First-order effects

• Viacom and Time Warner Cable step back from court proceedings, reopening room to negotiate whether Viacom channels return to an iPad app that drew 360,000 downloads in its first month per TWC's earnings call.
• Cablevision's competing position matters here: its Optimum app streams hundreds of channels plus VOD without a public channel-pull fight, giving distributors a live example that tablet carriage deals are signable.

Second-order effects

• Comcast and Time Warner's February activation of the TV Everywhere authentication service gives both sides a ready-made licensing template — authenticated in-home access — that any negotiated settlement would likely formalize.
• Other programmers watching this dispute now face pricing leverage questions: if Viacom wins per-device fees, every distributor's next carriage renewal gets renegotiated around tablets; if TWC prevails, existing contracts absorb them for free.

Third-order effects

• Carriage agreements across the industry are being forced to spell out delivery platforms explicitly — cable box, iPad, future devices — replacing the implicit 'any screen in the home' assumption that governed the pre-tablet era.
• Content owners' litigation posture echoes their 2007 stance against online video aggregators, when Viacom and NBC injected themselves into early web-video suits; the pattern suggests rights holders litigate each new distribution technology before licensing it.