Aereo

Online video company Aereo poses a threat to over-the-air broadcast services, the TV company Hearst says in new court papers. Hearst, which owns the ABC affiliate WCVB in Boston, makes the argument as part of its attempt to convince the First Circuit Court of Appeals to ban Aereo from operating.

Chet Kanojiasays that the controversial company had turned a profit in some of its markets, and is also looking for broadband partners to pair with its service.

In a little over a week, more than 2.7 million consumers in Central Maryland will have access to the streaming antenna/DVR technology to record and watch live television online.

The Barry Diller-backed retransmission service is is scheduled to launch in 11 Wisconsin counties in early 2014, offering customers basic channels for a subscription price starting at $8 per month — provided the service survives lawsuits from broadcasters who say it steals their copyrighted material.

Billionaire Barry Diller, the backer of Aereo Inc., said the online-television service may eventually get as much as 35 percent of U.S. households to subscribe if it overcomes legal challenges from broadcasters. People in their mid- to late-20s aren’t willing to pay $100 a month for cable TV packages, making Aereo’s $8 service increasingly attractive, Diller said Wednesday at The Year Ahead: 2014, a two-day conference hosted by Bloomberg LP in Chicago.

The National Football League and Major League Baseball are urging the Supreme Court to grant broadcasters’ petition to hear their challenge to the legality of Aereo, the startup that features unauthorized streams of local broadcast signals. After the TV networks filed a petition to the high court last month, the NFL and MLB filed an amicus brief last week arguing that if Aereo prevails, it would mean sports programming would likely migrate to cable. Broadcasters argue that Aereo undermines their ability to collect retransmission fees from cable and satellite operators.

Online video company Aereo “threatens the existence of the American broadcast industry as the nation has come to know it,” the Media Institute says in papers filed this week with the Supreme Court. The nonprofit think-tank is asking the Supreme Court to hear broadcasters’ challenge to earlier rulings allowing Aereo to continue operating.

Starting next week, more than 3.4 million consumers across three states will have access to the streaming antenna/DVR technology to record and watch live television online.

Aereo has been beset by a legal onslaught from broadcast networks. But even if it wins that fight, it still has to overcome more-pedestrian issues, like making sure it can pay for the electricity it needs, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. While each of the company’s tiny antennas only use five to six watts of power, it quickly adds up. For example, if the company were to hit its goal of 350,000 subscribers in New York, it would need nearly 2 megawatts of power, which could cost about $2 million per year. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

In another defeat for TV broadcasters, an appellate court in Boston has rejected Hearst’s request to expedite its attempt to shut down Aereo.

As broadcasters and Aereo wait to see if the Supreme Court will agree to the former’s recent petition to hear the case against the latter, the Barry Diller-backed streaming service has been sued a second time this week in the state of Utah. And today ABC and CW affiliates owner Nexstar Communications filed a motion for a preliminary injunction (read it here) to shut Aereo down during the course of the litigation from the copyright infringement complaint it filed on Thursday.

DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications are considering capturing free broadcast signals from TV networks to avoid paying billions of dollars in retransmission fees. “If found to be legal, the Aereo concept is very interesting, especially as it relates to retransmission consent fees,” says a TWC spokesperson.

Broadcasters aren’t going to like hearing this, but in the short amount of time I’ve served as an Aereo beta tester in Denver, I’ve been very impressed by the controversial streaming service. Image quality is great, the cloud DVR is more useful than I thought and I get access to 26 channels from anywhere in the Denver area with an Internet connection.

An attempt by TV broadcasters to shut down Aereo in Utah should meet the same fate as two unsuccessful efforts in New York and Boston, the startup says in court papers filed on Tuesday. “The third time should not be a charm,” Aereo argues. “The facts are the same; the result should be the same as well.”

Aereo is now available for Android tablets and smartphones running Android 4.2 and up. The service currently is available only in New York City, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Salt Lake City, with a roll out in Detroit scheduled for next week.

Less than a week after broadcasters petitioned the Supreme Court over Aereo, a New York-based federal judge on Thursday denied the Barry Diller-backed company’s second attempt at winning permission to depose CBS chief Les Moonves.

Are Comcast’s cable business and its NBCUniversal entertainment unit on the same page when it comes to the Aereo legal battle? That’s a question worth asking in the wake of Friday’s petition by major broadcasters seeking a Supreme Court review of the case over the online TV-streaming service.

Cablevision Systems Corp. criticized the arguments made by broadcasters in a Supreme Court filing seeking to shut down Aereo, a start-up company that delivers local television station signals to consumers via the Internet. Cablevision said the case that broadcasters including Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC are attempting to make against Aereo is a “willful attempt to stifle innovation.”

Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal, WNET New York, Fox and Univision today asked the high court to review a ruling by the U.S. Courts of Appeals in New York. That court rejected broadcasters’ plea to shut down Aereo during a trial to determine whether the streaming service infringes on their copyrights.

