ESPN Embrace Mobile Digital TV Revolution
ESPN has recently made available its mainstay cable sports network for consumption on Apple mobile devices to pay-TV subscribers of Time Warner Cable, Verizon Communications and Bright House Networks.
Customers can download the free software from the Apple App Store, authenticate their subscription and start watching ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.com on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod anywhere they can get a web connection.
This follows an earlier offering from Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable to provide their full range of live cable TV programming on the iPad to their subscribers - but only for home use. That's a step in the right direction, why not enjoy the benefits of your subscription on a variety of devices, but why oh why confine those benefits to the bounds of the customers' home... the iPad is a mobile device.
The answer is simple, the solution less so, it's an issue of distribution rights - a pity.
TV viewing habits are changing, the effects of the digital transition and the options for alternatives are rapidly gathering momentum, primarily from the plethora of online video competitors.
The TV industry is making moves that show awareness of the need to adapt its business models in the face of what can only be described as a digital TV revolution, but are they moving quick enough and doing enough? Consumers are embracing new media devices such as the iPad en-masse, that's where the marketplace is heading, it's fragmenting and while such devices won't replace the lounge TV, it certainly represents a shift in direction. Unless more of the traditional providers demonstrate similar enthusiasm, embrace change and cooperate rather than tacitly accept it or even oppose it, they may well be left floundering in a wave of new age TV.
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