Queens entrepreneur has broadcast television quaking...
The next big thing?
(from "PHILLY.COM")
Bob Fernandez, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Sunday, April 14, 2013, 6:30 AM
LONG ISLAND
CITY, N.Y. - Chet Kanojia, slurping takeout Thai in a rehabbed
electric-motor factory with an urban farm on its roof.
It didn't look like ground zero in a potential economic revolution in
the TV business, with a used-car dealership across the street and the
Tequila Sunrise Mexican restaurant down the block.But it could be.
"Resorting to name-calling is a sign of desperation," said Kanojia, a supremely confident native of Bhopal, India, casual in jeans and an open-collar blue-striped shirt. "They are focused on this because it is real. It is credible. There is not anyone in these industries who can say with a straight face that consumers are getting a good deal."
His Aereo Corp. online TV service has few subscribers, is available only in the New York metro area, and faces significant legal challenges. Kanojia, though, plans to take it to the nation's TV markets this year and has millions of dollars in venture capital to do it.
From the Business Desk
Two days earlier, News Corp.'s Chase Carey had blasted Aereo for "stealing" Fox's TV signals during a speech at the National Broadcasters Association convention in Las Vegas.
If Aereo is successful and ultimately deemed legal, subscribers could drop Comcast Corp. and other pay-TV systems for Aereo's $8-a-month streaming service to TVs, smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Billions of dollars in retransmission fees paid to CBS, ABC, Fox, and NBC by cable and satellite operators for their stations could be threatened as TV viewers switch to Aereo or a service like it. TV insiders say these fees are modern economic pillars of broadcast-TV stations and help pay for sports and local news...."
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