“We don’t have a Plan B” as case hits the high court

The future of Aereo, an online service that provides over-the-air television channels, hinges on a battle with broadcasters that goes before theU.S. Supreme Court onTuesday.

For as little as $8 a month, Aereo subscribers access programming with computers, smartphones and other devices, aswell as withTVswithRoku or AppleTVstreaming devices. Aereo is limited to over-the-air channels, plus Bloomberg TV.

In March, aU.S. DistrictCourt judge inUtah orderedAereo to stop offering service in six states, includingColorado, after determining the company’s service is “indistinguishable from a cable company.” Cable and satellite TV companies typically pay broadcasters to includeTVstations on customers’ lineups. Aereo argues it’s exempt because it merely relays free signals. When recording or watching a show, subscribers are temporarily assigned one of thousands of small antennas at Aereo’s data centers.

Aereo likens its antennas to the personal antennas in people’s homes that pick up free broadcasts, but broadcasters argue thatAereo built the individual antennas specifically to skirt copyright law, as there’s no technical reason such a service would need them.

Aereo founder and chief executive Chet Kanojia recently spoke about his company and the industry. Questions and answers have been edited for length, and the order of some questions was changed to improve flow. A: What they should be afraid of, and I’m sympathetic to this, is the Internet is happening to everybody, whether you like it or not. It happened to books, news people, it happened to music people, it happened to Blockbuster. There is nothing in our Constitution that says there is a sacred set of companies that will never be affected by new technology. A: The market is going to evolve. If you think aboutwhatNetflix is doing (with original programming), it is going to force change in the paid TV business. Here’s a channel effectively operating as a paid channel. IfNetflix can pay the bills, the next hit showis going to be on Netflix. It’s not going to be on HBO. That’s going to

force the change. A: My last company, we pioneered how to measure viewership in cable systems. When you started looking at the data, it was obvious that nobody watches more than eight channels. Half of them happen to be major networks, which are free to air. A: Change is a long process. I don’t think anything is going to change anywhere because ofAereo. What is happening is the entire market base is changing with access to alternatives, whether it’s Netflix or iTunes or things like that. Aereo is simply providing a piece of the puzzle. After we win, it’s not that a sea change is going to hap- pen overnight. It is just going to be that we will be allowed to continue to fit that missing piece in a consumer’s life as they’re evolving. These things take decades to play out. A: They’re individual companies. They can do whatever they want. I think the question becomes on an overall reach basis you’re giving up 60 million eyeballs. That’s howmany people use antenna in some way, shape or form, which kind of correlates to about 18 percent of the household basis.

A: We don’t have a Plan B.