48 hours of programming beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern. nonfiction books all weekend every weekend right here on c-span2. >> here's a look at some of what's ahead today on c-span2. .. >> the house returns today at noon eastern. on the agenda for the week, a

2014 spending bill along with two environmental bills, one on coal ash regulations and the other on epa rules. meanwhile, the senate gavels back in tomorrow at 10 a.m. eastern. members will consider a procedural motion on a bill that addresses fiscal 2014 spending for transportation projects and housing and urban development programs. live coverage of the house on c-span, the senate here on c-span2. >> host: this week on "the communicators," we want to introduce you to chet kanojia, ceo and founder of aereo. whether kanojia, what is aereo? >> guest: we think of aereo as a really new way of thinking about how people are going to consume television in the future. it's an online platform which is direct to consumers, and people can get access today to live broadcast television along with a dvr on any device without a

cable connection just using the internet for the grand old price of $8 a month. >> host: and this is over-the-air broadcast channels that chemocan get through aereo. >> guest: that is correct. >> host: what am i holding in my hand here? >> guest: that's, actually, the key piece of the aereo technology, that's a microantenna. and think about as how you used to have over-the-air antennas in the past, they were large. we miniaturized them, so a lot of sophisticated technology. and the purpose of miniaturizing them so we can build hundreds of thousands of these things into a very small room. and by doing that we can allow a cloud-based implementation of how a consumer can capture the signal which is really the big innovation here because the cloud technologies allow us to lower the costs down very dramatically, lower barriers to the consumers very significantly because suddenly you don't need

boxes, cables or cords, you just go online, sign up and you have access. that's actually the antenna. >> host: what's it made out of? >> guest: copper. >> host: and that's all it is? is there a chip? >> guest: no, that's just the loop, the front end of it, and there's a whole host of technology on a circuit board, and the equipment in its final form looks like telecommunications equipment. >> host: does this prohide hd -- provide hd reception? >> guest: it does, certainly, yes. >> host: what's the legal status of aereo at this point? i know there's some court cases going on, in fact, one this week was decided. >> guest: yes. so aereo was challenged by, i forget the amount, but it was, i think, 17 or 20 or 18, somewhere in that range, broadcasters in new york when we announced our intentions to launch the company about a little over a year ago, year and a half ago at this point.

and they asked the court for, to stop us as -- issue an injunction. and we were very fortunate that the court took a really detailed view of the technology. there was a hearing and almost a trial. they concluded that we succeeded on our merits. the technology was going to be lawful and decided not to stop that, so that was a very significant win for the company because it was a threshold issue of whether if our belief in our technology and the analysis we had done was correct. and after that validation we, the plaintiffs appealed that decision in the appellate court, second circuit, and early april this year we got a decisioning from the appellate court, again, revalidating the trial court's findings that it was a legal technology and should not be stopped. and, you know, as it happens looking for yet another doover,

the portfolios appealed that as well -- the plaintiffs appealed that as well and requested the entire circuit court to get together and hear en banc as they call it. full disclosure, i'm not a lawyer, but i seem to have picked these terms up these days. and the entire circuit panel then commented yesterday denying their request. so that's the current status. while the trial continues at the lower court level and its proceedings and discovery and various other things that are going on. >> host: how many customers does aereo currently have? >> guest: we have not disclosed our subscriber count. we're a private company. one of the luxuries of being a private company in particular, so on top of that we're in litigation, so, obviously, that complicates things further. what we are finding is that as we go to a city, several tens of thousands of people register, preregister to say we like the idea, we understand the concept,

we either today use an antenna or we don't have cable tv or variety of other reasons. we use, we understand online video, we use that, and so this makes a lot of sense for us to combine two, three of these alternatives to create a full experience at a price point that seems a little bit more hodge call pause -- logical because, you know, most of these people -- most people don't watch hundreds of channels, they tend to watch four, five, seven, ten channels, somewhere in that range, and there's at least some rationality, some logic along with simplicity, variety and other things that are valuable to consumers. >> host: are there cable channels that are part of aereo's service? >> guest: so we have, we're working with loom -- bloomberg television as a first partner in this thing, and that seems to very done very well. it sort of coinsides with our

