Internet TV Revolution!

[Jace, Extat]

Hey, say what you will about the godawful programming on AMC, but they made it super easy to watch The Walking Dead online and I respect that. When I want to punish myself for reveling too long in quality entertainment, I don't want to hunt down a shitty copy of a show or pay a shitload of money. But if you make it available, even with ads!, I'll watch it online when I'm in my moods.

 

So really, way to go AMC! Fox does this too, and  Cartoon Network as well (Rick and Morty). Such not-dogshit service should not be wasted. I'll happily watch your subliminal training video and make you money if it's convenient. Everyone wins!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Cord cutting can save a lot of money. At my old play one person paid for Netflix, one HBO and one Hulu. Cost us next to nothing and we had access to just about everything we wanted. The only down side was we had to go to a bar or somewhere else for our sports consumption, but thankfully there was a great sports bar just a block away.  

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Cord cutting can save a lot of money. At my old play one person paid for Netflix, one HBO and one Hulu. Cost us next to nothing and we had access to just about everything we wanted. The only down side was we had to go to a bar or somewhere else for our sports consumption, but thankfully there was a great sports bar just a block away.  

I have TV specifically for NFL. If there was a football streaming service (even if I had to watch commercials on the network's service) I would throw my money at them.

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I have TV specifically for NFL. If there was a football streaming service (even if I had to watch commercials on the network's service) I would throw my money at them.

Yeah, we cut the cord this year - and it is shockingly easy to do now as long as you don't care about sports. Even when there's a series I care about, I just spend the money to watch it - I assume I can do that 10 times a month and still pay less than what I was doing for DirecTV. 

[Rhom]

Honestly, we only have cable for sports at this point.

If I could find a way to catch all my Kentucky basketball and get networks for some NFL, I’d bolt.

[Jace, Extat]

If the NFL wasn't run by morons, I honestly believe it would be the leader of a worldwide sport played all year round in different parts of the globe. Seriously, it and every other licensed broadcast of any activity is an insanely valuable item that I wonder if anyone is noticing yet.

The NFL shouldn't be selling its broadcasts of games with limited broadcasts on limited television networks, it should sell the networks the right to bear the streaming costs of the broadcast, the production of the broadcast, and the commercial opportunities therein.

You may think 'Jace, that's what they already do!' but I'm not talking about a split of conferences or particular game schedules. The NFL should sell the broadcast of every game individual to production companies (not broadcast companies) who are able to handle the logistics of broadcasting a game worldwide. That would mean no more shitty games in primetime, and really no primetime at all as the schedule could be further broken up over the week in a different season structuring (you no longer have to worry about traditional 'seasons') and you would end up with organic commentator teams that BID for the pleasure of presenting an NFL game with the backing of their streaming service.

You like Tony Romo and Mike Tirico? Well, they could PAY the NFL for the right to broadcast the superbowl together. Fuck, Kanye and Katy Perry could commentate the superbowl if that's what the people wanted. The NFL would have no need to advertise itself in any capacity (any more than it has to now), and after their done paying ungodly amounts of money to host the Superbowl I bet Yahoo! would spend a fuckload of money advertising that it's secured Barack Obama as the halftime show of the Superbowl while the NFL is completely divorced from any obligation to the process outside of raking in their money and officiating the on-field product.

Am I lit as a Christmas tree or did I just invent a new business model?

[Eggegg]

Its amazing that only a couple of years ago I'd be hunting around the internet for episodes of the shows I wanted to watch. I didn't think I'd ever bother with something like Netflix because why pay for something that is free. But the convenience of Netflix and amazon prime and the quality of their apps means that I 'feel' like I want to use them. That is the sign of good design. 

What I'm finding really interesting however is the rise of YouTube as a content provider. A few years ago it was a place for people to host cat videos. But now its like my first port of call if I'm bored and I watch peoples channels and am a regular viewer of some shows. I think amongst the younger generation this is pretty standard as well.

And I NEVER watch real tv. Why would i. 

[Werthead]

I might drop my TV service. I pay £60 a month for internet, landline and TV. It's very convenient for recording and queuing things, and Virgin just upgraded the box so it's much faster. But with my new Steam Link I can watch Netflix and everything else on that, streaming it to my big TV, and use catch-up services for everything else. It's not quite as convenient but the cost saving would be huge.

[Guy Kilmore]

I am curious to see how the FCC stuff affects all of this.  I too cut the cord several years ago and it works great.  I think, ultimately, TV is going to end up going the wsy of Music once Napster and such was around.

[drawkcabi]

only reason I don't cut the cord is my mom doesn't want to understand how to use Roku or Amazon Fire/Alexa and yet loves to complain how there's never anything good on, they keep taking her America's Funniest Videos off and so much yucky sports!!! If she learned to use Fire TV it has Youtube which is basically 24/7 The World's funniest/saddest/disturbing/weirdest/craziest videos.

and my dad can't understand how to use it.

Me, I don't watch TV except I like to have antennaTV on in the background when I'm doing things like playing video games. But even if I cut the cord I'd be able to get AntennaTV because, well...it's Antenna. Over Thanksgiving I must have watched (or at lest had on) a hundred episodes of All In The Family

I'd rather watch Johnny Carson than Fallon/Kimmel/Colbert. 

When I want to watch a program and pay attention to it I always use Hulu/AmazonPrime/Netflix/Crackle/go90 or Xfinity onDemand.

Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are the modern day equivalents of NBC, ABC, and CBS in the 50's-80's and YouTube is like all the whacky UHF stations rolled into one.

 

[williamjm]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I might drop my TV service. I pay £60 a month for internet, landline and TV. It's very convenient for recording and queuing things, and Virgin just upgraded the box so it's much faster. But with my new Steam Link I can watch Netflix and everything else on that, streaming it to my big TV, and use catch-up services for everything else. It's not quite as convenient but the cost saving would be huge.

I'd think you could definitely save money and get something similar. I can't get either cable or satellite TV here, but I can't probably get pretty much everything more cheaply anyway so it doesn't matter. I'm too lazy to work it out precisely at the moment but I reckon it's probably just over £40 for line rental + broadband + Netflix + NowTV.