Leave it to Cablevision… True to form, they’ve thrown caution to the wind and have launched the full fledged STB replacement iPad app we’ve been waiting for:

Time Warner’s most vocal critics were Fox, Viacom, and Discovery Communications. On Thursday, the company removed their channels from the service, about a dozen in all — except for Fox News. Even though it took those steps, it added 17 new channels on Friday, thus increasing the overall number of networks available through the service to about three dozen.

Consumers are responding positively to the app: the company reports some 300,000 downloads in just the first two weeks of availability.

According to Broadcasting & Cable, the networks are NBC World, CSPAN, CSPAN2, CSPAN3, Chiller, Disney XD, ESPNnews, G4, HSN, IFC, Jewelry, QVC, Sleuth, SOAPnet, Style, Golf Channel and WeTV. It also included its local news and information channels NY1 News and YNN Austin in those markets.

It’s clearly a sign that Time Warner has no intention of backing down, meaning that we’re probably heading for a showdown between the cable provider and the networks. What remains to be seen is whether Time Warner’s move emboldens other providers to do the same. There’s always power in numbers.

This has the television networks in a tizzy, claiming that their contracts with the cable provider do not give it the right to essentially stream its content. About 32 cable channels are provided through the service, including MTV, HGTV, Discovery, and others.

Central to Time Warner’s argument is that the networks’ signals aren’t being just blindly transmitted over the open internet where anyone could attempt to snoop — the 21st Century equivalent of stealing your neighbor’s cable. Instead, it says the signals would be transmitted over its own “secure network.”

No doubt this is going to be quite a fight, and if the networks were moved enough, they could cut Time Warner’s traditional cable customers off in retaliation. It’s not that easy  a decision though: if they do that, the cable company is under no obligation to pay them the lofty carriage fees that these networks all but live off of.

The question really becomes whether or not Time Warner is within its rights to do so. The cable providers — and the networks, too — have looked the other way while companies like Sling have already done what Time Warner is planning to do. I guess the only difference here is what it is doing could potentially be on a much larger scale.

Indeed, the cables pay some $30 billion annually in carriage fees — but these deals were negotiated long before tablet devices came into vogue.  If Time Warner wants to stream TV networks’ signals, it should negotiate that option.

My feeling is that if this goes to court, the TV networks are going to have the upper hand. I think Time Warner knows this too, and I somewhat expect to see some type of talks between the two sides if the cable provider is serious about providing this feature for its customers.

Watching it myself, it feels very BBC: news presented in a intellectually stimulating manner, something often missing in American television journalism today.

The network reports that traffic to its English-language site since the start of the crisis has surged by 2,500%, with 60% of that traffic coming from the US. Many are apparently tuning into the live stream.

Why’s this? Simply put, cable companies have practically all but shut out the network since its debut in 2006. Al Jazeera no doubt got a  rap for being a outlet for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda — the terrorist group sent its videos regularly as “exclusives” in the days after 9/11 — but since then the network has done a lot to polish its image as a legitimate news outlet.

Cable companies, whether it be for political reasons or otherwise, now refuse to bring the English-language version of the network here. In Canada, it took a effort by Al Jazeera English and supporters there to have the government mandate the channel be carried: Regulators there have much more power in forcing the hands of cable providers.

Here, not so much. However, with the new troubles in the Middle East, there seems to be a new push. Journalism professor and TV critic Jeff Jarvis has started a campaign via Twitter (see #wewantouraje) which appears to have struck a chord.

The network itself is going public as well. Al Jazeera director Wadah Khanfar has taken to the Huffington Post to plead its case. “Al Jazeera faces a different kind of blackout, based largely on misinformed views about our content and journalism. Some of the largest American cable and satellite providers have instituted corporate obstacles against Al Jazeera English,” he wrote.

“We believe all Americans…could benefit from having the option to watch Al-Jazeera English–or not to watch us–on their television screens.” Read the rest of it. Very solid argument.

So what’s the response from our top three cable providers? Not much really. Comcast wouldn’t speculate whether carrying AJE would be a possibility. “We regularly examine our channel lineups and talk with a wide range of programmers to ensure that we are bringing the content that our customers want the most,” spokesperson Alana Davis told me.

Hmm. That sounds like if MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News don’t want AJE, then you wouldn’t get it on Comcast, does it not? With the network now having a controlling interest in MSNBC, a news network … well, I don’t even need to continue.

Time Warner didn’t respond to my inquiry. Coxspokesperson David Deliman said that the company considers whether a network adds value in its programming decisions. “Cox bases its decision on the existing channel lineup, terms and conditions of carriage, programming requests that we receive and our desire to offer diverse programming choices to meet the varied interests of our customers,” he says.

But since the Middle East is such a focal point in world politics, wouldn’t carrying AJE offer tremendous value to cable subscribers? I would certainly think so. If cable companies are serious about diversity in programming, then Al Jazeera should be a natural choice in every lineup. Let Americans choose on their own not to watch.

The so-called “Time Warner Essentials” package will be tested in New York City and parts of Ohio, the Los Angeles Times reports. Priced at $50 per month, it’ll include roughly 50 channels, including all the broadcast networks and 12 of the top 20 Nielsen-rated cable networks. Subscribers will also be able to tack on premium channels like HBO and Showtime, and they can get but cannot get DVR service for an extra charge.

Unfortunately, Time Warner Essentials has some major blind spots. There’s no ESPN, and it’s not clear whether the package will include regional sports channels, like the Yankee-owned YES Network. CNN is included for live news, but there’s no Fox News or MSNBC.

Considering that live content is a major missing ingredient from cable alternatives like Netflix and Hulu, I’d consider all those channels to be essential for keeping cable customers on board (personal feelings about cable news networks aside). But they are expensive — ESPN costs Time Warner $4 per subscriber, says the LA Times — and I doubt Time Warner wants to stack its budget price tier with its most popular channels, lest Essentials cannibalize bigger packages.

In any case, I’m pleased to see a cable company respond to subscriber losses with action, rather than a dismissive wave of the hand. This is an acknowledgement, however slight, that people are getting fed up with the exorbitant price of subscription television. There’s no definitive answer on whether people are dropping cable specifically for disruptive Web-based services like Boxee, Apple TV or Roku, but the disruption is happening either way, and it’s cable’s turn to respond.

Comcast launched the Xfinity TV app to much fanfare this week, and though we knew it was coming, we didn’t know all the nitty gritty details until we got our own hands on. After a test run on the iPad, here’s my take on the good, the bad, and the future of the Xfinity app.

The Good
Set-up is quick and painless, and the TV guide experience on the iPad is awesome. Remember how easy it used to be to read the print version of the TV guide out of the newspaper? It’s like that, but better. Scrolling on a large touch screen is fast and effortless, not only through all the different channels, but also across hours and days. You can also filter channels so you’re only looking at a certain category of content (like sports or movies), or so you only see HD shows available. The search function still separates linear programming from on-demand content, but results are in tabs right next to each other, making it easy to toggle between views. I had no trouble setting up a recording from the iPad app, and while there was a delay when switching channels from the touch screen, it was still cool to be able to browse and then change stations without picking up my regular remote.

The Bad
As Jeff Baumgartner points out, you can’t start an on-demand program using only the iPad app. The app will take you to the screen on your TV that shows the program listing, but you still have to hit select on your standard Comcast remote. I also found that you can’t tune to a channel if your TV is in On Demand mode or if you have a DVR menu up. Speaking of DVR, the remote DVR function that lets you manage recordings isn’t integrated in the new Xfinity app. On the iPad, the app exports you to the Safari browser to access the myDVR Manager. Finally, the application crashed on me a couple of times as I tried to dig deeper into program descriptions. Restarting required surfing through menu screens again to return to the right page.

The Future
Comcast has been very clear that not only is it bringing the Xfinity TV app to the Android and Blackberry platforms next, but it’s also adding on-demand TV viewing to the experience soon. This is what Verizon is doing now with the Flex View app, though we don’t know how Comcast’s on-demand library for mobile devices will compare to its telco rival’s. Ultimately I’m hoping we’ll also see linear broadcasting, which Verizon has promised for the future, and access to DVR programming through some kind of syncing mechanism.

Aside from video availability, there is a big future for the Xfinity app in how much metadata it provides for different programs, and how it uses the web to link information across multiple databases. For example, I found out from the app about Summer Glau’s guest appearance on Chuck this week. A natural extension to the application would be to see it link to more information on Summer, including other current projects and potentially where I can watch other programming she’s in in the Comcast line-up. The web is an infinite source of information, and suddenly it’s all available in the wonderful world of IP.

Note: The screenshot above is from iTunes. The rest of the photos here are my own.