Castles made of sand

BitDepth#1151

MARK LYNDERSAY

TWO WEEKS ago, a great fuss was raised about the growing presence of Android boxes as a source of pirated entertainment and the resulting damage they were doing to both free-to-air (FTA) and paid entertainment sources, specifically cable television and DirecTV.

TATT has since published a considered first draft call for discussion (PDF: http://ow.ly/DIT030kG1jx) on the issue of Android boxes and it’s going to attract more attention than the authority has experienced in its previous contemplations of regulatory matters.

In most major modern technology adjustments, the situation can be divided into three sectors, the disruptors, the tool and the disrupted.

The tool in this case is an app called Kodi. Kodi is a media player that runs on multiple platforms and has an open programming interface, allowing other developers to add capabilities to the base media management and playback software.

Some of those add-ons tap into the online pool of links to illegally shared entertainment files, music, unlicensed movies and television shows that are available on the Internet.

But to worry about the presence of an estimated 80,000 devices built to run Kodi in TT is to miss the point of the software. A recent update to Kodi makes it possible to run the player on any recent model Android smartphone (it already runs on iOS and the Amazon Fire Stick).

Add to that mix smart TVs. Few can run Kodi, but if they can successfully access Google’s Play Store, then they probably can.

The viewers who consider an Android box aren’t necessarily doing it to “cut the cable” or because they don’t want to pay for their entertainment, they are doing it because the idea of a programming director is alien to their lifestyle.

Unfortunately, commercial products that address this lack of interest in schedules, such as Hulu, are geo-fenced in this country and are unavailable without extra, quasi-legal effort.

Netflix, even the lesser version made available in TT, has enjoyed significant popularity since it became available to local viewers.

Viewers under the age of 25 have no attachment to the idea of a schedule for their viewing and they aren’t going to be developing one either.

These young people want entertainment and if you aren’t providing what they want, they can and will go elsewhere. Not paying is a lagniappe, not the reason.

The television stations and cable providers affected by this are being disrupted by a fundamental change in consumer taste, not by Android boxes.

It might seem a bit surly to note this, but cable providers survived, no, let’s say thrived, for more than a decade in the region by providing channels that they did not pay for.

It may be true that some channels refused to sell, but that didn’t stop the local companies from providing them anyway. By any measure, that’s stealing and it continued for years, with businesses profiting from reselling intellectual property they didn’t own.

Local FTA providers need to be in the content-creation business if they are going to survive, and they will need to go all in; creating work that can be licensed to create revenue streams if they are going to survive.

Local media houses still see technology disruptions as a problem and not an opportunity. If there are 80,000 set-top boxes running Kodi in TT, why isn’t the first response the creation of an add-on that streams local content to them, starting with news reports?

Who doesn’t court 80,000 viewers?

Any consultations on Android boxes must emphasise the rock-hard realities that the first consultation report amply outlines. Those discussions should focus on plans that develop local media capacity and reach without wasting time on protectionist strategy.

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there