Apple’s hundreds of millions of touch-device users, millions of apps, and unparalleled catalog of a la carte media. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo can win.

Apple’s iOS is already the world’s most important gaming platform in terms of new game content creation and the velocity and scale of consumer usage. With new gaming-friendly APIs for controllers and user input, complemented with local CPU, graphics and storage horsepower on the device itself, the new Apple TV is a deeply significant threat to Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft in the console market. The same is true for the multibillion dollar businesses built by Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys “R” Us, and GameStop around selling game CDs; Apple TV will be a download-only install medium, as we reach the tipping point in storage and bandwidth where it no longer makes sense to distribute games on physical media.

Some have argued that Apple and iOS aren’t for hardcore gamers — but tell that to the teenage boys playing Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty on their iPhones and iPads. By owning the TV run-time, Apple TV will provide amazing development opportunities for the technical and creative elite and will bring a flood of innovative content creation from major game studios. For the launch of the first iPod with video, Apple brought Disney on stage to announce the availability of “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” for download, heralding the age of a la carte television. For the Apple TV launch, Apple will stand alongside the world’s top game developers to showcase the ultimate gaming platform.

To achieve this, iOS 7 will likely support APIs for interacting with and connecting to third-party game controllers via Bluetooth and possibly RF — as well classic gaming handhelds, steering wheels, guns and any other devices that suit the needs of gameplay.

Multi-user gameplay scenario (Call of Duty) with iPads and a traditional handheld controller

The use cases for gaming are mind-boggling, especially when you bring together geographically dispersed users for collaborative games like massive multiplayer online games. Imagine playing Call of Duty Massive with a gorgeous 60-inch display: &ou’re using a standard controller for first-person shooter play, a friend next to you manages ops from the iPad controller, and a few more friends watch along from their iPhones while they’re riding the bus. Another friend receives a push notification alerting them to a crisis that could use their help — they look away from what they’re watching on TV and jump into the game from their tablet. If killing games aren’t your cup of tea, other options span “edutainment” games, basic single-user games, and even the mundane but always enjoyable family game of Monopoly, with the board rendered with real-time updates on the TV rather than the coffee table.

Which leads us to the third and key value proposition of the new Apple TV:

It’s all about the apps
While Apple TV makes a strong case with its broadcast TV and gaming capabilities, its ultimate killer app will be, appropriately, the app ecosystem it will offer, as millions of iOS apps extend onto the television display surface. I’ve written about this more extensively elsewhere, but the basic idea is that we’re moving into a software world where more and more applications combine a touch device with a TV display surface. That’s a huge reason why consumers will cheer for Apple TV — they’re already embedded in the Apple ecosystem, and so are all of their favorite apps and content. Bringing the familiarity and integration of these platforms together will give Apple a red carpet into the living room, and again revolutionize the world of software to offer value far beyond the consumer experiences of today.

Consider an important (and often expensive) task that we all face many times in our lives — buying a car. How can the Apple TV platform and its broader platforms help make buying a car a better experience? Let’s use BMW — always an innovator in the customer experience — as an example. You find and download the BMW app from the App Store to your iPad (while in the background, the same app is installed on your iPhone). When you open the app, it detects that you have an Apple TV, and asks your permission to display views onto your TV.

BMW dual-screen TV app experience

BMW dual-screen TV app experience

You begin with a quick view of models, and narrow down to the latest midsize sedans, watch the marketing video on your TV, then decide to take the car configurator for a spin. As you’re taken through each area of customization, your TV updates with visual displays of your choices in that section; if you want to learn more about a feature, a quick touch invokes an HD video on your TV. As you make choices on your iPad, the car you’re building takes shape in a picture-perfect rendition on the TV screen in front of you. Once you’re done, you can have the app geolocate your nearest dealer and schedule a test drive. On arrival at the dealership, your geolocation triggers a push notification to a sales associate who greets you by name before handing you the keys to the car.

Every app in our lives will benefit from the connection of phone, tablet and TV, and for this reason Apple TV will become an essential consumer platform. The critical point to understand is that Apple TV is not just about television and games — it’s about us all figuring out how to make the best use of the large displays in our lives.

Technically, there are still a number of key problems Apple needs to solve in iOS 7 regarding how apps discover and get user permission to AirPlay on Apple TV, but these are the kinds of user experience problems that Apple is renowned for addressing. Expect an overhaul of AirPlay protocols and user experience in iOS 7, not to mention many of the new APIs and capabilities that I’ve described above.

The new Apple TV offer for consumers and developers
We look forward to the day that Apple’s new product and developer pages look something like these:

Apple.com product marketing pages

Apple.com developer SDK pages

This is already the direction in which things seem to be moving. For brands, media publishers and app developers, it’s never too early to reenvision their apps and consumer user experiences for Apple’s latest revolution in the way we live.

You can watch and explore all of the images and more in this New Apple TV image gallery.

Jeremy Allaire is the founder, chairman and CEO of Brightcove, a leading provider of cloud platforms for distributing media and apps, with a suite of platform APIs, SDKs and Web services aimed at Web and app developers and the businesses they help to drive.

