We've watched for years as companies from Apple to Google have promised to revolutionize TV only to fall flat on their face. More accurately, they run face first into a cable and broadcast industry that does everything in their power to try and crush disruptive video services, from protectionist laws to pricey and restrictive licensing arrangements. According to Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, however, 2012 will be the year somebody finally creates a "virtual MSO," or a cable operator selling Internet video live television subscriptions. It's just not going to be Boxee, he admits:
We don't have an appetite to become a virtual MSO in the sense of us going out and licensing those channels and providing...We'd much rather have somebody like Comcast Corp. or DirecTV Group Inc. or Netflix or Amazon do those deals and for us to support those over-the-top offerings on our platform like we do today for traditional over-the-top."
It's not clear who is going to bypass the ridiculously expensive licensing barriers that have keep even the most deep-pocketed companies in America from being able to offer subscription TV, or how exactly they're going to do it. Companies keep thinking they want to offer such a service, but after they run the studio/broadcaster restriction gauntlet what they actually wind up producing ends up being bland, paywalled, undisruptive, and kind of silly.Many people seem to be waiting on Apple to disrupt this sector, but it's not as if they have some magical formula for bypassing the protectionist studios and broadcasters. One route is by having Internet video companies create original content themselves, and idea being pursued this year by both Netflix and Hulu. Even then, a smattering of exclusive programming (assuming it's even good) doesn't magically break the TV industry's evolutionary gridlock. While Netflix can be slowly strangled out of existence by licensing hikes, Hulu as a cable-industry company is designed to not be disruptive to traditional cable.
So, who is going to offer a disruptive subscription TV service in 2012?
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