By Putting Over-The-Air Online Legally, Aereo Clears The Way For ALL TV Everywhere

This week is the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, with the attendent announcements relating to television distribution. Adobe and Brightcove are both introducing products to facilitate the concept of Television Everywhere, or TVE. But what the broadcast industry considers TV does not include all of the video that is already accessible everywhere through the web. It is the amount and availability of that internet video that is driving the immediacy of broadcasters to embrace TVE. And I think there is a good case to be made that Aereo, the Barry Diller-backed startup that lets people watch live broadcast  TV channels (over-the-air or OTA) on internet-connected devices, is about to push Television Everywhere definitively towards ALL Television Everywhere (ATVE!)

To understand the potential magnitude of Aereo’s disruption, consider first, the twisted brilliance of what it is doing. Pardon my Yiddish, but in order to be legal, Aereo’s scheme is one of the most cockamamie ideas I have ever heard! Here’s how it works. Consumers have the right to receive a broadcast TV signal on any device they choose (originally just a TV) and by extension, record programs for their own personal use. That is the intent and the purpose of the law. Broadcasters get to use the airwave spectrum (and make money off of advertising) in return for allowing people free access to these broadcasts—for their own personal use.