i have neither the time nor the inclination to explore more than a few of the offerings on either of the streaming services i already have - no matter how enticing - so the news that disney, HBO, et al are entering the fray means nothing to me.
4
"Florists, caterers, set decorators, chauffeurs, hair stylists, headhunters — it’s gravy train time."
Good.
It's about time Hollywood's hard-working riff-raff got a piece.
3
If you're willing to wait, many public libraries have a good selection of TV shows on DVD.
6
The entertainment cognoscenti all seem to view the consumer as passive couch-sitting hominids whose time is there for them and them alone. I'm sorry but I only have two eyes, and a limited amount of time I'm willing to spend on simply sitting and watching, as I'm the type who would rather be doing something, anything, else.
So these dancing executive monkeys trying to grab my eyes and attention better be particularly pretty and good at what they do else...well....did I mention I've better things to do than just sit and watch? And even if they were beautiful I've only so much time, and far better things to do.
So it goes..
John~
American Net'Zen
2
The old roomie and I used to have Netflix. We would scroll and scroll and go, "want to watch this?". We would make a mental note and keep looking till we got to the end before making a decision. Then, we decided to get rid of it since we were spending the time we had to watch t.v. just scrolling and scrolling through choices.
Now, I pay my internet (about $65) and hand CBS $10 per month to access everything they have minus commercials. The only reason I did that is because of Star Trek: Discovery. I did not mind getting all 38 seasons of Survivor along with that plus other stuff like about 25 different movies per month.
All of my other favorite shows like Dancing with the Stars (I had to watch the train wreck named Sean Spicer), the Good Doctor, Will and Grace, Chicago P.D., are posted for free on their website if I just wait one week. I don't work in an office so I don't care if I'm a week behind.
Add to that my local library which has a few thousand movies and shows plus two different streaming services to go with that for free and my endless rabbit holing on YouTube for free and I have more than enough to watch. I just found out that since I'm on Medicaid, I should be able to knock off about $55 on the internet so I will more than likely end up with $20 to watch everything I want and have internet access.
So, I don't get the local news. Do I need someone to tell me, "Chance of rain, back to your Jane". Yeah, rain in Seattle. Didn't see that coming.
8
I have never understood why we are paying for commercial channels! They should be paying us to watch the same commercials over and over again. Have you noticed the commercial load of "This is Us" to the content time. Ridiculous that we have to pay to see it.
5
I just watch youtube. I have the Premium option, which means no ads. I cannot imaging going back to any form of television. On youtube you have many millions of videos to watch, most of them free. Some feature films cost 3 or 4 bucks to rent. I do not need anything else.
1
It's a shame this article, which is accurate and thoroughly researched, didn't even touch on video game streaming. Twitch has 15 million daily active users and e-sports is the multi-billion dollar sleeping giant no one is talking about.
4
Wow. The snippy retort "Okay Boomers!" certainly applies to many of the posters here.
2
As always the media leaves out the hard fact that essentially we don't have an internet that can handle streaming. Thanks to our bribe taking politicians and greedy tech billionaires we simply don't have the infrastructure to actually show these shows w/out the usual jerkiness, downtime, and battling with customer service agents who specialize in ignorance. I can't wait for cities to start to provide actual web speeds that work in today's world and get rid of these stupid hundred channel packages that no one wants or watches.
8
We have cut traditional cable because $200 for cable and internet is too much for anyone! We had switched to Playstation Vue at 1/4 the price but now that Playstation Vue is ending, we have decided to go old school and use a HD Antenna to watch Local Channels (FREE) and subscribe to Sling Blue ($25) SOLELY so that my husband can watch CNN, Standard Hulu ad free ($11.99) to watch any other shows we like the next day (HGTV, Food Network, Cooking Channel), Disney+ ($6.99) because I am a Disney addict, Netflix ($13) so that we don't miss out on the "big" Netflix shows and Amazon Prime ($119 a year) because we like shopping too much. This is too much to manage on a good day and I am not sure we are saving any money.
When will someone come along and combine all of the streaming services under one interface so that we do not have to do constant switching and can find everything we want while still paying each provider what they require???
6
Who has the time to watch all this new content?
Seems to me like it's a case of supply being higher than demand, as is currently the case with regular TV.
We don't even get full use of our Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions due to lack of time....no way we're going to sign up for more streaming services.
6
Two things will control the future of streaming: 1) Broadband access, 2) Live programming/coverage (sports, mostly, but other live events).
I'm still hoping internet delivery via satellite or some other omnipresent means will bring the costs down and coverage up in the near future. We cut the cable two years ago, but still have to pay the local cable provider for broadband service to be able to stream entertainment.
YouTube TV and Hulu+live offer live programming coverage - but at prices nearly equal to cable TV costs. That's the dilemma for sports fans like me.
4
All of this focus on how "new" this world is ignorant of how cable TV works. A cable provider "subscribes" to all the channels as much as you now have to subscribe to those channels independently when you "cut the cord" and subscribe to services. It's $5/month for ESPN, $2/month for Ovation, etc. all buried in your one big cable bill. Behind each channel their are about 5 big companies (Disney, NBCUniversal, Viacom, etc) who license these channels. The same guys who are offering their channels by streaming.
So, "cord cutting" is simple getting your cable TV via another package. It is more "a la carte" and includes Netflix (but Netflix is simply a "premium channel" in Cable TV speak, like HBO). With most providers allowing on-demand service, you don't even have to depend on when a program is aired.
Consumers don't have the bargaining power of cable TV providers, so the cost of a streaming service is going to be higher than the cost to have the same content on your cable tv package. Disney makes more money and consumers feel like they somehow have more choice.
