Both Time Warner and Comcast stress that they do not view their partnership as a way to stifle the shift to viewing content online. They say it is a way to preserve the current economic model of the business while offering consumers more platforms on which to watch their favorite shows.
"It is a very innovative model that the industry has," Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes said Wednesday in announcing the partnership. "We are trying to take that basic structure and put it on the Internet, augmenting its appeal and its convenience."
The two companies said they expected others to come aboard in the near future.
Jeff Gaspin, president and chief operating officer of NBC Universal's Television Group, parent of cable channels that include USA and Bravo, said he was supportive of the concept of authentication. Less than 20% of NBC Universal's cable content is made available online.
Other programmers including News Corp., parent of the FX cable network, and Viacom Inc., which owns several popular channels including MTV and Nickelodeon, are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Nonetheless, the prospect of two media conglomerates teaming up to reinvent how content is made available online has some advocacy groups worried.
"It is obvious TV Everywhere is not TV for everyone," said Gigi Sohn, president of the media watchdog Public Knowledge. She added that she wanted the Justice Department to look into this arrangement for potential antitrust violations. Time Warner and Comcast, she said, want to "turn the Internet into their own private cable channel."
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joe.flint@latimes.com
Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.