The reality is a lot more complicated, for a lot of reasons, but the upshot is that right now you can only watch a bit of what’s on cable on devices that aren’t your TV. And if the cable guys are going to convince people not to cut the cord, or to sign up for the cord in the first place, that’s going to have to get better.

One nice counterexample to TV Everywhere’s struggles is ESPN’s great WatchESPN app, which really does let you watch whatever you want, on just about any device, anywhere, live or on demand. That’s particularly useful for ESPN, since there are lots of cases where you can’t be in front of a TV but really do want to watch a game.

But even mighty ESPN can’t quite deliver on the TV Everywhere proposition. At left is what happened to me on Monday, when I wanted to check in on “Monday Night Football” on my phone, from my couch, at the same time we were catching up on “Homeland”* on the biggish screen.

The problem, says ESPN PR, is that Verizon has an exclusive on NFL mobile rights, so ESPN can’t deliver the game to me on my iPhone, even when I’m at home, on a Wi-Fi connection (which is the way that lots of mobile video gets consumed).**

That makes sense in a biz-dev sense, but that’s hard to explain to a sports fan who simply takes ESPN’s pitch at face value and expects to watch what they want, when they want.

And it makes even less sense to anyone who tried to do the same thing I did on Monday night, but used an iPad instead of an iPhone. Because that would have worked just fine — for whatever reason, the iPad isn’t considered a mobile device.

Again, trying to argue that some rights apply to a 9.5-inch screen but not a 3.5-inch screen is the sort of thing that makes sense to lawyers and deal-makers, and no sense at all to normal people.

You know, the people you want to keep paying for cable.

*This says a bit about what has happened to “Homeland” this season. During Season One, there was no way I was doing anything but staying glued to the set. Now I still watch it — and pay CBS for the privilege – but it’s become a one-eye program, and I don’t feel bad about checking email, Twitter, etc., while Carrie and Brody are up to their high jinks.

**This is also likely why NBC and Fox can’t deliver football via their new Dyle mobile service, even though that one relies on broadcast TV rights they should already have completely sewn up.

Synacor, the behind-the-scenes tech company that provides authentication services to television companies, will be launching a new identification platform for pay-TV services that will allow users to use social IDs rather than passwords across multiple devices.

While it is common for consumers to do so for a range of Web services, Synacor Cloud ID will be the first to allow customers to use social logins from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for cable TV authorization.

The Buffalo-based Synacor is a leader in white-label authentication services for many “TV Everywhere” events, including 2012 March Madness, the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and, most recently, the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

To do so, the company has worked with many pay-TV providers, as well as channels, including Dish Network, Charter, HBO Go, CNN and the Cartoon Network.

It has not announced any done deals as yet, said a spokesman, but the goal is obviously to work with the big ones, such as Comcast, Dish and Time Warner Cable.

Such a move is an important one, as Peter Kafka wrote recently:

“That’s one of the fundamental precepts of the ‘TV Everywhere’ plan that the cable guys are using to hold off disruption, and in practice it’s a hassle. It requires digging up your cable bill so you can find your account number, and starting up yet another online account and password. Not rocket science, but certainly not one-click easy.”

Here’s the full press Synacor release:

Pay-TV Industry First: “Social Login with TVE Authorization” — Consumers Login Using Their Favorite Social Account and Simultaneously Authorize with Their Pay-TV Billing Account

BUFFALO, NY (PRWEB — September 6, 2012) — Synacor, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNC), leading provider of next-gen startpages, TV Everywhere solutions and cloud-based services, today announced an expanded Cloud Identity Management platform, broadening its cloud-based services suite for consumer electronics companies, wireless carriers, programmers and app developers in addition to Pay-TV providers. Synacor’s Cloud ID works whenever and wherever consumers must be authenticated, authorized and/or registered, and on any device.

Synacor’s Cloud ID offering features an industry first: Social Login with Pay-TV Authorization. To authenticate for access to online Pay-TV content, consumers can now login with their favorite social account like Facebook, Twitter or Google, while simultaneously authorizing with their pay-TV provider or billing account. Synacor Cloud ID brings the convenience of social login to TV Everywhere consumers with the trust of entitlement verification for TV authorization.

“Synacor’s experience and scale providing web authentication and identity integrations is a strategic advantage over other cloud identity providers,” said Michael Bishara, Synacor GM for TV Everywhere. “Synacor successfully provided authentication for NBC Universal’s TV Everywhere 2012 Summer Olympics on behalf of nearly 40 pay-TV customers, spanning all 50 states, reaching 25 million subscribers — the largest TVE Olympics footprint. Synacor is now leveraging our experience to provide cloud identity services for additional customer verticals that require registration, authentication and authorization capabilities.”

Synacor’s Cloud ID Management Platform already provides authentication services for TV Everywhere, Messaging and Value Added Services, but has been expanded to provide a full suite of Identity Management Services. These expanded capabilities will enable consumer electronics companies, app developers and programmers to provide a Secure and Trusted Identity Management solution to their end-consumers.

