Nothing irks me more than to see a Time Warner pitchman come on my TV to talk about all the money they’re “saving” me over satellite. Please. I’m currently spending more than $150 a month on my cable service, and that doesn’t count the $120 a month I pay for business class Internet service from Warner Cable.

The New York Times described my dilemma exactly when  it interviewed a 27-year-old actor who’s using a new service called Boxee that allows users to bypass the cable company and get the channels they want through a direct Internet connection to their TV. “Most people my age would like to just pay for the channels they want, but cable refuses to give us that option,” he told the reporter.

Not just his age. Us 49-year-olds balk just as much.

Once you unchain TV shows from the cable gatekeeper, you’re opening Pandora’s box — just as you are when you allow studios to sell directly to cell phone users and bypass the carriers. Don’t be surprised if cable companies try to sue Boxee and others like them out of existence to maintain their lucrative oligopoly.

But in the long run, hopefully those efforts will fall short. Content, as they say, wants to be free. And as somebody who pays through the nose for a product controlled by those cable and satellite oligopolies, it can’t come a moment too soon.

Posted under Michael's Blog

Usually, you meet Hollywood types on every flight to Las Vegas during CES — the executives shopping “content” for new devices, or the looky-loos from production. This year, many of those people didn’t go, if my admittedly unscientific conversations in the last few days are an indication. “Unless there is a very specific reason to go, travel has been chopped,” one talent agency exec told me.  Certainly that’s true for TV executives,  who have seen budgets slashed 5% to 10% across the board as advertising has plummeted. Overall, attendance is expected to drop at least 22% from last year’s 141,000.

Posted under Michael's Blog