If you can't beat them, join them; cable operators may just allow the set top box to access internet programming. Per this article, operators are talking with NBC, Viacom, and Time Warner to enable video customers to secure distribution deals on this new platform. "The cable providers are looking to stave off defections by "cord cutters," a small but potentially growing segment of consumers procuring video content on the Internet and other non-cable sources." My question is how do these deals stop this defection. Unless these deals become exclusive and this same content is unavailable outside this distribution deal, nothing stops the consumer from continuing to defect from cable. In fact, it only encourages a faster adoption of internet viewing, causing more defection from cable subscription.
Along with this access to internet viewing on cable set top devices, what else is cable bringing exclusive to the relationship to the viewer that they can't get elsewhere. If cable can provide a fee to creators for this carriage as a means to build a walled garden experience, then maybe free web content may go away, only to be made available to homes that buy a cable and broadband monthly subscription. Otherwise, internet access by cable simply is a me too experience, replacing VOD with internet streaming. And what else gets affected -could it further erode local cable spots, VOD advertising, and even disrupt the linear model? How can cable monetize an internet stream through the set top box? Hopefully they have thought this through.
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