“Synacor provides end-consumers a seamless authentication, authorization and registration experience while providing our customers all their administrative needs such as Account Management, Auditing and Reporting,” said Synacor co-founder and EVP George Chamoun. “As identity management moves from the enterprise to a distributed model, companies such as pay-TV, consumer electronics and app developers need a trusted and tested partner to serve as their conduit for ID services. With more than a decade behind us, innumerable integrations and millions of authentications across hundreds of devices, Synacor is that Cloud ID partner.”

Synacor Cloud ID spans the entire ecosystem, offering an end-to-end or distributed component solution, and existing in Synacor’s cloud or the customer’s. Synacor’s key advantages include the following:

Scale — Delivering millions of authentications, including authentication for Synacor’s pay-TV customers’ 25 million subscriber footprint for the 2012 Summer Olympics and on an ongoing basis for TV Everywhere, Synacor is the scale player in Cloud ID management.

Gateway — Synacor is the bridge connecting hundreds of identity systems for authentication, authorization and user profile information while leveraging industry-standard technologies such as SAML, OAuth, OpenID, and Social IDs, creating a multipronged gateway that both identifies as well as entitles based on a consumer’s rights profile, and integrated with the preferred ID technologies of Synacor’s customers.

Social Login — An industry first. Synacor’s Social Login feature creates a trusted connection among content providers and pay-TV providers, allowing consumers to bind their pay-TV credentials to their favorite and frequented social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Google, allowing for a seamless sign-on process, and using the credentials most consumers remember.

Multi-Platform and Multi-Language — Synacor Cloud ID is accessible on desktop, mobile, tablet and across a range of connected devices, as well as being fully localized for user interfaces in multiple languages.

Trusted Framework — With a decade of success, Synacor is a tested and trusted connection in the distributed, cloud-based model of Identity Management and Services. Synacor’s fraud prevention technology monitors for suspicious account activity across multiple devices, streams and providers. Synacor delivers its solution from three data centers in the United States and in Europe. Synacor customers are in full control over their data, yet can leverage Synacor’s experience.

Synacor has provided authentication services for key TV Everywhere events including 2012 March Madness, 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and most recently the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Synacor has completed integrations with numerous pay-TV providers, as well as many pay-TV channels. Pay-TV providers include DISH Network, Charter, CenturyLink, Mediacom, Suddenlink and WOW! among others. Integrations include HBO GO, Max GO, CNN, TBS, TNT, tru TV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Epix, Comcast Entertainment Group (E!, Style, G4), Fox, Speed2, BigTen and a number of other TV channels.

For more information on Synacor’s cloud-based services including Cloud ID, TV Everywhere and Cloud Messaging Services, please visit synacor.com or email sales@synacor.com. Synacor reaches over 23 million households, tallying a monthly average of 20 million unique visitors and 3.7 billion ad impressions.

TV Everywhere apps — the ones that let you watch TV on your iPad, Android phone, etc., as long as you pay your cable bill — should be commonplace now, too. After all, Time Warner and Comcast announced the concept three years ago.

But TV Everywhere has struggled to go mainstream, for a bunch of reasons. So ESPN wants to make sure its viewers know how to use its app — and, just as important, to know the app exists. (Note that this is different from most cable guides to Web video, which usually only surface during fee negotiations, as a way to punish the opposition.)

So. No, it’s not nearly as clever as the New Yorker’s iPad app ad (Jason Schwartzman! Roman Coppola! The 1970s!). More problematically, it glosses over the one real problem that plagues all TV Everywhere apps — the part where you have to “verify” or “authenticate” that you have a cable subscription.

But it’s better than nothing. And it’s probably helpful for both ESPN and its viewers, who really should know about the app, because it’s excellent. I used it to watch many hours of the Euro soccer tournament last month, and a couple quarters of the NBA finals. And I was really glad I had it.

And if the cable guys get their act together, in a couple years we’ll find this sort of thing phonebooth-like quaint, too.

————

Sidenote: I don’t expect ESPN to make an explanatory video that’s also funny and self-critical in a distant but knowing way, because ESPN stopped doing that stuff sometime in the mid to late 90s (Coke doesn’t make OK Soda anymore, either, and I’m just going to have to get over it). But they could still write at least a couple jokes for Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico, right? No?

But there’s another, less-understood force prodding the cable guys to move: Advertising. That’s right, advertising. While competition from Internet video is the proverbial stick behind the cable industry’s push to provide IP-enabled “TV Everywhere” — TV on PCs, smartphones and iPads, in addition to the stationary living-room set — the tantalizing carrot for big companies like Time Warner and Comcast is the potentially lucrative new revenue stream generated by Web advertising that simply isn’t possible with current cable technology.

Consider the decidedly low-tech way cable-TV advertising works today. Right now, most of the ads you see are sold by the big content providers, like NBC and CNN. Everyone viewing the same program, whether it’s “Today” or the NCAA Final Four, is seeing the same ad. By definition, those non-targeted ads aren’t very effective (even though some, such as those sold during the Super Bowl, can be very memorable). The 15 percent or so of ads sold by the local cable companies can be more targeted, but only down to a neighborhood level. Your cable company knows your address and zip code. But usually all this means is that your cable provider can beam you a pitch for a nearby dentist or car dealer as you’re catching your late-night shows. Generally, these local ads stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of your programming.

