This Is Why TV Everywhere Is A Bad Idea For Cable News Networks

It's about 1:30 a.m. on Monday morning and I'm one of about 25,000 people watching a Livestream feed of the events going on in Ferguson, Mo. That's an astounding number of live streams in the middle in the night and it's an indication of the screwed up mess that is authentication and "TV Everywhere" that a small-town journalist has the only go-to live stream of the night's events.

Oh, CNN and MSNBC have live crews in town and they've been broadcasting reports all night. But you can't watch either network live online unless you have a cable or satellite TV subscription and you're a customer of one of the companies that has cut a deal with one of those networks that allows you access to their feed.

It's called "authentication" and it's part of the television industry's "TV Everywhere" initiative. Work to make cable television available on all sorts of platforms, but only to people who have an existing cable or satellite television subscription.

While that premise might make sense for a channel with scripted programming, it's an awkward fit for cable news channels who are producing content that generally only has value when it's live. HBO or FX needs to protect the value of their hit shows and while I don't think this approach will work longterm, it least it makes some economic sense.

It's a much dumber idea when it keeps CNN or MSNBC from reaching audiences online during breaking news. Limiting the availability of the network feed isn't protecting the value of the network's content and it's not persuading anyone that they need to sign up for a cable TV subscription right now.

What it does do is help convince viewers to seek out new ways of watching that breaking news and in tonight's case, it's following the live feed of a guy without a major network affiliation or a truckload of technical support.

There are a lot of losers tonight in Ferguson and one group of them has to the traditional cable news networks and their "TV Everywhere" approach to breaking news.

UPDATE: 1:54 a.m. CT. Someone asked me about Fox News. They also require authentication to watch their live feed, but it was less of an issue in this discussion, since they generally stuck to regular programming such as "Huckabee" throughout Sunday night.