Aereo, the online video service being sued all over the country by TV station owners for allegedly violating their copyrights, is reportedly in talks with some Internet service providers' (ISPs) networks as it seeks to grow.
Aereo would offer a "wholesale discount" to ISPs which package Aereo with their wireless or wireline broadband service, CEO Chet Kanojia told the Wall Street Journal.
Kanojia's comments followed a report in Bloomberg that pay-TV distributors such as Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Charter Communications (Nasdaq: CHTR) are considering using a similar technology to avoid paying retransmission consent fees to broadcasters.
Cable investor Leo Hindery, a managing partner at InterMedia Partners, told Bloomberg that it is "intellectually and legally inconsistent" to force traditional pay-TV distributors to pay TV stations for the right to carry their signals but allow another to sell them online without paying such fees. "The cable companies are fully entitled to do everything in their power to stop this travesty," he told Bloomberg.
For more:
- the Wall Street Journal had this report (sub. req.)
- Bloomberg had this report
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