Imagine a future, though, in which you also frequently watch TV on your iPad or through a browser on your laptop (this is obviously happening now, for you early adopters). In this case, cable companies know much more about you because they can track your IP address as you move around the Web. This is Web Advertising 101: You see much more relevant advertisements as you peruse various Web sites because all of your previous activities (reading, searching, shopping) have been captured by the sites you visit.

Men aren’t seeing ads for women’s shoes, for instance; someone doing Web searches in advance of a trip to Hawaii might see pitches for hotels or rental cars. And since there are now often multiple Internet-enabled devices in a given home, ads can be targeted directly to the device that a particular family member uses most often. Dad would see ads meant just for him on the smartphone he gets from the office, while the kids watching streaming Disney videos on the family iPad would see ads for toys and bikes.

There are important privacy concerns related to some aspects of Web advertising, of course (some argue that Web advertisers know too much about us), but the basic model is unchallenged and quite successful. Online advertising has surged in the last several years: In the first half of 2011 alone, Internet ad revenues in the U.S. soared to nearly $15 billion, up 23 percent from a year earlier, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Just think about the new power cable companies can get from this targeted, or even hyper-targeted, advertising.

Earlier this year, analyst Laura Martin of Needham & Co. predicted that the rollout of TV Everywhere over the next three to five years could add $12 billion in revenue to the U.S. television ecosystem — most of it in advertising. Martin noted that this new revenue would be additive, and not in place of, existing cable-industry revenues, and would dwarf the revenues of video sites like Hulu and YouTube. She added that people watching content on demand, as people generally do on non-TV devices, are more likely to view ads than people who record shows on DVRs. This all means that cable companies can likely increase their share of the advertising pie by going digital. And there’s upside for the consumer, too. I know I’d rather see ads for products I’m likely to buy than the random ads I currently see when watching TV at home. Relevance is a win-win for operators and their subscribers.

At my company, RGB Networks, we are in the business of selling gear to cable companies and other TV service providers to make it easier for them to deliver IP-based TV to multiple devices. We’ve been extremely busy lately, and have seen cable companies take big steps toward embracing the Internet: Early this year, Comcast struck a deal with Disney — which owns ABC, ESPN and other key TV channels — to let subscribers watch those channels on Internet-enabled, non-TV devices, like phones and tablets, outside the home. Charter did a similar deal with Turner Broadcasting. RGB competitors Harmonic and Envivio — which just revived plans to go public — also aim to profit from this trend.

We think 2012 will be a breakthrough year for TV Everywhere — we’re involved in many deployments with large operators around the globe (with the smaller ones beginning to follow suit). And as they have worked through their smaller trials and vetted both the technology and the business model, we now see them going bigger — with more channels and more devices — and turning to targeted advertising to help recoup some of the investment they’ve made in new infrastructure to keep their networks state-of-the-art.

We are not yet at a place where we can simply transfer our at-home, cable-TV lineup to our iPads and watch all the same shows on the go that we can in our living rooms. That will take a lot more negotiation between the cable companies and the content providers. But that’s clearly the way things are going.

And as the technology side of the house has worked through its issues and stands poised for broad deployment, we see the barriers breaking down on the content side as well. We expect to see a similar pattern for targeted advertising — the technology is in place, and the new ad model will follow as the stakeholders work through their negotiations, with everybody coming out a winner.

Jef Graham is the CEO of RGB Networks, a Sunnyvale, Calif., company making network-infrastructure products to allow video providers to deliver content to multiple screens.

Disney is launching three apps for the iPhone and iPod that will allow users to watch Disney Channel shows like “Phineas and Ferb” and “Good Luck Charlie” live and on demand, anywhere they want.

Called WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH Disney XD and WATCH Disney Junior, perhaps the most important feature of the apps is that they will offer live streams — just like the WatchESPN app that Disney launched a year ago.

The free apps will be done initially in partnership with Comcast, part of the cable giant’s TV Everywhere effort. In many ways, the effort is like a kid’s version of HBO Go, the successful Time Warner app that allows the pay television channel’s subscribers to access its shows on a number of devices.

This one will be available to Xfinity TV customers who get Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior networks as part of their monthly video service.

Users of the service will need to verify their Comcast Xfinity TV credentials to access the shows. Users who don’t subscribe to Disney will also have access to a limited number of on-demand episodes.

The deal between Disney and Comcast is part of a long-term distribution agreement announced earlier this year to deliver its content to cable subscribers.

It is also part of Disney’s efforts to find an increasing number of distribution outlets for its mass of popular content, including on Netflix and Hulu.

Disney CEO Bob Iger had signaled that the apps were coming at an investment conference several weeks ago, noting that Comcast was paying for the service.

Here’s Albert Cheng, EVP and Chief Product Officer of digital media for the Disney/ABC Television Group, talking about the new apps:

During the last summer Olympics, NBC wouldn’t show some of the most exciting events live on the Web, because it wanted to protect its ratings for its taped TV highlights.

Four years later, the programmer has wised up, and will livestream every single event. This is great news, with only one catch: If you want to see all of it, you’ll need to pay for cable TV.

