Google Pitches Online TV Service to Media Companies
Streaming of Traditional TV Programming Is Also Planned by Others — Google Inc. has approached media companies about licensing their content for an Internet TV service that would stream traditional TV programming, people familiar with the matter say.
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported licensing outreach follows a multiyear effort to establish a TV foothold: Google and partners were seeking a place in television in 2010, Hollywood was uneasy about the Google TV plan, and the company was weighing a pay-TV business in 2011. The new report shifts the focus from a TV interface to the rights needed to stream traditional programming.
The approach remains unconfirmed: the relationship data characterizes Google’s talks with media companies as reported rather than established.
First-order effects
- Google and media companies are reportedly drawn into licensing discussions over whether traditional TV programming can be carried through an Internet service.
- For Google, access to programming rights becomes the immediate prerequisite for turning its TV ambitions into a service proposition.
Second-order effects
- Media companies gain another prospective digital distributor, making the commercial terms and control attached to programming licenses central to Google’s TV push.
- Google’s earlier TV efforts face a sharper test: a consumer-facing TV product without negotiated programming rights has limited leverage as a pay-TV alternative.
Third-order effects
- If major web platforms keep pursuing traditional TV rights, television distribution shifts toward recurring negotiations between programmers and technology companies rather than being defined solely by the TV product itself.
The trend: Internet-TV entrants are treating programming licenses as the critical asset for bringing traditional television into web-delivered services.