At TechWeek Chicago last week, Aereo CEO and Founder Chet Kanojia announced that the company would soon offer its service, allowing users to watch live television online, in the Chicago area. Beginning September 13, 2013 over 9.5 million consumers across 16 counties across Illinois and Indiana will have access to the live online TV service.
Areo TV’s innovative technology utilizes arrays of thousands of tiny antennas to receive and then transmit live television to online users on their mobile devices or computers. Additionally, the company uses DVR technology to allow users to record programs to watch later.
The live online television service has become very popular among its current users, especially when it comes to watching local news and sports events when traveling away from home. Currently, Aereo TV is available to customers who live in the New York City, Boston and Atlanta designated market areas (DMA). A complete list of the smaller cities and surrounding counties covered by these markets, where the live online TV is available, can be found on the Aereo TV web site (www.aereo.com).
“There’s no place like Chicago and we’re excited to be launching in this world-class city in September,” said Aereo CEO and Founder Chet Kanojia. “Consumers want more choice and flexibility when it comes to how they watch television and the enthusiastic response to our technology from people across the country has been humbling. At Aereo, we feel that we’ve built something meaningful for consumers and we’re proud of the work we’ve accomplished. However, there’s still much more to come as we continue our expansion into new cities throughout the summer and fall.”
The company explained in a press release how, using Aereo’s technology, they can pause, rewind and fast-forward any program that they are watching live, or save a program for future viewing. Among the network television options available to watch online in the Chicago market are WLS-TV (ABC), WFLD-TV (FOX), WMAQ-TV (NBC), WBBM-TV (CBS) and WYCC (PBS), as well as other other-the-air special interest and foreign language channels.
Aereo works on ‘smart’ devices from tablets to phones to laptop computers. Aereo is currently supported on iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Opera, AppleTV (via airplay) and Roku devices. Android support is expected later this year.