The Web Won't Wait for TV Stations

About a decade or so ago, I attended the NAB Futures Summit in Pebble Beach, Calif., an annual event which I am sorry to say is no longer open to the reporters. We're just too annoying, I suppose.

There, at a time when most of us in the room were still trying to figure out e-mail, we saw TV on the Internet - on a large projection screen.

I was much impressed, even though the picture was blocky, balky and certainly less than VHS quality.

I can't remember who made the presentation, but I remember the message: TV on the Internet was real and, as bandwidth to the home increased and video compression became tighter, it would get better and better.

And so it has.

And as we sit here in 2008, it is a good experience, far better than VHS. I can catch up on primetime TV or watch an entire baseball game. The only problem is picture size. If you blow up the picture to a size you can watch from the sofa, you see that it isn't everything it ought to be ... yet.

Give it a few more years. TV on the Web continues to get better, delivering HD and whatever lies beyond it. Bandwidth is still growing. Compression is still improving.

What this says is that the Internet will soon be every bit as important in delivering TV as broadcast, cable, satellite and even those fancy fiber networks the telcos are stringing up.

And what it also says is that TV stations need to be on the Web just as they are on those other platforms. And I don't mean just video clips with news and weather highlights - YouTube-like stuff. I mean the entire broadcast day, just as it rolls out over the transmitter and antenna.

That linear channel - that entire package - is the true product of broadcasters. That's what broadcasters must work to distribute over the Web just as they have done to make it a part of cable and satellite and, more recently, mobile devices.

Jim Goodmon, the broadcast industry's technology seer, understands this.

Last year, the North Carolina broadcaster proposed a scheme for putting TV signals on the Web in relatively short order.

The problem in all this is that broadcasters don't own the copyright to much of the programming they air during the day - the network and syndicated programming as well as some of the clips they use in their newscasts.

Goodmon's solution was to rethink the Internet as just another cable system so that the distribution of broadcast signals would be covered by the cable compulsory copyright license.

To do that, the party distributing the broadcast signals on the Web would have to act just like a cable operator, adhering to all the federal, state and municipal rules governing cable.

And, more important, Web reception of any given broadcast signal would have to be restricted to people within the signal's over-the-air coverage area.

That second criterion - the local geographical limits - is not easy.

Goodmon came up one idea. It involves a dongle capable of receiving FM signals. A dongle is a little computer device like one of those flash memory drives that plugs into a USB port in the computer.

To receive Goodmon's WRAL Raleigh, N.C., a resident of Raleigh would have to obtain the appropriate dongle from the distributor of the signal. It would allow the computer to receive WRAL on the Web, but only if the dongle was in the presence of an authorizing signal from a local FM station.

Take the dongle to another market without the local authorizing signal and it wouldn't work. No WRAL.

It may not be the most elegant scheme, but it would seem to do the job.

Unfortunately for Goodmon, in its report to Congress last week, the Copyright Office declined to recommend stretching the cable compulsory license to cover the Web.

"Massive signal security [as Goodmon proposes] does not immunize the system from the potential pitfalls of a distribution model that essentially relies on the Internet," the report says.

"Once a secure system is ‘cracked,' content leakage will ensue and massive unauthorized redistribution will occur," it adds.

Blame it on the copyright holders, the studios who ultimately own all the network and syndicated programming that broadcasters air. They have a lot of muscle at the Copyright Office, and they argued vigorously that the Goodmon system was fundamentally untrustworthy.

The argument is somewhat ironic given that the studios/networks have spent the last three years pushing their "broadcast" programming onto the Web any which way they can, exposing it to the same programming pirates that Goodmon's scheme would.

Perhaps persuaded by the copyright holders, the NAB has been more or less neutral in the debate. In its comments to the Copyright Office, it expressed skepticism about the Goodmon plan for restricting reception.

NAB is smart to be skeptical. The last thing that broadcasters need right now is an Internet awash with broadcast signals that shatter the market exclusivity that has defined their businesses since day one.

They don't want to allow people on the West Coast to watch first runs of network shows hours before their local airing. Those first runs are critical. It's what has kept movie theaters alive for the past 60 years.

But NAB can't leave it at that. TV stations have got to get on the Web and the quickest way to do that is, as Goodmon advises, is piggybacking on the cable compulsory copyright license.

So, if Goodmon's FM dongle is not good enough to insure the market exclusivity of broadcasters and copyright holders, what is?

The broadcasters need to come up with an ironclad system for distributing their signals locally over the Web - one that will not only satisfy the copyright owners, but also themselves.

They need to do it with the same cooperation and urgency as they are now developing the mobile broadcast standard.

And if the Copyright Office and the copyright holders still aren't satisfied, broadcasters should take their case to Congress.

Broadcasters should not let this slide. Being available to all people or all platforms is what broadcasting is all about. Remember: free and universal.

In a May 2007 interview with me, Goodmon said it best.

"There are young people out there who never watch broadcasts, who never watch local news, who only watch stuff on the Internet. I want to introduce broadcasting to them," he said.

"It's essential to the future of the industry. We've got to be on this stream."

Harry A. Jessell is editor of TVNewsday. You may contact him at hajessell@tvnewsday.com.