Google TV would combine video cable, satellite, web pages and possibly one’s own home network into a single, searchable interface — with contextual Google ads, of course.
Makes perfect sense for Google, a big company which is seeing its bread-and-butter search business flatten out. And without a doubt, television's ancient, byzantine menu systems are long overdue for a major makeover.
The television networks, however, are understandably reticent about welcoming Google into the television distribution ecosystem, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Their resistance represents a roadblock to Google, which has already lined up hardware partners including Intel, Sony and Logitech and hopes to release set-top boxes as soon as this fall. According to that article, Google met with executives from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in recent weeks, but the talks did not go as smoothly as Google had hoped.
If television networks are worried about people downloading shows to their computers over P2P and watching them on their televisions using a Google TV set-top box, they would have attacked Microsoft the same way for its Media Center devices, or the makers of any number of other set-top boxes that already allow one to do the same, for that matter.
Television networks are actually scared of themselves, not P2P. They control where their shows appear first, and have found some degree of success distributing their shows both online (Amazon, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix, YouTube) and through the traditional television cable and satellite pipes.
Google's "one box" search solution would allow users to see all of the free stuff that both the networks and web-only producers are putting on the web, while Amazon, Netflix and other on-demand playback sites let users pick and choose as needed from premium fare. At some point, for some viewers, it could become worth it to stop paying for premium cable and satellite subscriptions.
If that happens, cable/satellite providers' profitable bundling model, which television studios insist is responsible for the breadth of programming available on cable and satellite because it forces all subscribers to pay for niche programming only watched by some, goes out the window -- the other reason Google TV scares the networks.
Revenue from paid television subscriptions over cable, satellite and (in some locations) IPTV increased 9 percent in the second quarter of 2010 as compared to the same quarter last year, to nearly $58 billion, according to ABI Research. The free, open web represents a threat to that revenue once it appears on more televisions, by content companies' way of thinking.
But at the same time, they can't resist publishing their own shows there, in order to stay relevant with younger, more connected viewers. For instance, just today, in an unrelated interview, Pitchfork publisher and COO Chris Kaskie told me that just about everyone in the Pitchfork offices gets their television via the web rather than cable or satellite.
It makes sense for cable and satellite companies to try to keep internet-delivered television separate from cable- and satellite-delivered television, because that way, they can make money on both sides, from the same shows. Google TV promises to dissolve that barrier, forcing them to pull content from the web to keep cable and satellite subscribers subscribing to paid services, and pushing forward-thinking viewers into different forms of online entertainment.
The answer to all of this is simple, if you're a television network: to create a premium internet fast lane that would allow them to deliver a complete cable/satellite experience via internet protocols when customers pay their ISP an additional fee. But net neutrality advocates are up in arms about that, and an internet fast lane is far from a foregone conclusion.
From a birds-eye view, the situation might be summed up as "Television and computers: Separated at birth." Big content companies have always wanted to turn the computer back into a television that has controllable channels, rather than the free-for-all that the open web has enabled.
For the same reason, content companies don't want the television to turn into a computer, which is what Google proposes to do with its Android-based set top boxes.
This impasse is a bit familiar. Google also thought it could help create a wireless internet that bypassed wireless carriers and behaved more-or-less like the wired internet, but eventually came to an agreement with Verizon that would exempt wireless carriers using the public's airwaves from all net neutrality regulations except for "transparency" about what the consumer is buying.
If that wireless lesson was any indication, Google will have to make heavy compromises with television studios before Google TV lands in your entertainment console.
Follow us for disruptive tech news: Eliot Van Buskirk and Epicenter on Twitter.
See Also:
- Here's The Real Google/Verizon Story: A Tale of Two Internets
- Surrender Monkey or Not, Google Remains Last, Best Hope for Net
- Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkeys
- Boxee CEO: Google TV Could Boost or Crush Us
- Report: Google Working With Intel, Sony on TV Project
- Google, Dish Network Reportedly Test Android-Based Satellite TV
