NEW YORK – Aereo announced plans to launch its remote antenna/DVR service in the Greater Austin area on March 3. Greater Austin is Aereo’s fourth market to launch in Texas and includes a 12-county area. The city was on a list Aereo released January of 2013 for launch last year. (See “Aereo Plans to Go Nationwide.”)
Aereo said it will carry 19 broadcast channels in the Austin market, including KVUE (ABC), KXAN (NBC), KEYE (CBS), KTBC (Fox), KNVA (CW) and KLRU (PBS); special interest channels ThisTV, MOVIES!, GetTV, Create TV and AccuWeather; and Spanish-language channels UniMás, UniVision, Telemundo and Estrella TV. In addition, consumers will also have the ability to add Bloomberg Television.
Aereo membership begins at $8 per month, for access to Aereo’s cloud-based antenna/DVR technology and 20 hours of DVR storage. For an additional $4, consumers can upgrade their membership and receive 60 hours of DVR storage for a total of $12 per month. Aereo will be available in Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Gillespie, Hays, Lee, Llano, Mason, Travis and Williamson counties.
Aereo is being sued in three of the 10 markets where it has already launched, including New York, Boston and Salt Lake City. Broadcaster there are suing the service because it does not have nor seek permission to retransmit TV station signals. A federal court in Salt Lake City has granted broadcasters an injunction to stop the service while the larger issue of copyright violation is determined. The Boston and New York courts denied injunctions, which triggered a request for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments April 22.
