TV Everywhere: 'Expanding' vs. 'Preserving' the Cable Model

Sam Schwartz, executive vice president of strategy and development for Comcast Interactive Media, was speaking about TV Everywhere last Friday on a panel at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

Schwartz was discussing Comcast’s recently launched Xfinity service, which provides subscribers access to some 2,000 hours of content previously unavailable online, and began to say that a key piece of the TV Everywhere strategy was that “it preserves the business model…”

At which point, Quincy Smith, former president of CBS Interactive and now a partner with consulting firm Code Advisors — who was seated right next to Schwartz — broke in: “‘Expands’… ‘preserves’ sounds old.”

Schwartz nodded in agreement, then finished the thought: “Expands the business model the content owners have.”

Note that some consumer advocates have decried TV Everywhere as serving to stifle competition by preserving the existing cable model in the Internet world (see ‘TV Everywhere’ Takes Heat From Advocates). While Smith was making a distinction on word choice, I’d assume the anti-TV Everywhere camp would take issue no matter which verb is used.

The execs were speaking on a panel called “I Want My IPTV,” which was supposed to refer to Internet-delivered video services (not pay-TV services delivered over private IP networks).

Smith also said he’s “not always comfortable” with the comparison between the Internet’s contribution to the demise of the music industry and how it is affecting TV.

“Two minutes of a Beyoncé song [online] could kill the whole $15.99 album,” he said. “But two minutes of CSI streamed on Fancast is the best thing to ever happen, because that drives a whole new audience.”

Also on the panel were Terry Denson, Verizon VP of content strategy and acquisition; Boxee CEO Avner Ronen; and Dan Schinasi, senior HDTV product planner for Samsung.

Ronen had one of the most trenchant observations about the future of devices connected to the TV: “It doesn’t make sense for there to be five CPUs connected to the TV…. The battle is, who is going to own the CPU and who is going to own the user experience?”