view that television's revolution is going to be called what i call skinny live and deep live libraries. things that are not time sensitive can be in libraries and, in fact, they are. if you go to netflix be, amazon or any of these online libraries, you have a tremendous amount of content that makes it there. and we think people want live for things that are relevant, unscripted so it tends to be sports news, large reality shows, special events, things of that nature. so as a result we focus on news as a first category that we think we can open this platform up to and allow these consumers to have access to different things. so that's -- >> host: what's your response when broadcasters say you're stealing their signal? >> guest: you know, at some point you have to sort of call it what it is, it's name calling because when three federal courts express an opinion that it is a legal technology and

it's consistent with what congress intended, it's difficult for me to sort of look at it any other way except as name calling or mischaracterization. fact to have matter is that this content is paid for by the consumers in advertising, spectrum that the broadcasters have, and i think it's worth clarifying that aereo technology is only applied to free-to-air television, free-to-air broadcast not cable content or cable channels. when we look with a cable channel, for example, in many bloomberg's case, it's a productive partnership where we enter into a commercial relationship with hem. so it's difficult for me to even answer the question why is it stealing when you're required to program to consumers' interest. a consumer has a right to an antenna. and whether they buy the antenna from radioshack or from air owe

is sort of -- aereo is sort of not relevant. we've consistently established a paradigm. the length of the wire that connects your antenna to your dvr and to your television set isn't a matter of debate, you know? if you live in an apartment building where you have a 50-foot wire versus a 10-foot wire, how is that any different? so we think that, you know, that's our response. >> host: well, we want to bring into the conversation matt schwartz who is a reporter with "communications daily." >> thanks, good to be here. mr. kanojia, from the very beginning of your company's existence, aereo have been beset by lawsuits, by the threat of lawsuits. walk me through your thought process as you decided to start a company knowing that the big broadcasters would immediately attempt to sue you out of existence. >> guest: well, you know, my hope was -- and i think when we started, we spent actually a few

months walking around and educating people. and our hope and intent was that as we educate these folks, you y would recognize that some of this innovation, as surprising as it is or unexpected as it is, can be good and, frankly, here was a great example how upstart new technology company was trying to expand the audience base, build technology that was outside of the restricted sort of cable ecosystem, really innovate around a lot of different areas, user interfaces, cost points, variety of different things. so our goal actually, our hope was that we would educate people, and we understood there would be controversy, but, you know, there was sort of a belief that they would, you know, logic would prevail. >> the second circuit sided with your company in april and just refused to hear it again en banc this past week, but one of the

judges in the dissent -- and both of those instances -- had some pretty or harsh words for you. he calls aereo's service a sham or a scam, a, quote, goldberg-like contrivance overengineered in an attempt to avoid the overreach of the copyright act. how would you respond to those sorts of accusations? >> guest: first and foremost, i think it's important to note that the company spends a tremendous amount of resource, time and money, to understand the law, try to engineer technology to fit within the law. so i respond to that by saying we, all we're doing is we understand the law, we are taking advantage of the guardrails that the law has set up, and the purpose is to build technology that complies within those guardrails. and i think that's a perfectly fine thing to do. lots of -- how would you, how would you characterize somebody who looks at the speed limit

while driving and sets their car to, essentially, not exceed the speed limit and follow the law? >> the broadcasters might say to you that while you may be acting within the letter of the copyright law having a specific antenna for each individual customer, by not doing public performances, you're violating the spirit of the copyright law and the program producers aren't getting their fair share of copyright royalties. >> guest: so, you know, i think we would answer to that in the following way. number one, today -- and i think this is the nab's statistic -- about 54 million people get television over the air using an antenna in some way, shape or form. so are you saying that those 54 million people are wrong? the intent behind the broadcasting law, and i think this started in 1932 or '33, was

