Amid Lawsuits, Aereo Brings Broadcast TV To The Internet
An antenna or a provider: For nearly all Americans, those are the only two ways to access live network TV. Anyone within range of a transmitter can hook up rabbit ears to tune in to ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and other broadcasters, while cable or satellite subscribers get local channels through their subscription.
But New York City residents now have a third option, a new service called Aereo that allows its users to watch broadcast TV over the Internet. The service, which is currently only available in New York City, is backed by broadcasting mogul Barry Diller and is causing waves ... of lawsuits.
Rich Jaroslovsky is writing about Aereo for Bloomberg News, and he joins NPR's Steve Inskeep to discuss the service.
"It's a very interesting company," Jaroslovsky says. "In each locality where they're going to be operating, they have a data center with thousands of tiny antennas, just like the ones that you'd find on many rooftops. The antennas pull in the over-the-air broadcast signals and then stream it to you over the Internet."
As with traditional TV, a broadcast station sends its signal over the air, an antenna interprets it, and then data are transferred from the antenna to a screen. But with Aereo, that screen no longer has to be a TV. "This will stream directly to your smartphone or tablet, as well as [to a] TV if you have a Roku or an Apple TV," explains Jaroslovsky.
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