Comcast, Time Warner Activate TV Everywhere
It's been approximately 18 months since Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) first talked up TV Everywhere, but their authentication strategy has finally come to pass: a multi-year commitment to put hundreds of hours …
Context & Ripple Effects
TV Everywhere began as a defensive idea — the 2009 framing that online video would come "as long as you pay for it" — designed to keep authenticated cable subscribers from drifting to free web video rather than to win new ones. Time Warner Cable's online video test announced in August 2009 was the first concrete step, and Brightcove spent early 2010 arguing the authentication layer should be opened beyond the cable companies' own websites.
Eighteen months of talk has now hardened into a multi-year Comcast–Time Warner commitment covering hundreds of hours of content, landing inside Comcast's year-old Xfinity branding push and alongside Brian Roberts' stated view that tablets like the iPad let the company rebuild its TV interface from scratch. Time Warner's parallel decision to stick with Flash for its online players signals where these authenticated streams will live first.
First-order effects
- Comcast and Time Warner cable subscribers gain access to hundreds of hours of shows online at no extra charge, with authentication tied to their existing pay-TV accounts — turning the pay-TV bundle into a login rather than just a pipe.
Second-order effects
- Rival distributors face pressure to match the authentication offering or watch their subscribers treat competitor logins as more valuable, while intermediaries like Brightcove — which pushed to power TV Everywhere beyond the cable companies' own sites — get a live market to sell into.
Third-order effects
- If authentication becomes standard across cable, the pay-TV industry's competitive line shifts from channel carriage to whoever controls the subscriber credential — positioning operators as gatekeepers for third-party devices and services, a role tablet makers will test.
The trend: Pay TV is repositioning itself around authenticated access — bundling online rights to existing subscriptions so that the cable login, not the set-top box, becomes the industry's defensible asset.