Streaming Services (business / market / service, not content-focused)

[Lord of Rhinos]

Huh, I have the plan with ads and and in the normal course of a "half-hour" episode I got 90-120 seconds of ads total.   It does seem like the more you watch the fewer ads you get.  I've been watching on a desktop and when I turned on an ad blocker the other day I was able to watch several episodes without it even visibly attempting to play an add.

[Iskaral Pust]

4 hours ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

Sounds like you're playing stuff from the Live TV part of Hulu, which is a cable replacement and has ads instead of playing things from the streaming side of the site which is almost entirely ad free (assuming you paid for that tier).  

 

I personally think Hulu has the strongest TV show streaming library in the US.

I only watch sports in the Live TV part of Hulu, the rest is from their streaming library.  The ads on streaming are shorter than for Live TV but still annoying to have a 1-2 minute interruption at all when I have spent years on Netflix, Prime, HBO, etc getting used to no ads, and when I have explicitly paid extra to have no ads.  The ad creep seems to be steady and cynical: the more popular content has more ads because they think they can.  It looks like the networks want to have their cake and eat it: they want to get paid direct fees by viewers, cutting out the cable company, but also reintroduce the ad model that they love so much.

You and I may have different taste in TV.  I have no interest in reality TV, gimmicky talent competitions or banal police procedurals.  There is very, very little that the core broadcast & cable channels have produced of interest in recent years.  AMC is probably the only channel there that has produced really good stuff, perhaps one or two from FX, and those were all available on Netflix for several years so I’ve already watched them.  Just like HBO’s best stuff from their back catalogue was on Prime for several years. 

[Lord of Rhinos]

Different strokes for different folks.  I think that with the addition of FX on Hulu, it has been churning out the best set of originals this year. Devs, Mrs. America, Normal People, Little Fires Everywhere, the Great, and Dave are all good shows.

[SpaceChampion]

Disney unveils Star, its Hulu replacement for international Disney Plus subscribers

Quote

Star, Disney’s international answer to Hulu, will roll out in certain European countries, Canada, and New Zealand beginning on February 23rd, the company announced today.

Star is a free tier within Disney Plus for subscribers in Europe, Canada, and New Zealand that will be fully integrated into Disney Plus. It will be accessible as the sixth brand tile in the app. Essentially, this will carry a number of shows from Disney’s other non-main franchise brands. That means shows from FX and movies from 20th Century will be available to stream. People will be able to opt in to choose if they want to watch shows with higher age ratings.

 

[SpaceChampion]

Roku buys the Quibi library of content

Quote

The acquisition covers most of the Quibi library, but some daily news shows are not part of the package. A key draw for Roku is the talent, a roster including Idris Elba, Kevin Hart, Liam Hemsworth, Anna Kendrick, Nicole Richie, Chrissy Teigen and Lena Waithe. The lineup includes titles like Most Dangerous Game, Dummy and Murder House Flip.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

It'll be available for free on the Roku Channel.

 

[RumHam]

Quote

Roku will reportedly have to present the shows in their original form, and won’t be able to string multiple short-form episodes together to create content of a more traditional length.

I find it hilarious that this was a condition of the deal. Your idea was terrible guys, let it go. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

On 12/11/2020 at 2:47 AM, SpaceChampion said:

Disney unveils Star, its Hulu replacement for international Disney Plus subscribers

 

That sounds good.

Maybe I will renew Disney+. 

 

Bob's Burgers would be nice. 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Luzifer's right hand

[Iskaral Pust]

We added back Disney+ to watch The Mandalorian S2, and then cancelled again.  Now we’ve added HBO Max instead because a few of my wife’s friends recommended The Undoing (I’m not loving it so far), so we might keep that for another month or two to try some other shows there.

We’re just cycling short periods for different services.  Only Netflix and Prime are persistent for us. 

[Corvinus85]

Same here, though I've considered cancelling Netflix. But they're sneaky, and sometimes drop good stuff when you least expect it.

I'll likely drop Hulu live, but keep basic Hulu. Much as I'd like to keep up with the English Premier League, I seldom watch more than one game per week, and I can see all the highlights on youtube. There is barely anything else I watch on it. 

I've just ended my CBS AllAccess subscription, which was through Amazon.

I stupidly signed up for 1 year of ESPN+ back in September. I've barely used it.

[Rhom]

Peacock is buying all the WWE Network content

WWE Network will be closing shop in March.

The consolidation of all content by the major networks continues.

[Rhom]

So with the coming Peacock thing I mentioned in the post above, I thought I'd download the app and check it out and how it looks.

Here at my office, I have a Samsung TV that I just stream my TV apps directly to.  Peacock is nowhere to be found...  a quick use of Google-Fu shows me that it is still unavailable natively on that brand.  At home, we use Rokus with all the TVs (most of them being too old to have their own app store, but one being a Samsung Smart TV that we still use the Roku with for consistency in the house).  

