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Only a headline for a day: Intel set to destroy cable TV industry!

Yesterday Broadcast Engineer had a headline Intel set to destroy cable TV industry suggesting Intel were ready to disrupt the pay TV industry with a new set top box and a lá carte content.

The promise:

Chris Davies at SlashGear, writes, “The new push for a slice of the living room follows Intel’s apparent frustration with the failure of first-gen Google TV boxes powered by its chips; according to TechCrunch’s tipster, the company has grown tired of “everyone doing a half-assed Google TV so it’s going to do it themselves and do it right.”

But a day later and the very next paragraph:

However, a mere 24hr, later some websites were claiming that program rights holders remained uncooperative and that only “an early version of the STB” will make its appearance at CES.

What a surprise. Presumably this is also what is preventing Apple doing much the same thing. And from the content owners’ current business position, they feel they’d be foolish to go down this path, when the deals with cable companies are so lucrative.  For now.

Ultimately, the solution is going to be that Apple follows Amazon, Google and Netflix down the path of original programming from the same program producers as now, but without the “middle-man” involvement of a network or cable channel.

Update: My friend Robin Kurz pointed to the Macalope’s take on this. Apparently it has something to do with rainbows and unicorns.

Oh, and even Cringley weighs in:

When technology companies try to do business with the entertainment industry they are nearly always taken advantage of. Hollywood can’t help it. Like Rebecca Rabbit, they’re just drawn that way.

Look at Intel and remember this is the company’s third such effort to get a foothold in the entertainment business, where technology companies tend to be seen as rubes ripe for plucking. Apple and Microsoft are right now trying to do exactly the same thing as Intel and they aren’t succeeding, either. Nor will any of them succeed unless they take a more enlightened approach.

My next column will spell out exactly how this could be done.

We’ll be waiting on that!

 


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2 responses to “Only a headline for a day: Intel set to destroy cable TV industry!”

  1. One wonders if the best thing for Intel, Apple, Netflix et. al. to do would be to form a cartel and start producing their own content as a block and buy out production companies as a block.

    They’re going to have to do something to break the stranglehold. I guess Apple could buy a studio, they have enough cash.