Cablevision, Viacom Bury The Hatchet; More iPad Video Coming

Cablevision Systems and Viacom have resolved their legal differences regarding Cablevision’s Optimum Apps and the streaming of content to iPads, resulting in a joint statement issued yesterday.   

“Viacom and Cablevision have agreed to resolve their pending litigation, and the Viacom programming will continue to appear on Cablevision’s Optimum Apps for iPad and other IP devices,” the two wrote. “In reaching the settlement agreement, Cablevision and Viacom were able to resolve the iPad matter and an unrelated business matter to their mutual satisfaction. Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment.”

Viacom filed its suit in June around the same time it resolved a similar disagreement with Time Warner Cable (For more, see Technology Matters in Content-Distribution Disputes).

Just yesterday, Cablevision announced it was extending its iPad app to the iPhone and iPod touch. (For more, see Cablevision Extends iPad App).

In a statement, John Trierweiler, Cablevision’s executive vice president/Product Management, noted, "The Optimum App turns these display devices into additional televisions in the home, enabling Cablevision customers to view the same live programming and VOD content already being delivered to other TVs in the home as part of the service they have paid for. Cablevision has the right to distribute programming over its cable system to in-home iPhones, iPods, iPads and other devices functioning as televisions under its existing distribution agreements with programming providers."

The next frontier for service providers will be streaming cable content to devices outside of the home.

Meanwhile, iPad streaming apps are proliferating among over-the-top providers. This week, Boxee announced a new app to stream videos from a PC to the iPad. In a blog posting, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen wrote, "Boxee for iPad gives you one place to discover, watch, and share video from the Web and your computer. We built the app to be useful for any iPad user, even those who have never heard of Boxee before, but it has the added benefit for current Boxee Box users that you can send video to your flat screen through it (we’ll include this for Mac/PC users in the fall update)."

And yesterday, Walmart told its VUDU movie-streaming customers they now can watch content on their iPads. (For more, see VUDU Streams to iPad).

-Linda Hardesty