Last week, the Supreme Court heard the case of Aereo, an online venture that streams the signals of local TV stations to your computer (either live or recorded) for a monthly fee. Because it doesn’t pay retransmission fees to those stations or their networks (as cable and satellite providers must), the broadcast companies have sued to stop the service.
On my America Weekend show, Yahoo! Tech columnist Rob Walker explained why the court — and you — should side with Aereo. He explained how the technology works, its limitations (only a few channels in each market), and how it fits in with the cord-cutting trend.
Personally, I’d never use the service because we watch so little programming from NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX — which are all included in the cable bundles we pay for — because so many of the best shows we enjoy are on channels Aereo can’t provide, from “Mad Men” on AMC to Monday Night Football on ESPN to Bill Maher and John Oliver on HBO to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central.
Listen to our conversation here.