Can Intel Web-Based TV Service Do What Nobody Else Has Done?

Intel Corp. has been developing an Internet-based television service that essentially would be a "virtual cable operator," presumably offering the same "bundled" approach to video entertainment as offered by cable, telco and satellite-TV operators. 

Some believe the venture will launch, or at least be announced, in January 2013 at the Consumer Electronics Show.  Whether program suppliers are any more willing to license their key programming assets to Intel remains to be seen. 

Intel is trying to provide a sort of "beta test" environment by introducing the service "city by city," rather than nationally. Whether Intel can convince programmers that now is the time to infuriate all the rest of their main distributors is the issue.

At stake are relationships, already testy, with cable, satellite and telco distributors who pay programmers $41 billion a year in licensing fees. Any significant deals with Intel for a streaming service would put huge pressure on those other existing relationships. 

Someday programmers will change their minds. But a rational person would argue that the time remains somewhere off in the distance. Ask yourself whether you would jeopardize a business worth billions to gain a new business of millions. 

That isn't to say you would make the same decision if the choice were "a new business worth billions" to replace a "declining business worth billions." But nobody thinks that is today's choice. 

So it remains to be seen whether Intel will have more luck than the others who have tried, even if Intel tries a subscription model featuring whole channels and not an "on-demand" model that allows consumers to buy single shows or programs, single channels or single genres.

While Intel might like to do so, it is doubtful programmer thinking has changed on those subjects.