the spectrum would be granted so that broadcasters would program in public interest and convenience. and it was paid for. it was paid for every today by the value of the spectrum, and it is paid for every day by the advertising that those consumers are exposed to, right? so now what the size of the antenna and where it's placed shouldn't be a matter of debate. people are, obviously, getting compensated because there's plenty of advertising and, in fact, that's the revenue that's dominant for a lot of these broadcasters as well. the issue really, as far as i'm concerned, is this industry in genre acts -- general reacts the same way to every technological innovation that comes around. we're on c-span, and the broadcasters had the same fight with cable companies that lasted numbers of years until it became a meaningful business, and now everybody's a great, happy

partner. this happened with vcrs when the vcrs first came out, home recording devices. same dispute, multiple years later many billions of dollars got produced. so this is a default reaction to keep everybody out, stop innovation because fear leads as opposed to opportunity. >> but cable companies have to pay. when cable companies originally started and they had community antenna television and went around to customers and said we can improve your reception, here install this cable, that lasted for a while, but eventually in the 1992 act, congress changed that, set up a consent regime and even if the cable companies want to just take these free broadcast signals off the air, they still have to pay the broadcasters. what makes aereo different? why are you treated in -- it seems to me that the cable companies are treated unfairly compared to you. >> guest: i don't think so.

i think we're treated very unfairly. so you really have to sort of take a look at the whole thing in a grander scope, right? there is a distinction, and this is part of the mission of our company. a distinction, has been since time immemorial on equipment providers and npds or cable companies, if you will. the person who makes a tuner, a television set, a box, an antenna, doesn't pay retransmission consent because they're providing equipment to the consumer. whereas companies that have statutory rights that go along with being able to buy content, being able to force people to sell them content even though they may be competitive they have monopoly rights in markets because they have the rights to public access on electric utility poles. i mean, there's a bouquet of rights that come along, and as part of that they have to pay broadcasters.

so here is the internet, has no rights. zero. absolutely no rights, in fact, severe constraints and threat of the future because we don't know what's going to happen vis-a-vis neutrality, we don't know what's going to happen vis-a-vis caps, we don't know any of these things. so here's an ecosystem that has absolutely no rights, a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and in comes a company that creates interesting technology, and the idea that you can equate the two is just absolutely incorrect. i think in any rational person's mind equipment providers have never paid retransmission consent. they're not subject -- they don't have the rights and the protections a cable company does. so trying to levy that regime on equipment providers just absolutely makes no sense. so what's next after that? every car radio needs to pay retransmission fees? is it a taxation scheme that you're really talking about at that point? >> host: but, chet kanojia, what

would be the difference between aereo and, let's say, youtube taking broadcast programs and just putting the whole program right on youtube for people to watch. >> guest: structurally, technologically there's a huge amount of difference. number one, the way aereo technology works each individual consumer gets their own antenna, gets their own dvr locker. they control the entire experience. we, aereo doesn't take the signal, right? the consumer when they log in, they're able to tune, pick what they want to do with their antenna separate. their video experience is absolutely unique and exclusive to them. so, for example, if a bird flew in front of your antenna and it didn't fly in front of your neighbor's antenna, your signal would be interrupted versus your neighbor's signal would not be interrupted, right? that's how i look add it is it's very discreet, distinct, one-to-one relationship.

now, if any other company be decides and builds technology and intellectual property aside that essentially protects that paradigm and says -- and, in fact, cable companies are deploying network dvrs which are exactly the same technology. i think there have been reports comcast is now doing trials in multiple markets and intends to roll that out, cablevision has rolled out a network dvr. they're no different. they're exactly the same technologies. so somehow the law should apply differently to them and not to us? it just doesn't seem fair. >> host: where did the name aereo come from? >> guest: so in india growing up -- i'm from india originally, and i immigrate today the u.s. in the early '90s. antennas are called aereos. it goes back to the old short wave radio. and as i was searching for a name, i thought the idea of combining aereo with a video and making aereo sounded cool. >> host: what's your background? >> guest: in which way, do you

