Saturday, June 15, 2013

Bits Blog: Daily Report: Intel Aims to Remake the TV Landscape

Intel’s ambition to sell a bundle of television channels to subscribers over the Internet is running up against stiff resistance from cable and satellite companies, Brian Stelter reports in The New York Times.

The incumbent distributors are pressing owners of cable channels, with whom they have lucrative long-term contracts, not to sign contracts with upstarts like Intel.

But Intel’s executives intend to turn on its TV service by the end of the year. They are ready to pay more than existing distributors do for channels, though they have yet to announce any deals.

Prospective services like Intel TV, delivered over broadband services provided by the likes of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, have the potential to radically alter the media marketplace. Unlike Netflix, which sells a library of TV episodes and mainly supplements cable, a service like Intel’s — with dozens of channels, big and small, streaming through a modern interface — could cause more consumers to cancel their cable subscriptions.

And if Intel’s service ever goes on sale, industry executives predict that others will quickly follow.

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