Mother will be able to watch her stories on her computer as long as she pays her cable bill. At least that’s what TBS is saying with its TV Everywhere campaign that starts today. Conan O’Brien is one of the faces of the ads, which advocate for all shows to be available online for free, as long as you pay for cable. The TBS ads advise you to download apps for TBS and its sister channel TNT so you can watch all those shows on your mobile devices AFTER you authenticate your cable account.
This campaign is going to take the guise of making TV more free and open and liberating and all that. But it’s hogwash. It’s all about not cutting cable and it’s about making cable shows harder to see for people who don’t want to subscribe. It’s like making a really screaming good cell phone service package available only for people who have land lines. It’s chaining an emerging platform to a rapidly aging one. Wake me up when the cable channels offer a streaming only service that doesn’t cost $100 a month.
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