Time Warner Cable started an experiment in San Diego in summer of 2005: letting its customers in the area watch TV over their broadband connections…the PC service offered the same 75 channels that were available with its standard service. Now, after fewer than 1% of the 9,000 customers actually watched any TV that way, it has closed the service after 566 days of operation, reports Multichannel News.
Peter Stern, EVP of product management for TWC told Multichannel that the PC did not become a replacement for the TV in participating homes. Instead, the channels that came into their PCs were used almost as a second thought. Viewers who used the service might be working on their computer in their office and trying to keep on top of a live sports event, like a baseball game, or the news, through a cable news channel.
Also, more importantly, the company realized technical approach could not be used on a mass scale. And it assigned video engineers in Westminster, Colo., and data engineers in Herndon, Va., to come up with a better approach.
Related:
—Time Warner Cable Starts Testing Broadband TV, in San Diego
—Time Warner’s San Diego IPTV Experiment