I had resigned myself to the occasional cable/satellite wars with specific networks getting blacked out.  This is now the second incidence of not being able to get an entire app on a specific brand of television because of similar conflict.  (The other being that my Sony smart TV did not carry the Direct TV Now/ATTTV Now app in favor of the PlayStation TV service.)

Its awful that a major consideration in purchasing a television will now be what apps/services are available on that model.

[Werthead]

Some talk at the moment that Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access), Peacock and HBO Max may join forces in some manner. Not a merger, but a package deal where all three streaming packages are combined in one package to take on Disney+, Netflix and Amazon. Which sounds like a nice idea but I can't see that working unless the combo package is priced about the same as the other three, which means each of the three companies gets a lot less revenue.

Also seems an odd move given that HBO Max and Paramount+ have been boasting that their subscription numbers are above expectations (which I flat out disbelieve for HBO Max, but for CBS/Paramount I can believe).

[Corvinus85]

Last I checked Peacock wasn't available on Amazon devices either, at least not the Fire TV. Amazon is fairly notorious in allowing competitors to use its devices, and it takes a while for any new streaming apps to become available. It took months for HBO Max to become available, and Disney+ almost didn't make it at launch.

On the subject of packages, Disney already has one with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, and it's cheap if you don't want Hulu Live and don't mind adds.

[Zorral]

This hardly seems worth it?  Or I'm missing something?

https://www.cnet.com/news/hbo-max-cheaper-ad-supported-tier-will-launch-in-june-without-dune-matrix-4/

 

 

[Rhom]

Got an email from Roku today that Google may be pulling YouTube TV off the Roku devices.

WTF.  I thought when I ditched the satellite wars this sort of stuff would be over.

[dbunting]

2 hours ago, Rhom said:

Got an email from Roku today that Google may be pulling YouTube TV off the Roku devices.

WTF.  I thought when I ditched the satellite wars this sort of stuff would be over.

I think it's only going to get worse. We are going to be paying more for all this streaming and still having to watch ads. My current list

Cable tv, Netflix, Amazon prime(free because of my phone deal, Hulu (my daughter got it), Paramount + (also my daughter) and HBO max, (again daughter)....

So I have access to a lot of content and it's just like the old days, I click on netflix and search for 10 min, give up and go watch reruns of something on cable.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

Yep, we’re just repeating the battles of yesteryear: content producers vs distribution utility.  The funny thing is that neither Roku nor YouTube TV seem powerful enough to get into a battle.  I like Roku and have used them for years, but they’re hardly crucial to the ecosystem when most TVs can stream directly, albeit with bad interfaces.

The signs are strong that more content will get trapped in over-sized and over-priced bundles — that’s what would stop us from dropping the subscription whenever we’ve finished bingeing a given show.  And ads will stealthily return.

We have Disney+ back on for my son to watch the Falcon & Winter Soldier show, but that’s finished now.  Not much else that I can see worth watching.  We added BritBox on Amazon Prime for all of the detective shows.  We’ll go back to HBO Max when their new movies start to arrive.  

[RumHam]

You ever get a "recommend for you:" thing that makes you wonder what you watched to give the streaming service such a low opinion of you? I mean sure I watch some stupid shit but The Big Bang Theory? That hurts, HBO Max. 

[Zorral]

"Inside Netflix’s Quest to End Scrolling"

https://www.vulture.com/article/netflix-play-something-decision-fatigue.html#_ga=2.25446004.858981327.1619630750-1439158469.1619630750

I won't be opting into Play Something because their algorithm consistently recommends for me things I will never ever watch.  The closest to anything generic I consistently watch is period drama.  But I watch just about anything, if it works for me.  Most things of whatever genre do not work for me. I can't think of anything more horrible than just turning on something as a rule of operation.  Almost every time I try something to try it, I shut it down within minutes, if not seconds.  However, I also watch things to know what they are, rather than because I like or am entertained.

Quote

 

....Despite months of testing and years of research, Netflix execs won’t know how Play Something will play out until it’s available to everyone around the world. It’s possible the base of users who hate auto-playing previews will turn up their noses at the idea of ceding control of their viewing experience. They will almost certainly be the loudest voices on social media (though Netflix can point to plenty of tweets from test users who’ve already embraced the idea). To help sell the feature, the company has enlisted Will Arnett to star in a social media campaign where he voices a weary remote control who begs users to “stop the scroll.”

Yellin is fine with some folks scoffing, mostly because Play Something is not designed to be used by everyone. Subscribers who don’t mind introducing a bit more randomness into their viewing experience will embrace it. And for those who don’t, the traditional way of browsing Netflix will still be there. “We’re not abandoning anything,” he tells me. “We’re complementing what we have. Different people want different experiences.” And whatever the response, Yellin has been around long enough to know that any initial ruckus Play Something causes — pro or con — will likely fade quickly. “The fascinating thing about innovation I’ve noticed is, you make a big change, it creates this huge stir for a day or two — and then it becomes the new normal,” he laughs. “People go like, ‘Oh, that’s always been there.’”

 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

What the hell?

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-05-16/why-att-is-spinning-off-hbo-cnn-warner-media-discovery