Thursday, January 06, 2005

The New York Times > Technology > Breaking Free of Cable's Stranglehold

The New York Times > Technology > Breaking Free of Cable's Stranglehold: "TiVo is using this week's show to announce several moves to bypass cable systems, by using the Internet and personal computers as media for television delivery and viewing. 'Offering service through one of the primary cable platforms is not the best way to grow our business at this time, because the economics are not very attractive,' said Michael Ramsey, TiVo's chief executive. Instead, 'we have decided to embrace the PC as our friend.' As the various other consumer electronics companies here weigh whether to work with or end-run the cable systems, none of their options are entirely satisfactory."

I am cautiously optimistic that this trend will lead to more not-awful programming options; mainstream TV lately is a nearly complete wasteland, from what I've seen. No doubt there will be progress at the intersection of these trends and the podcasting model -- let me manage subscriptions based on personal preferences etc. and use my existing multi-channel (email, RSS, etc.) client to alert me of potentially relevant/useful TV++ programming.

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