Photo Credit: Associated Press
LOS ANGELES: Media mogul Barry Diller, chair of IAC here in LA, gets what cutting the cord is all about.
The billionaire is sinking $20.5 million in Aereo, a firm that plans to stream broadcast TV signals to any device that can get online, beginning with the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod touch and moving to streaming TV boxes soon after. The service — based around Aereo’s standout antenna tech — will be available in New York in March for $12 a month. It launched this week as an invite-only system.
Diller says he sees this as a step toward IP TV and he is right. New Yorkers who choose to cut the cord and, eventually, go with a Roku or other Internet streaming box will be able to supplement that with over-the-air channels.
That’s enough TV for most people, me included.
“Eventually, it’s my belief and, I think I share this with many consumers, that the world really deserves a la carte programming,” Diller told media at the IAC press conference. “Over time more and more programs will be delivered a la carte … as the creative destruction begins to kind of chop away at this closed circle that we’ve all lived with for the last 40 years.”
This may be old news to you and me. But it is good news that a major mogul gets it. Diller sounds disruptive these days.
I, for one, can’t wait to see what he decides to invest in next.
[…] has $20.5 million in funding from Diller, execs announced this week. And it plans to provide 20 broadcast channels to New York […]