Tuesday is a big day for broadcast, ad-supported TV, and pay TV—as in broadband/over-the-top/streaming, cable, satellite and telco TV—in America.
That is because the United States Supreme Court begins the day with its oral hearing at 10 a.m. (ET) of the hyper-important Broadcasters v. Aereo case. Several hours later at 1 p.m. another critical airing takes place, in the form of the Autohop Case webinar, hosted and sponsored by Multichannel News and its sister publication, Broadcasting & Cable. More information and registration for the webinar is available here.
The 75-minute Autohop Case webinar is moderated by Jimmy Schaeffler, chairman and CSO of The Carmel Group consultancy. Panelists include John Hane, partner at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman; Seth Davidson, partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP; John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge; and Jim Denney, vice president and general manager at TiVo. Some of the critical questions that will be addressed during the Autohop webinar:
• What’s the relationship between Autohop and Aereo?
• What does history and precedent say about the outcomes of both cases?
• Does the Autohop litigation pose a threat to the Cablevision RS-DVR precedent?
• If more content starts to move on demand, or online, can cable companies start offering their own online services (in other cable companies' territories)?
• Do broadcasters have an obligation to keep high-value content on the public airwaves?
• What is the role for broadcasters and affiliates if more content starts to be distributed online?
• How wedded are MVPDs to the linear channel model?
• If more content starts to move on demand, or online, can cable companies start offering their own online services (in other cable companies' territories)?
• Who and what is impacted, and when?
• What about the consumer?
• Do people really skip ads that much when given the opportunity?
• Is there a common ground between the media owner’s expectation and the consumer’s expectations when it comes to commercials?
• What impact will the new media, e.g., broadband/Over-The-Top/streaming, have on the attitudes about advertising and time shifting?
• What is the interest of the rest of the MVPD universe – particularly cable operators – in the outcome of the Hopper litigation?
• What’s beyond the legal in both cases? I.e., what happens in the real world post-legal-decision-making?
• What are the prospects of additional settlements (beyond the recent Dish-Disney alliance reached in early March?)
• What if CBS, NBC, Fox and the like do not reach a settlement similar to the Dish-Disney settlement?