Actually, make that two catches: You’ll also need to prove to NBC that you pay for cable TV (or telco TV, or satellite TV).

That’s one of the fundamental precepts of the “TV Everywhere” plan that the cable guys are using to hold off disruption, and in practice it’s a hassle. It requires digging up your cable bill so you can find your account number, and starting up yet another online account and password. Not rocket science, but certainly not one-click easy.

The TV guys, to their credit, don’t pretend that it’s easy, either.

“It’s painful, we know, but it’ll be worth it … trust us,” says an NBC Olympics explainer (thanks to Zach Seward’s excellent Cord Cutter’s Diary for the tip).

NBC isn’t the only network to acknowledge, with a wink and a nudge, that the process is a headache. Last summer, when Fox (which, like this Web site, is owned by News Corp.) moved its prime-time stuff behind a TV Everywhere pay wall, it helpfully pointed out that the process was less unpleasant than being waterboarded.

The networks say they do take all of this seriously, and argue that it has gotten easier to sign up for TV Everywhere stuff. (Here’s an amusing “Family Guy” video explaining the process.)

At a cable-industry panel I moderated last month, Disney executive David Preschlak said that the programmer has been refining the login process for its excellent Watch ESPN service/app in the last year. One small but effective change Disney has made: It now asks users to “verify” that they are paying customers, instead of telling them to “authenticate,” which is the industry’s semi-ominous term. Logins shot up dramatically after Disney swapped the terms out, Preschlak said.

One way to make all of this a whole lot easier would be to route verification/authentication from a third-party service that just about everyone uses, like Facebook, and use that service’s credentials as a login. And Facebook likes this idea a whole lot, and has been talking about it for a couple of years. But the Comcasts and Verizons of the world have yet to buy in.

So if you want to be sure you can stream Usain Bolt in real time this summer, start digging through your mail now.

As long as they keep paying for TV.

But even if consumers go for that deal, the TV guys need to make sure that advertisers buy in, too.

And that won’t happen until the TV guys can get some basic stuff right. Like counting eyeballs, no matter where they watch a show.

That could still take a while. Witness Comcast’s announcement yesterday, made at the cable industry’s annual convention in Boston, that it has been working with Nielsen on a plan to count viewers when they watched video on an iPad*, using Comcast’s Xfinity app.

For various technical reasons, this is much harder than you’d think, and the two companies have already been beavering away at this for 18 months. Now they’re launching a trial, and Comcast executive Matt Strauss is optimistic that they can work the kinks out by 2013, and advertisers could have true “multiplatform measurement.”

But that only works if all of the big pay-TV providers sign on to the new technology. And the media-measurement business is full of different tests and initiatives, all shooting off in different directions.

Last week, for instance, Spanish-language powerhouse Univision announced a “video neutral” deal with media-buying agency Starcom, which is supposed to mean Univision gets credit for its stuff no matter where anyone watches it. But the announcement describing the deal doesn’t explain how Univision or Starcom will track those eyeballs.

Meanwhile, Nielsen’s rival eyeball-counter comScore recently announced that it had its own technology in place to measure mobile devices like phones and tablets. And earlier this year it announced its own “multiscreen research initiative,” where it paired up with AT&T.

But comScore isn’t tracking any traffic on connected devices, like Google TVs, Apple TVs or Microsoft Xboxes. So if any of that really is taking off, that’s yet another headache.

Shouldn’t this stuff be easier? After all, we’ve figured out how to get the video all of these places — why can’t we count it, too?

On the other hand, recall that the iPhone is still a mere five years old, and the iPad is only two. That’s a blink of an eye for the measurement guys, who move deliberately because there’s billions of ad dollars at stake, no matter what they do. But they may still have to speed things up.

*Or, theoretically, on another tablet.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Liewluck)

Here’s a screenshot of the Netflix CEO’s most recent post, where he gripes that Comcast won’t let its subscribers watch HBO Go — the pay channel’s “TV Everywhere” app — via an Xbox 360, and goes on to talk about the way the cable provider enforces its broadband usage cap.

Both of these complaints are the kind of thing that most people don’t care about, but vex a certain kind of technically savvy user. They are important, though, because they underscore some of the tensions between programmers and providers that have made “TV Everywhere” more conceptual than it ought to be, nearly three years after Time Warner and Comcast announced a grand launch plan.

Still, this is one of those stories where the form matters more than the content — it’s just interesting to see the head of a public company handling company business on Facebook. Then again, Hastings happens to be on Facebook’s board of directors.

Also note that Hastings doesn’t just gripe about Comcast on Facebook. Here he is a couple days ago, praising the company’s new Xbox app, and complimenting/wooing Comcast executive Sam Schwartz. And then he gripes, just a tiny bit, about Streampix, Comcast’s sorta-kinda Netflix-killer.

Nearly three years after Time Warner Inc. and Comcast Corp. kicked off a drive to make cable programming available online for cable subscribers, the idea of TV Everywhere remains mired in technical holdups, slow deal-making and disputes over who will control TV customers in the future.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Some of the college basketball tourney’s games will only be available to Web users whose cable providers have deals with Turner Sports, or those who pay a $3.99 one-time fee to access the games on PCs, Google/Android and Apple/iOS devices.

