Alan Breznick writes at Light Reading that Time Warner has abandoned an 18-month trial of their broadband TV service. The service was available to 9,000 subscribers in San Diego and allowed them to watch 75 expanded basic channels via their computer. According to the article, Time Warner states that the service was utilized by less than 1% in any given day, which "...shows that viewers don't want their whole cable lineups on their PCs." Shocking! I don't even want to watch the entire cable lineup on television.
As I read this story, I couldn't help but get the feeling that Time Warner was more pleased than disappointed with the failure of this trial.
Honestly, what did Time Warner expect? If you have the option to watch the same content via your TV or computer, its clear which version you're going to watch. Time Warner perhaps missed the message that replay television, Internet-only channels, and user-generated content are leading the online TV craze.
One point left out of the article was whether users could watch the Internet TV while not on the Time Warner network.