Time Warner Cable wants content everywhere

Glenn Britt, chief executive of Time Warner Cable, speaks at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York, December 1, 2009.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc (TWC.N) is working with media content partners and device makers to give subscribers their favorite TV shows wherever and whenever they want, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

CEO Glenn Britt said the No.2 U.S. cable company is developing a strategy called Any Content, Any Time, Any Device, Anywhere to help the consumer choose how they want to access their favorite shows.

The move is aimed at pre-empting a breakdown of the cable business model, which is threatened by the availability of free or close to free programing on the Web on sites like Hulu.com.

"We're starting to allow people to access content they want any time," Britt said at the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York. He said this is part of the TV Everywhere cable industry initiative to make programs available online to paying subscribers.

Time Warner Cable hopes to take that further by delivering programs using WiMax 4G wireless technology, through its partnership with Clearwire Corp (CLWR.O).

Britt said the cable company is also working with a range of device makers and other technology companies to ensure that it can deliver programing on a range of platforms.

"We think the distinction between PCs, TVs and BlackBerrys are artificial," said Britt. "We're hard at work in our labs to deliver shows on any device."

TV Everywhere has been an industry initiative pushed by Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and Time Warner Inc (TWX.N), which spun off Time Warner Cable, earlier this year.

The idea is for cable networks and content owners to agree on ways for shows to be made available on demand over the Web to paying subscribers.

"If we all give our stuff away for free, we're not going to have a business anymore," said Britt. "My business has real costs to it. We underpin the delivery, for this to happen we have to get paid."

But Britt acknowledged that broadly rolling out TV Everywhere could take some time since every program owner or network had to agree on licensing deals with each distributor.

"As a technology matter, it could be in place almost immediately, said Britt. "It physically could be done in six months but I can't predict because there's a large number of partners involved."