Games that CBS broadcasts, though, will still be available to anyone with a Web browser, through the network’s own site.

Here’s the practical breakdown, nicely summarized by BTIG’s Rich Greenfield (registration required):

• CBS will stream the games airing on the CBS Network throughout the country live on CBSSports.com for free. Consumers will only be able to watch on PCs/Macs, with no tablet/smartphone access.
• TBS, TNT and TruTV will stream the games airing on each network live at TBS.com, TNT.tv and truTV.com for consumers who authenticate their respective MVPD service provider (currently all major MVPDs authenticate these network Web sites, except Time Warner Cable). As with CBS, the games will only be available via PC/Mac (no portability).
• Complete access to March Madness on Demand via PC/Mac, smartphone and tablets with interactive features, regardless of whether you have subscribed to MVPD service, will cost a consumer $3.99 (one-time fee for the whole tournament). Streaming online and across portable devices will be available from the selection show through the championship game.

A few more notes: CBS and Turner split the games, so you won’t run into the paywall every time you want to watch — Turner will have 41 of the games. And as Greenfield notes, most pay-TV operators have deals with Turner, which says that means about 75 million homes will have Web access via “authentication.” That said, if you’re planning on watching the games that way, better prepare now, by hunting down your subscriber info, etc. — the process isn’t nearly as easy as it ought to be.

Big picture: This is a switch from the precedent CBS established in 2006, when it started streaming all of the tournament’s games on the Web for free (for three years before that, it had charged around $15 to watch online).

Each year, the network loudly trumpeted the number of eyeballs and ad dollars that Web streams attracted, while arguing that it didn’t hurt traditional TV ratings at all. Last year, you could even watch the tournament on an iPad for free.

But it’s in keeping with the broader move we’ve seen from big media companies, who are pulling back on free Web video. Back when Hulu launched in 2008, it seemed that most big TV networks were going to put all their shows online, but in the last couple of years, we’ve seen the pendulum swing the other way, as networks tie “free” Web TV to pay-TV subscriptions.

Was phone hacking indicative of a larger culture problem at News Corp.? asked Walt Mossberg, who interviewed Carey on stage at D: Dive Into Media this afternoon.

“No,” Carey replied. “While all this noise exists, one of our challenges is to manage our businesses, and we’re quite proud of them.”

(This might be a good time to mention that Carey is our boss, since AllThingsD.com is owned by News Corp.)

Mossberg eventually moved onto SOPA and PIPA, the recently withdrawn anti-piracy bills. Wouldn’t it have been better for Hollywood to work together with Silicon Valley to hash out a solution that worked for both of them? he asked.

Carey doesn’t think so. “We’re the ones who are having our product pirated, so we appropriately tried to get it dealt with,” he said.

So was SOPA a bad bill?

Carey wouldn’t go that far, though he declined to comment on the specifics of the bill. “Without having read it, it probably could have been a bit better focused,” he said.

The next big topic was online television distribution and cutting the cord — two of the leading themes of today’s conference.

For the short term, News Corp.’s best option is what’s called “TV everywhere,” where watchers log in to view online programs based on their paid television accounts. Carey admitted this authentication hasn’t been executed all that well.

Over time, Carey said, News Corp. expects to increasingly address viewers who want content on their own terms. But it wants to figure out how to make money.

On a more specific note, what about Hulu, the premium video streaming site that News Corp. owns in part and tried to sell last year?

“I’m not sure where Hulu goes,” Carey said. “But it’s something a lot of people would cut off their arms for, to have that sort of leadership in the digital arena.”

The two companies say the service will go into a “brief beta trial” and will then be available to all Time Warner Cable subscribers (again, as long as they’re also HBO customers), “in the next month.”

Depending on how you look at it, the agreement either extends the reach of Time Warner’s “TV Everywhere” program, or fills an embarrassing hole. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are two separate companies that split up in 2009, so programming deals between the two aren’t automatic, by any means.

But that explanation didn’t do much to appease Time Warner Cable customers who wanted the service. The cable company has 14 million subscribers, making it the country’s second-biggest cable provider after Comcast.

Time Warner rolled out HBO Go this summer to very positive reviews; Time Warner says users have downloaded five million apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android devices. Earlier this month, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said that HBO Go users watch up to 50 percent more of the channel’s programming.

HBO Go users, who can watch shows like “Game of Thrones” on their iPad, iPhones, and Android devices, watch 30 percent to 50 percent more than non-users*, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said today at the UBS media conference.

But Bewkes said that the pay channel’s subscriber count had been “stable” in the past year, which would mean it still has about 28 million paying customers.

That makes sense, given that the “TV Everywhere” strategy Bewkes has been pushing isn’t focused on attracting more customers but in keeping the ones he has — especially those tempted to seek out video entertainment via the Web, or services like Netflix.

Meanwhile, Bewkes was careful to note that those viewership bumps may not continue, given that HBO Go is still primarily in the hands of early adopters, though that’s still a decent-sized number. Last month Time Warner announced that the HBO Go app had hit the 5 million download mark for Android and iOS users.