mean? >> host: business wise, technology wise. >> guest: i'm an engineer by training. and in late '99, early 2000 i started a company which was called navik which pioneered how to collect viewership information from cable boxes. so we used to work with all the major cable companies, processed millions and millions of channel changes, utilization and the information was very useful for a variety of purposes, and that company became successful and was subsequently acquired by microsoft in 2008 which freed me up a little bit of time after that to focus on the new project which was then i decided to pursue aereo. >> host: on your web site you have a blog, and it's, it talks about all the cities that you are in or coming to, going to, where it's available. atlanta, boston, about 16 cities, correct? >> guest: right. 32 total that we hope -- 22

total that we hope to finish by fall. >> host: and what about washington, d.c.? >> guest: i believe it's on that list, yes. >> host: what's the reaction from lawmakers and the fcc to your technology? >> guest: i think we at the moment we focus on education, our goal is to educate people to sort of show them what the capabilities of the technology are. and i think it's a tremendously positive reaction that people get. people say, wow, this is cool because it really brings competition and choice into the marketplace which is, obviously, important from a consumer's per spect pif. it creates -- perspective. it creates an alternative way of sort of thinking about, oh, where is the next generation going, how are they going to consume content, what are the modalities, what kind of devices, what kind of technological investments, in particular cloud technologies are relevant and important. to continue to foster, you know, a great experience ecosystem. because you really start hooking at what else -- looking at what

else is happening which is cost of content production is coming down. there is a variety of different sources. there's a different approach being developed, and whether it's youtube or netflix, you know, a number of companies are doing really innovative things. and i think there will be a time where there will be a set of platforms that you can just go to the dial tones of the future where you just go and say this is my live dial tone, i have access to news, to all of the relevant sports and things of that nature. and they are rational. they are not you have to pay $300 a month and whether you like it or not, that's the only option that you have. >> host: matt schwartz. >> sir, some -- if the courts find that this is not a violation of the copyright act, if your business is allowed to proceed, surely others are going to get on this. there's going to be a lot of competition in this area. time warner cable, it's already been be reported to be considering doing something like this, taking broadcast signals and put them on their internet streams in order to avoid paying

retransmission fees. some companies, some broadcast companies have threatened to take their programming off the air so that you don't have access to it. what does the future of the television industry look like where the copyright act doesn't quite fit or where there is confusion over how to apply it? >> guest: i think it fits. i think there's absolutely crystal clear today, and again, people should -- this is an important point, and i really would hope the press is diligent in really educating people that there is a distinction between broadcast which is supposed to be free to you as a consumer and other copyrighted content that you're required to pay for separately. there's a huge distinction. people essentially put a whole wrapper, well, if aereo's successful, we are not going to get paid or aereo doesn't support that which is absolutely incorrect and wrong.

the idea that a technology allows you to access what you have today access to, that is not going to change the industry of television or what the evolution's going to look like. it's going to -- and i think, again, a very naive perspective that if somebody says, well, time warner cable can do this, you have to take a step back and look at the reality of the situation. all cable companies today are buying programming from consolidated media companies. so it's not a single broadcaster. it's a broadcaster that owns a variety of cable channels that go along with that. and our contention is that until the ecosystem moves towards individualized choice, you are really not going to see any proliferation of these kinds of technologies that these people are talking, reporting in press. so i think a lot of these are empty hyperbole arguments that people use in the press and

really there should be a distinction drawn between the source, the type, the nature of the industry. to answer your question on people going away from the broadcast situation, again, you know, i think of that as irrational and saber rattling from a set of people who are not interested in innovation. the reality of the matter is 50 plus -- according to the nab, are using an antenna in some way, shape or form. if antennas are that bad for you, if idea a consumer can pick up video using an antenna is that bad, you should have already left the broadcast system. how is it that people can do that, and there is no harm, life's going great, and a little company, aereo, is suddenly going to mean the death of you? the reality is there's been an agenda behind this historically and, in fact, this was, this has been part of the issue that they

