News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWSA) is very fussy about where its content appears. And, more and more, that means it only appears where there's money exchanging hands. This background therefore diminishes the surprise that the media conglomerate has issued a cease-and-desist warning to Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC-WI) "asking" it to remove News Corp. owned Fox channels from its iPad application.
Fox claims that Time Warner has no right to stream shows on the iPad, even though the application is part of an in-home package of content for which consumers-and TWC-have already paid.
It would be easy enough to dismiss News Corp., whose programming feuds with cable have been legendary, including a blackout with Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC) last fall that impacted Major League Baseball's playoffs but other programmers, including Scripps Networks, Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and even cable favorite Discovery Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA), have also indicated concern about the application.
Time Warner Cable is out front on streaming to the iPad but others, including Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Cablevision and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), are looking closely at the possibilities and no doubt watching the service provider versus content provider brouhaha heat up.
For more:
- PadGadget has this story
- the Los Angeles Times has this story
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