Speaking of Netflix — just in case you didn’t get the message via this weekend’s interview with the Financial Times — Bewkes reiterated his position on the service. He’s happy to sell them stuff he can’t sell anymore. Services like Netflix and Hulu “can definitely add value to all of us, if you’re trying to get that obscure movie that you haven’t seen yet,” he said.

That kind of faint praise may explain why Bewkes’s initial assessment of Reed Hastings’s company today — “Netflix is our friend” — drew laughs from the audience.

*Bewkes didn’t specify whether that 30 to 50 percent increase was for TV viewing, or an aggregate number that includes TV + devices. I’m assuming the latter, but have asked Time Warner reps to clarify. UPDATE: Yup, aggregate.

Which sounds cool!

But let’s be clear about what this is: An extension of the “TV Everywhere”/“authentication” concept that lets cable subscribers watch programming via alternate delivery systems.

And let’s be clear about what this isn’t: A tool for cable cord cutters or cord shavers.

Bloomberg laid most of this out last month in a story previewing tomorrow’s announcement. Steve Ballmer has been “promoting the Xbox 360 console as a way to switch easily between games, DVDs and pay TV” — not as a way to ditch cable. Which is why cable providers and programmers like Comcast and Verizon are working with him.

Another way to think about it: Look at the iPad and iPhone apps we’ve already seen from the likes of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and ESPN. They let subscribers watch some (though usually not all) of what they can get from their various cable packages on a different device. The Xbox deals should work the same way.

A more direct analogy: This will be an extension of deals Microsoft has already put together with the likes of ESPN, which gives some cable subscribers access to the network’s ESPN3 digital channel via their game boxes. (UPDATE: Readers note that the ESPN3-Xbox deal doesn’t require a cable subscription, but a broadband Internet subscription from particular providers. So it’s theoretically possible for an Xbox owner to get Comcast broadband — but not cable — and still get sports beamed to his TV.)

There’s always a miniscule chance that one of Microsoft’s partners will stray way outside the reservation and actually offer cable-like programming without requiring a cable subscription. One day, for instance, I could see Time Warner finally giving its HBO unit the go-ahead to start selling a la carte subscriptions to the pay service, at the same rates that it’s charging the cable guys.

The cable guys wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t like when HBO, et al, did the same with the satellite guys in the ’90s. There’s not much they can do about it.

But given that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is the chief proponent of the cable-protecting “TV Everywhere” plan, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

More tomorrow, once Microsoft makes it all official.

And they do! But they also require subscribers to do some work.

Part of that is because the cable guys really haven’t worked out the technology yet (Facebook could help here).

But it’s really because the point of The Great Free TV Web Pullback of 2011 (alternate title: The Great Web Video Piracy Boom of 2011) isn’t to make it easy to watch TV shows on the Web. It’s meant to protect the traditional TV business.

And it looks like the new “authentication” program that Fox announced last night, which will pull back free TV shows on Hulu and Fox.com, will follow form. (News Corp., which owns Fox, also owns this Web site.)

Take a look at the Web site that Fox rolled out last night in conjunction with the move. It warns surfers that in order to watch shows on the Web, they’ll need to:

• Be a Dish Network subscriber.
• Create an online Dish Network subscriber ID and password, which will require them to dig up their account number from their paper bill.
• Be prepared to log in again every 30 days.

This is about standard for authenticated TV, and while it’s not rocket science, it’s also not much fun. (Quick quiz: Where is your most recent cable bill?)

On the other hand, it is easier than being waterboarded, as “Glee’s” awesome Jane Lynch reminds us in a 15-second video. But it’s certainly nowhere near as easy as the instant gratification you can get by going to Fox.com or Hulu.com and watching last night’s “MasterChef” (or just stealing a peek from a pirate site).

Speaking of Hulu — it’s interesting to note that there’s absolutely no mention of the site on Fox’s Web page, even though Hulu Plus customers can also get access to the Fox programming. But also not surprising.

Unless they’re Time Warner Cable subscribers.

That company’s 14 million customers don’t get access to the digitized CNN feed, even though just about every other big pay TV provider –  AT&T, Comcast, Cox, DISH Network, Verizon — has signed on.

This isn’t the first time that Time Warner Cable subscribers have been shut out of a Time Warner TV Everywhere service. Earlier this year, Time Warner’s HBO released HBO Go, a very good iPad app, for customers of just about every big cable provider — except Time Warner Cable.

What gives? The short answer is that Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are two entirely separate companies that share a name but nothing else. The two formally split up in 2009, part of a decade-long corporate slim down on the part of Time Warner (also jettisoned: Warner Music Group, AOL, and not nearly as much of Time Inc. as many had predicted).

OK. But what really gives? Here I don’t have a good answer.

Some wags suggest that Time Warner Cable has some sort of theological/business strategy problem with TV Everywhere products that allow people to stream video outside of the home, because Time Warner Cable only sells broadband access to the living room. That is, if you’re streaming HBO Go on your iPad in an airport, using AT&T’s bandwidth, then Time Warner Cable doesn’t really get a chance to participate: It wants you to consume most of your broadband through its pipes, so it can charge you for it.

