Cable operator Cox Communications this week officially launched the "TV Online" website, their instantiation of TV Everywhere. thePlatform also announced Cox is using its back-end video management system to drive TV Online (thePlatform has been providing video management for Cox since 2008). These announcements highlight two different themes regarding TV Everywhere.
One story is of continuing success for thePlatform in TV Everywhere and good strategy decisions regarding the company by Comcast, which purchased it in 2006. Comcast wisely decided to operate thePlatform as an independent subsidiary, rather than eliminating the brand and absorbing the staff and technology into Comcast's organization. Over the past five years, thePlatform has continued to build its business and now is providing premium video solutions for Comcast and other major multichannel operators in the U.S. and overseas.
The other theme is the continuing slow progress of TV Everywhere rollouts by operators and networks. The vision of TV Everywhere, when it first publicly surfaced in mid 2009, was a wide-scale online offering of cable network shows on operator and network websites, with authenticated access by multichannel subscribers.
But the reality is that vision has yet to materialize. The launch of the Cox TV Online site illustrates the persistent shortcomings, offering only a very limited set of TV shows compared to what can be seen on Cox Cable. ABC, FOX, and NBC shows are offered via Hulu (interestingly, other TV shows offered on Hulu are not listed in the Cox search/discovery). HBO GO provides access to current and past HBO series and movies. Past that, the only cable networks offering shows on the service are from Turner (TBS, TNT, Adult Swim, truTV).
It's been easy to question operator motivation to move quickly on deploying TV Everywhere (why create more competition for traditional TV delivery?) and the slow pace of rollout would seem to confirm this inherent ambivalence. But, the success of OTT delivery models (as exemplified by Netflix and Hulu) in competing for consumer viewing, subscription dollars, and advertising revenue would seem to provide the motivation to get TV Everywhere moving quickly now.
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