would rather just be cable. and just, essentially, have the protected dual revenue stream. the problem with that is the intent in congress granting the spectrum was public convenience. the right for people to be able to get this programming for free using a technology is important. that was the basis of the spectrum grant. and that needs to be protected. and i have a very difficult time believing that lawmakers are going to sit idle while this develops and as it happens that people are going to be able to, consumers are not going to be able to have access to broadcast tv. i don't think that's in the future of the united states. >> and they may not sit idle, but they may target companies like aereo. i think there is a desire to support innovation. i think there is a desire to create competition. i think there is a desire to have choice. and i have a very naive immigrant's point of view which

says that's the u.s. system. how could it not be the u.s. system that new things come in and make progress? >> host: mr. kanojia, what does it cost an aereo service? to the consumer? >> guest: about $8 a month. there are two different plans, 8 or 12. >> host: and for that $8 or $12, what does one get? >> guest: for $8 you get a single antenna with 20 hours of storage for your recordings -- >> host: and you can watch that on your ipad, phone or home? >> guest: any device or application that we don't charge for, outlets, if you do. and for 12 you get the ability to do that with two antennas and 60 hours of storage. >> host: so can somebody be in their car traveling across country and watch a continuous to program or not? >> guest: so aereo's a geolocked technology is probably a good way to describe it. we protect the idea that a local broadcast is local. so when you exit -- it's constrained to your home market.

>> host: where did your funding come from for this company? >> guest: we're a private company, so we are venture financed, if you will, is a good way to describe it. >> host: and barry diller's one of your financiers? >> guest: i see the company that he's chairman of is an investor. >> host: so in ten years from there now -- well, first of all, who's your competition today and with google possibly getting into tv and apple and sony, etc., etc., is that your competition? >> >> guest: i think it all remains to be seen how this is going to develop. i think these are very early days. i think consumers, there's not going to be a single one dominant mare. i think there's going to be a fracturing of some sort. but i think it's certainly going to be online. and i think it's certainly going to be decoupled, meaning the technology, the experience is going to be decoupled from an

ownership perspective with the content which is the opposite of what it is today. it's a highly integrated stack as a result. if you wanted as a new company to provide user interfaces or search, for example, you can't get into the game. so we think it's definitely going to be online. we think it's definitely going to be dominated by people that provide interesting user experiences in technologies, and we think more rationalized packages or disaggregation is ultimately inevitable just because the way the system is set up today it's, it's out of control. and i think the prices the way they are escalating versus how people's ability to pay for it or how their usage habits are changing, you're seeing that in young consumers the average age, i think median age used to be 21, cable today is 29 or 30. that's a trend that should not be ignored that the market is

evolving away from the conventional model that's been there. and i think the companies that are able to create how these consumers want to consume and create that ecosystem are the ones that i think are going to be dominant and winning. >> host: matt schwartz, we have one minute. >> all right. one minute. how is aereo any more legal than people who use peer-to-peer file-sharing software to record a broadcast show and make that available? isn't aereo just in a way, in essence, to monetize and automate peer-to-peer file sharing? >> guest: so i can't comment on the legal aspects of any of those things not being a lawyer. i don't think i've ever thought about the distinction. be i think there is individual users creating individual copies using individual antennas, then i think they're similar. but i don't think peer-to-peer does that. i think it's not individual antennas by individual consumers making those copies, so i think they're very technologically

distinct. i don't know the legal implications of that. >> host: and we've been talking with chet kanojia, ceo and founder of aereo. matt schwartz of "communications daily" has been our guest reporter. gentlemen, thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> thank you. >> just ahead, house armed services committee ranking member adam smith talks about the relationship between foreign assistance and national security. then a discussion about immigration initiatives to empower immigrant communities in metropolitan areas of the u.s. after that, health care analysts talk about proposals to lower medicare costs by restructuring the program's cost-sharing components. and later former president jimmy carter speaks to the carnegie endowment in washington, d.c. about the israeli/pal stun yang conflict -- palestinian conflict and middle east security. >> house armed