It Ain’t No Fun if We Can’t Have None!
by Aner Ravon

Following up on the recent fusion posting, my first nominee for the annual fusion award is Sling Media, provider of Slingbox, an IP box that enables you to watch your TV programming from wherever you are by turning virtually any Internet-connected PC into your personal TV. Sling harnesses the Internet and helps break the artificial physical boundaries of TV broadcasting. Why do I feel such an urge to nominate Sling? Well, let me tell you the sad story of my NBA watching habits.

The Dallas Mavericks played the Phoenix Suns last night (great comeback victory for Phoenix, Steve Nash is simply in-cre-di-ble). I don’t really care much for Dallas or for Phoenix, but nonetheless I watched the game live, in full. Why, you would ask. Well, only a single NBA game per week is currently broadcasted in Israel and an NBA fan can’t afford to miss the “spectacle”. Now Israel is a legitemate NBA market. Up to a year and a half ago the NBA channel was a part of my satellite provider’s sports package which I took for granted. However, 2 years ago, the owners of the NBA rights in our region have failed to renew the distribution agreement with the 2 local satellite / cable providers due to commercial differences. Since, it is impossible to watch the NBA in Israel.

Channel 5, a national sports channel, has recently purchased the rights for one game per week. Woo - freakin’ -hoo! So every Sunday evening I sit my sorry ass down and watch whatever they feed me with. Soviet TV has never felt so vivid.
This story, or should I say satire, makes so little sense it makes me want to puke every time I think of it. I would thank the opportunity to pay the NBA directly and gain access to NBA games. But TV broadcasting rights are segmented based on geography and my region is “owned” by two operators – “Hot”, the cable operator and “Yes”, the satellite provider. They determine the price and they decide whether my comfort is worth their time. They monopolize the market and do not care for my interests. Think of the absurd again. Technology is “almost ready” to enable easy and direct relationship between the NBA and me. The mutual interests are certainly there. The internet has made Geography such an obsolete criteria – are we leaving our money on the right tables?

Ladies, Fellas, can we cut the middleman already? A Sling Media made a good step in the right direction, but there is a major caveat - I need to be a local subscriber already. This makes Slingbox a travel companion, or perhaps a solution you provide your distant relatives with, but not a solution for potential international audiences. As the IPTV (and just TV over IP…) keeps progressing I am sure we will see more and more of these hopes realized. Perhaps in a couple of years my ability to watch the NBA (or any other content) will not be so dependent on the ego of two colliding distributors.

Aner Ravon
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