But that seems a bit of a stretch, particularly since Time Warner Cable subscribers can use some TV Everywhere products — just not the ones from Time Warner. Time Warner Cable customers can use ESPN’s excellent ESPN Watch app, for instance, and stream live sports anywhere they can tote an iPhone, no matter whose bandwidth they’re consuming.

Another theory: Time Warner and Time Warner Cable’s executives simply don’t like each other, a residue of the divorce proceedings. That also seems a bit of a stretch — in the cable business, nobody really likes each other. They just tolerate each other because they spend all their time negotiating incredibly complicated, expensive carriage deals, that ultimately let both sides make a bunch of money.

Still, if anyone can shed any light, I’m all ears: Neither Time Warner Cable nor Time Warner wanted to comment for this one.

As advertised, the free app is a mirror of HBO’s existing broadband service: It lets the channel’s subscribers stream a very deep catalog of HBO’s shows and movies, on demand, via both Wi-Fi and wireless networks.

It will also work on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as 20 phones running Google’s Android; it won’t work on tablets running Google’s newest Honeycomb OS, though. (Demo video from BTIG’s Rich Greenfield at the bottom of this post)

The two catches:

• The service is available to most cable customers, with the exception of Time Warner Cable and Cablevision subscribers. Time Warner Cable says it’s working on a deal; Cablevision won’t comment.
• It’s a very deep catalog–1,400 titles, including the complete run of great series like “The Sopranos” and “The Wire”–but it will still have gaps that could frustrate HBO’s most avid users. I’d like to try David Simon’s “Treme” again, for instance, but I can’t get last season’s episodes; just the new ones that started airing last week.

Some of you will bemoan the fact that you have to be a cable subscriber to get this–there’s no broadband-only option, a la Netflix and Hulu Plus. But that’s the point: Parent company Time Warner is completely wedded to the cable industry and wants to build as many incentives as it can to keep you there, too.

Still, this stuff is lightyears ahead of where the cable business was just a couple years ago, where paying subscribers had no way to get these shows except on their TVs, or by buying it again on DVD or iTunes.

And if you really are a dedicated cord-cutter, and a patient one, you may eventually get your way: I can imagine a scenario where HBO does offer this stuff directly to consumers, and if it happens within a few years, I won’t be completely shocked.

The idea was that whatever/whenever access would be enough to keep cable TV subscribers paying their monthly bill instead of cutting the cord for Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc. And while it sounded pretty good on paper, it’s been very slow going since.

But here’s what it’s supposed to look like: ESPN’s new “WatchESPN” app, which does just what you think it does. It lets you watch the sports network live, for free, on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, no matter where you are.

It seems to work pretty well, too. Here’s a screenshot of live TV I took from my iPad. Note that the app is technically an iPhone app (an iPad-optimized one is coming), but the image looks pretty nice even blown up at 2x:

Catches? Of course.

• The biggest one is that Disney’s network has carriage deals so far only with Time Warner Cable, Brighthouse TV and Verizon FiOS. That covers 18 million homes, but that won’t make you any happier if you don’t live in one of them. It’s worth noting that Comcast, the country’s biggest cable provider, isn’t included here, even though it has previously set up broadband programming deals with ESPN.
• There’s no app for Google’s Android platform, though ESPN says that’s coming.
• ESPN says there are a “few circumstances” where it still doesn’t have the rights to transmit its on-air programming online. The biggest one you’ll care about is “Monday Night Football,” which the network can’t transmit to mobile phones because Verizon has paid big money for those rights. But ESPN says it can send the game to your iPad, regardless of where it is or what connection you’re using.

But given the nature of this stuff, that’s still a pretty short list.

And unlike the iPhone and iPad apps we’ve seen recently from Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cablevision, which either don’t work outside your house or do with limitations, this is one where you don’t have to scratch your head for a reason to use it. This is stuff you’ll want to use if you like sports but aren’t able to watch from your couch. Simple, useful.

Note for ad folks: The apps don’t carry any ads right now at all–when a commercial break comes on, viewers just get a temporary graphic. But ESPN ad boss Sean Bratches says by August, his company will have technology that will allow it to serve up different ads to different users at the same time. And when that’s available, he’ll start selling access to tablet and phone eyeballs in conjunction with TV ad buys.

The two companies say they will make ESPN’s flagship channel available online for TV subscribers of Time Warner Cable. Those who can confirm their TV subscription through an online registration process can watch live programming on the Web just as it appears on TV for no additional charge—a model known as “TV Everywhere.”

Most of the industry’s forays in TV Everywhere so far have put scripted shows online in an on-demand format—usually sometime after they air on TV. For the most part, TV networks have yet to put their channels on the Web in real time, and doing so with one of the most popular cable networks and live sports programming—the best source of high audience ratings for TV—offers a high-profile stage for a risky experiment.

“We think this can be a catalyst to drive the industry towards broader adoption of the authentication model,” said Sean Bratches, executive vice president of sales with ESPN. “We anticipate doing this with a number of other affiliates.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site