Apple Waits in Wings as Cable's TV Everywhere Stamps Out Free

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a bunch of small companies in Silicon Valley thought the future of television was theirs. Soon, the thinking went, TV would be everywhere.

Frequent fliers would tune in on laptops and vacationers on tablets from the beach. If so inclined, you'd be able to watch "Glee" on a cell phone in a tree house. The network suits and the cable guys just didn't have the digital chops to make it happen.

Fueled with venture money, tech companies with names like Boxee Inc., Roku Inc. and Sezmi Corp. pursued their dream of untethering viewers from their TV sets -- and owning a piece of the advertising revenue. As the big picture comes into focus though, it looks like the cable guys are playing the lead roles, using the fees they pay content providers as leverage. Cable, satellite and telecommunication companies pay $32 billion a year, according to media research firm SNL Kagan. The alphabet soup of newbies is still waiting in the wings for a moment that might never come. What happened? Part of the answer is TV Everywhere, a service in its infancy, conjured up in strategy sessions by Jeff Bewkes and Brian Roberts, the chief executive officers of New York-based Time Warner Inc. and Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. They took a lesson from the music labels, which looked up one day to find that Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. had taken control of their inventory