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Intel and Sony Ambitions for Internet TV Services Meet Skepticism - NYTimes.com

Television services delivered via the Internet by companies like Inteland Sony could someday transform how Americans watch TV shows. But the services have to get off the ground first, and there are new doubts about whether that is going to happen.

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Intel

Erik Huggers, an Intel vice president, is in charge of the company’s OnCue TV service.

Intel’s consumer-friendly plan for a version of cable television that is streamed to paying subscribers — the same way Netflix is streamed — has been scaled back recently to satisfy channel owners, and its goal to introduce the service, called OnCue, by the end of this year has been scrapped. Intel says it now hopes to introduce it in 2014.

Sony’s plan has been shrouded in mystery. Like Intel, it has yet to announce licensing deals for any channels — and without those deals, the companies have nothing.

“This time it is really true that content is king,” said Mike Vorhaus, the president of Magid Advisors, a unit of the media consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates.