Fox, Discovery Channels Back On Time Warner Cable iPad App

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Great news for those of you who are Time Warner Cable subscribers and also own an iPad – the Fox and Discovery channels that were yanked from the app after Discovery Inc. and News Corp claimed they violated the broadcast agreement are back on the app. Now, it seems that the legal matters have been settled. The total number of channels on the app now is over 50. Oddly, TWC’s competitor in the cable service, Comcast, seems to support the app, as there are a number of Comcast-owned channels on the app.

The app allows Time Warner Cable customers to watch a selection of channels that they would get normally on their cable box on the iPad – provided they’re connected to their Time Warner Cable home internet connection via WiFi. Although many, including our own Robert Nelson, balked at the idea of the app only working on your home TWC cable internet, I suspect it’s actually a security measure to protect the content by TWC.

Cablevision, another cable provider, is also going head-to-head over their own, similar, iPad app. Comcast has an iOS app, but it just lets you watch the on-demand programming, not live television. Considering that this IPTV stuff is all the way of the future, the content providers and the cable companies will need to get these issues sorted. It’s just another example of Old Media clashing with New Media, I suppose.

The channels re-added to the app Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet from Discovery, and National Geographic, FX and Fox News Channel from News Corp, according to MacRumors.