My Wife Said No

So aparently the HTML5 experiement that was caught in the wild last week on the CBS site was possibly just that, an experiment. Because today they have released an iPad app similar to the one ABC announced last week except for one small difference. It only shows clips. Seriously. Why even have “an app for that” ?

I’m sure countless fanboys who got an iPad on Saturday (who’s wive’s didn’t say No) raced hope to fire up their new toy and watch a 30 second clip of Big Band Theory. No, more likely they nabbed the ABC app and were able to watch full streaming episodes of Lost (albeit with commercials and via wi-fi only streaming). When will the networks learn that their content isn’t THAT valuable. For $50 you can get an HD antenna and watch most of the major networks in HD for FREE. Not to mention being able to stream the shows from the network websites from a computer. So why change the model for this device? You could argue that they don’t want to cut into their possible profits from the shows in the iTunes store but that doesn’t seem to bother ABC. Whatever their rationale, why go to the effort of even creating a CBS app that only plays clips? That’s like creating a movie theater that only shows trailers.

Hopefully the HTML5 video we saw on the CBS site turns out to be the real way they plan on offering full episodes to all users. That way it’s a one-stop location for video and a separate app doesn’t have to be maintined.