No Content Found

Tonight, when I was set to sit down and watch my queued up episodes of Burn Notice and Damages, I flicked on Hulu from my Apple TV running Boxee and saw "No Content Found." Yes Hulu had officially offed Boxee.

reading the posts on the Boxee blog and Hulu's blog it is pretty clear that this cruel interruption to my New Year's resolution was the work of some old white males in expensive suits in mid-town Manhattan who like their ancestors of yore believe that what's yours is there's to profit off of. Presumably it is the "content owners" who have determined that somehow viewing Hulu flash video anywhere except through one of the following:

Safari
Firefox
Internet Explorer

is somehow a breech of some contract. We'll get to that in a minute. You'll note that I didn't say computer, rather I said browser because clearly since a user can connect their computing device (laptop, tower, tablet) to any external video monitor the device is capable of connecting to, the TV is not the PRIMARY issue. Well maybe it is. But trust me, the old white men in mid-town Manhattan, most of whom probably have the internet knowledge equal of John McCain, have been told that the internet can only be seen on a web browser on a computer and of course computers can't be connected to a TV. I mean after all WHO is still using WebTV? SO while the white men in mid-town Manhattan may be clueless, I believe that the real culprit lies elsewhere: The Cable companies.

See I'm old enough to remember life before cable. A time when Cable was for HBO and Showtime and little else. I saw how Cable went from something extra for the TV to something necessary for TV. Most of the compelling TV has moved to cable. OTA (over the air) broadcast is basically, medical shows, CSI shows and "unscripted" reality shows. That's it really. Well if you don't include the weekend sports. So OTA is really only useful for local news casts. And since 9-11, reception of traditional air broadcasts have sucked by me. So most people pay at least $12 for basic cable (AKA clear OTA programming). Now all those other stations, TBS, SPIKE, etc. are revenue streams for the likes of Time Warner, Cablevision, etc. as well as the "content providers." Cable companies and their local subsidiaries also have a monopoly on break in advertising. They sell advertising on various channels to local businesses. This is a brisk business that has branched out into movie theatres as well. Hulu breaks this business model completely since a great deal of people who use Boxee have cut the cable/satelite and use Boxee as their content viewer of choice. So the really big losers here: Cable companies. Not only are they losing customers who no longer pay the 70+ bucks/month for "premium content." They also lose the advertising bucks because they can't claim to reach x-amount of people per station.

The "content providers" still make money because all Hulu programming has advertising so they can still make a profit and that profit would increase as more people moved from Cable to Boxee.

Now if you don't want to believe me about the cable angle, then take a look at the Boxee blog where they discuss the cable company execs that came to "visit" Boxee at CES. If you think those execs left the Boxee booth saying: Yo, good shit they have there. I suggest laying off the herb. I will lay out cold cash that these execs were on the cell phones with lawyers and "content execs" as soon as they left the Boxee booth. I surmise the conversations went something like: WTF!!! WTF!!!These people are putting your shit on OUR TV's!!!! We have CONTRACTS!!! WTF!!!!(Think Christian Bale interrupted during a Terminator shoot). I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some threat to not broadcast any "content provider" who continued to allow Boxee access to their content. Think not? How many times have you seen the scrolling threat to cut off some set of channels or another over some dispute with the tag: please call such and such company....?

Yes folks, my thinking is that the "content providers" were more than happy to get Boxee users streaming Hulu content to their shiny flat panel TV's. I believe that the cable companies saw the end to their business. Of course had they NOT decided to stick the public for way overpriced "content delivery." They wouldn't have had this problem, but anyone who did the math I did, realized that streaming video over their internet connection which is a must have today, along with a AppleTV costs less per year even in the first year, than a cable subscription.

Of course this also means that Apple stands to lose "big." I believe that Apple TV sales went up because of Boxee. Not iTunes, not movies available from iTunes, but Boxee. iTunes and Apple TV are not the most economical choice. You can get DVD's from Red Box at Shop and Stop for a buck vs 3.99 for the cheapest rental from iTunes. I'm not paying a buck a show from iTunes. Biggest rip-off ever. Seriously. One buck every time I choose to watch a show? I have to find storage for it and if I lose it or whatever I have to pay again? No thanks. Which brings me to my conclusion.

I've never pirated music or movies. I thought it was bad form when Star Wars Ep III made it out on DVD before it hit the big screen. I like for artists to get paid and for studios to make money off their investments. But this blatant money grab? Not having it. I'm still not going to pay for cable. I'm not going to incriminate myself here but needless to say there is a website that starts with a "P" and ends with a "Y.org" and the "Content providers" should be happy since people have to use a browser to use the site. lol.