With just days to go before broadcasters are likely to take Aereo to the Supreme Court, a federal judge has denied Hearst-owned ABC affiliate WCVB Boston its preliminary injunction motion against the Barry Diller-backed streaming service. “The court finds that Hearst has made a minimal showing of irreparable harm that is an insufficient basis for entering a preliminary injunction in its favor,” said District Judge Nathaniel Gorton.

As the streaming service continues its goal of launching in 22 markets by year’s end, it also hopes to gain more subscribers by being available on the Android platform. At first, Aereo’s Android app will only be available in beta in markets where Aereo’s service is available. Those users will be able to stream content from their devices to big screens at home using a Roku or Google Chromecast.

The possibility is growing that the Supreme Court will eventually be asked to settle broadcasters’ legal battle with Aereo and FilmOn X. As both broadcasters and the companies await a key decision due from a San Francisco appellate court, broadcasters are stepping up the pressure on the two services.

On Monday, Fox Broadcasting Co., Sinclair Broadcast Group and Local TV filed suit in federal court in Utah against Aereo, the start-up company that streams broadcast TV signals to consumers via the Internet. Broadcasters have already challenged Aereo on copyright violation in New York and Boston. This suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Utah, where Aereo recently launched its service, makes similar allegations.

The streaming company originally hoped to launch in the Windy City on Sept. 13, following rollouts in New York, Boston and Atlanta. It’s unclear what’s specifically holding everything up, but delaying a market’s launch isn’t new for Aereo.

Next up on the streaming provider’s list is Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis and San Antonio. An actual launch date hasn’t been set, but the company is hoping to go live in those cities by year’s end.

With video: Speaking at TheGrill, The Wrap’s fourth annual media leadership conference Monday, Chet Kanojia, founder and CEO of Aereo, said the cable and television inudstry isn’t adapting to changing habits of consumers. “People want choice, people want simple,” he says.

Aereo’s streaming service is now available to subscribers in Dallas, the company said Monday, as it works toward its goal of launching in 22 markets by year’s end.

Aereo, FilmOn, and the major TV broadcasters are in a seesaw legal contest in courtrooms around the country, but in Boston, Aereo appears to have the upper hand. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton, who is overseeing the copyright complaint brought against Aereo by Hearst TV Stations, said yesterday that he’s “inclined at this point” to rule in favor of the Web TV service.

A federal judge in Iowa on Tuesday dismissed a subpoena by Aereo for documents and testimony about CBS’s minority investment in Syncbak, in addition to how Syncbak’s technology works and any documents that might mention Aereo.

Our technology looks to be different, says the Barry Diller-owned TV digital distributor.

The owners of FilmOn X vowed that their company would someday become an “Aereo killer,” and it may end up doing just that — only not in the way they intended. Last week, Rosemary Collyer, a federal district judge in Washington D.C., ordered FilmOn to stop operating in the United States after concluding that the company violated the copyrights of TV broadcasters. The decision is also a serious blow to Aereo’s legal position, say legal experts.

Viewers can stream over-the-air TV services like Aereo in New York but not California. The case could go to the Supreme Court — but not until 2015 or later, leaving consumers ample time to get to know the new service.

Aereo, the upstart television streaming service, plans to launch its product on Android devices in September, according to company CEO Chet Kanojia. Aereo had originally hoped to roll out an app for Google’s operating system late last summer.

Entrepreneurs are competing over best way to deliver live local TV to smartphones, tablets and other Internet devices.

Nearly a month after WCVB Boston filed a copyright infringement suit and sought an injunction against the Barry Diller-backed streaming video service, the much litigated Aereo says the Hearst-owned station has its facts wrong.

Aereo Inc., today announced plans to launch its online television technology in three additional markets. It will go live in Miami (DMA 16) on Sept. 2; Houston (DMA 10) on Sept. 16; and Dallas (DMA 5) on Sept. 23. Aereo’s news follows its expansion earlier this summer to Boston and Atlanta and previously announced start dates for Utah on Aug. 19 and Chicago on Sept. 13.

Although many areas of the law struggle to keep up with technology, copyright law changes can be exceptionally slow. In 2013, it seems particularly anachronistic to allow Aereo-like unauthorized and unpaid use of broadcast signals based on a metaphysical distinction between “public” and “private unique” performances, when potentially hundreds of millions of unauthorized, unpaid viewings of the identical broadcaster-originated programs could occur. 

Variety‘s Todd Spangler on why TV restreaming service Aereo might be headed for a fall despite its recent success in court: “Aereo often is portrayed as David to the broadcasters’ Goliath. But count on the giants to strike back. The scrappy startup may be a compelling storyline, but building a content-distribution business by thumbing your nose at your most important content sources isn’t a recipe for long-term success.”

The latest legal defeat for big TV broadcasters against the start-up company Aereo could lead to a Supreme Court showdown over the public’s ability to get free television signals.

Aereo founder-CEO Chet Kanojia said that the retrans showdown between CBS and Time Warner Cable gives some “validation” to the notion that the cost of cable to consumers has gotten out of whack.