Stealing live sources and inserting advertisements, do TV homes deserve to be rectified?

The well-known live broadcast platform "TV Home" has run away.

On November 20th, the topic of #电视家 Runaway# appeared on the hot search list of social platforms, and the news pointed out that the live broadcast platform could not be used normally since yesterday, and Android users were stuck on the launch page and could not watch the live broadcast. Subsequently, some users found that the two official accounts of "TV Home Assistant" and "TV Home Service Account" have changed their account names one after another, and all the previous content has been cleared.

Not only that,TV"TV"APPInter"Announcement pops up directly on the startup page,The content is as follows:

In accordance with the regulatory requirements of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for Internet TV live broadcast services, the service of this product will be suspended from now on. We deeply regret this decision and apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding and support, and for complying with the relevant laws and regulations together.

The service has been completely stopped, is the "TV home" really going to run away?

As the topic fermented, "TV Home" also responded to the relevant controversy through its official Weibo. It can be roughly understood that the TV home has not gone out of business, nor has it run away, but the service has encountered some troubles. As for the refund problem that users are most concerned about, the TV family said that it will be solved on time.

(Source: Weibo)

Today, all the services of "TV Home" have been suspended, and users cannot access the live broadcast normally. Combined with the latest guidelines released by the State Administration of Radio and Television some time ago, there is no doubt that it is difficult for "TV artists" to "resurrect".

"TV home", what's wrong?

Generally speaking, there are three ways to watch TV: cable, IPTV, and OTT.

"TV home" is an over-the-top (OTT) class.

OTT, that is, Internet TV, users only need to access broadband, and they can watch relevant content through smart terminals. Under normal circumstances, Internet TV does not support real-time viewing of live TV, but "TV Home" not only supports live content, but also can be mobile and TV double-end live broadcast, which can be called a blockbuster product in OTT.

"TV home" was born in the early stage of smart TV,At that time,In order to rapidly promote the evolution of traditional TV to smart TV,Derived smart TV box and a number of "copycat" TV software,These software steal IPTV live broadcast sources,Provide live broadcast services on their own platforms。

(Source: TV Home)

Although it can be called a "gray area", in the initial stage of smart TV development, it is difficult to carry out comprehensive reform and improve relevant laws and regulations. Until recent years, advertisements and nesting dolls have been frequent, which has seriously affected the green ecology of the TV industry, and relevant departments have successively issued a number of guidelines to crack down on the gray industry.

Of course, simply stealing the live broadcast source, the "TV family" is not guilty of this, what really makes it completely collapse is actually the nesting doll fee.

In 2021, "TV Home" ushered in the 3.0 version of the big update, and after this update, the platform has finally entered the era of charging. The fee standard of "TV Home" is similar to that of most Internet film and television platforms, with 150 yuan for annual membership, 75 yuan for quarterly membership, and 25 yuan for monthly membership.

The live content of "TV Home" comes from the live broadcast sources of various TV stations, and it does not require any cost in itself, after all, this is a resource obtained through informal authorization, and the "TV Home" that has not paid any money for these contents has also engaged in membership fees, which is really difficult to accept. What's more, "TV Home" also began to insert advertisements into the live broadcast content, and directly interrupted the live broadcast to broadcast advertisements during peak hours and prime time.

(Source: Pearl River News)

I have to say that the "TV family" was banned and was not wronged. With the gradual improvement of the smart TV ecosystem, most OTT platforms are starting to get back on the right track, legally obtaining live streams and buying the rights to episodes, so that even charging fees is reasonable. But "TV Home" has accumulated a large number of users over the years, but it has not completed the transformation, and now the East Window incident has happened, and it can only end up with a "runaway".

The "TV home" ran away, and it was the user who was injured

The user with the account name "TV Home Assistant" has posted a number of announcements on social platforms to clarify the rumors of "running away". According to the investigation of Sino-Singapore Jingwei, the account is linked to an official account with a registered entity of Beijing Jiashitong Technology Co., Ltd.

This company was registered in 2017 and was listed in the abnormal business directory twice in January 2020 and September 2023. It is worth noting that Beijing Jiashitong Technology Co., Ltd. was involved in 26 judicial cases, of which 57.69% of the cases were related to disputes over infringement of the right of information network dissemination of works.

(Source: TV Fengshu Official Account)

It is not difficult to see that the predicament of "TV home" has long been a sign.

But for now, users are more concerned about when the money they have recharged will be returned.

In the only remaining service account of "TV Home", as long as you enter keywords related to refunds, you can receive an automatic reply from customer service. To sum it up, it can be summed up in one sentence: money can be returned, but you have to queue up.

This doesn't sound very familiar.

The CEO of the previous company that asked users to queue up for a refund due to service interruption has already started another spring of his career on the other side of the ocean, leaving only millions of paying users waiting in line, in fact, most consumers also understand that the money is estimated to be not returned. At present, it is not clear how many paying users there are and how many users are queuing up for refunds in "TV Home".

On the other hand, because "TV Home" provides real-time live broadcast of nearly 2000 TV stations, it is the preferred OTT platform for many elderly and children in the era of smart TV, after all, it can jump directly to the live broadcast source after entering, even if you need to pay and interrupt the advertisement, it is still the easiest platform to operate. Many users said on social platforms that they don't want to turn on the TV anymore because they don't have a "TV home".

(图源:Google Findr)

It is true that "TV home" does not follow the corresponding laws and regulations and wanders in the gray area, which is not worthy of sympathy from the legal level, but from the user's point of view, people would rather choose "TV home" than open those Internet video platforms, which is nothing more than "TV home" is the most acceptable behavior among many "hooligans".

(Source: Weibo)

After punishing "TV homes", it may also be time to consider improving the service quality of film and television platforms and improving the user experience, so as not to let consumers' TVs be born only for "TV homes".

Write at the end

It is difficult to watch TV and annoying to watch commercials, which is already a common topic in the TV market, and the fact that "TV artists" running away can cause huge discussions, and they have not been blamed and abused one-sidedly, which is enough to show that the chaos in the TV industry has reached the point where it has to be cured.

In fact, OTT software such as "TV Home" steals live broadcast sources and genuine content, and also adds platform payment and inserts advertisements in live broadcasts, which is illegal no matter how you look at it. However, users' attitude towards the "TV home" running away controversy is relatively mild,In the final analysis, this platform gives consumers a good experience in use,According to the data provided by Huawei Mall,"TV home"APPThe number of downloads on the platform reached 28.87 million times,Far more than other platforms of the same type。

(Source: TV Home)

However, the theft of live broadcast sources by "TV Home" is a serious infringement of the creators and copyright owners of genuine content, and the service has been shut down, which is not worthy of sympathy.

In general,With the development of special governance work,All kinds of chaos in the TV market will be solved step by step,Especially after the problem of complex charges、Repeated charges、After the problem of nesting doll charges is solved,Consumers can support genuine content more assuredly,Let the TV、Film and television industry resume activities,Maintain healthy operation,Naturally, it can give more positive feedback to the audience,Bring more high-quality content。

At present, there are still some problems that need to be solved in the "TV Home", such as the refund of membership fees, which is a part that consumers are more concerned about, so it remains to be seen whether the platform can gradually solve these problems as promised.