That is why Wall Street is pouring money into Hollywood, because they see these streaming services as becoming vastly more profitable than traditional cable TV. And that profit is going to come out of YOU.
5
Every one of those big shake-up events in Hollywood has reduced the breadth of the spectrum of subjects and the quality of the overall films. If you're looking for a quality film of the level that used to be "art films" forget it. It's all see-it-today and by tomorrow it's forgotten. Streaming junk.
3
How about if a new internet provider set new rules like: 20.00 for internet unlimited use and pay per channel, minimum 3 channels?
3
Reading more books never seemed more attractive. I got rid of cable 7 1/2 years ago and never looked back. Occasionally I watch youtube videos, movies on prime video or the odd television series but I could do without all of it. I have discovered that corporations that vie too heavily for my attention are to be avoided like shunts. They are certainly not interested in being my friend.
4
I have a HTPC with four tunners and a $5 per month cable card. No cable box required. And an ethernet connected smart TV.
So sure, I could cut the cord. But by the time I pay the monthly bills for the streaming services I want - a whole bunch of separate bills - AND pay for high speed internet, the total will be higher than the one bill I pay now.
And thus the point of that exercise would be...?
5
I really hope the streaming business model will include theatrical releases for their big productions. I can stream whatever I want to watch, but I love movies. I like to see them big. I like the shared communal experience of sitting in a theater with strangers. Anyone who’s seen a favorite movie on television after seeing in a theater for the first time knows there’s a difference. There is so much granular detail in our best films, in the way they’re composed, in facial expressions, movement, in nuances of set design and landscape, etc, that goes unnoticed on smaller screens. Releasing movies solely on streaming services is also socially regressive. There are plenty of people who can afford an occasional night out at the movies, but not a host of subscriber services and home theaters. Can’t we have both?
1
It will not be long before all communication, of all kind (not just TV and movies) becomes IP based (the protocol of the Internet). As the article indicates, it is becoming more difficult for the consumer to put together a series of choices to get what they want to watch. I want MSNBC, CNN and Comedy Central, with interest in National Geo and other Science channels. There is no single package that gets all of them. In time, there will be counter-aggregators that allow you to select channels one at a time, and even permit watching single shows without subscribing to the channel for the whole month.
3
My cable provider, Xfinity/Comcast, charges $89 for internet alone and ~$50 for internet with a basic cable package. When are we going to see some competition in the internet services market?
6
Cable TV became too expensive. Streaming TV became very convenient. And cheap.
And so it goes.
6
No cable. Just Netflix, Amazon Prime, an Amazon Fire Stick, and a public library card with Overdrive. And outside interests.
8
So the viewing audience will have access to every recorded program and movie filmed since Your Show of Shows.
No need to leave the house.
But where will those who want live tv, the local news sports games and live content go if not the cable/satellite? We'll have to pay for each streaming channel plus the useless cable programming.
What's worse, 6 watchable channels out of 120 useless channels at $60 a month, or endless streaming channels each costing $8 a month?
I hope that all the new shows can gain an audience in such a fragmented industry.
1
Try YouTube TV at $50 a month. Has a very nice DVR feature that lets you record events and watch them later including everything on ESPN.
1
Soon, we will see an opening for “community streaming”, where all the “platforms” run on a shared server (or set of servers), and the steams are distributed to members of the community. Next we’ll have “weblets” (as Variety once called them) that distribute content directly to a small number of community servers.
There’s really not much new here. It’s an ongoing game where everyone in the value chain tries to grab as much as they can.
4
A generation is not 30 years long. It is 15 years. Please note.
Except for the baby boomer generation which apparently lasted forever. These boomers will not retire, they will not pass on, they are clogging the system like cholesterol on the wall of an artery.
3
Huh? What does this comment have to do with streaming?
7
@Brother Shuyun
Soylent Green is people.
4
You will be some form of a baby boomer in ur lifetime tho by another name. Each generation has a titular name. Don’t be so smug.
8
If the streaming companies think we are going to pay for five or six of these services on top of our already sky high monopoly cable internet prices they have a surprise coming. Even if one is only paying for internet, not including cable television services, the prices are high. The cable companies gouge on pricing for internet only service.
The costs of services that one needs to just interface efficiently with necessary services such as health insurance, tax filing, especially for the self employed, require $40 a month minimum for a cell phone plan, $60 or more for internet, realistically it might be more than that, even before paying for A la carte streaming plans.
There isn't any more money to be squeezed out of consumers.
14
I must say that I love the ability to binge! Feeling under the weather on the couch watching the the third season of The Crown, loved it and had a great night sleep!
5
This is great news for me, the consumer. I could care less if the movie companies profit or not.
Now, if we can get the internet to be free or less than 100 bucks a month, maybe I would pay for another subscription besides the one I have.
I cut the cable way back when. HD antenna for 20 bucks gets me all the locals plus about 50 channels.
Now what can we do about those silly YouTube ads? So annoying.
2
My wife watches TV sometime for the background noise sometimes for the shows/programs. I don't watch except one in a while (BBC and that sort of stuff) and when I'm on vacation then cable is part of the vacation and I catch up.
If it weren't for her desire, the TV/Screen/idiot box would be cut. And like that other contributor mentioned, I have no clue about some of the stuff coming down.
One more thing, cable, and I'm going to assume here these streaming options, have and will have a lot of reruns of the NEW and JUST RELEASED. So what I was paying for was a lot of dead time.
BTW, I write short stories and no I have not been approached by any studio to purchase my work. I'd rather write, read, cook a good meal, take a few short vacations, maybe indulge a few hobbies and talk to people, voice to voice.
One more thing, if I don't like something new, you can almost bet investing in it will make you a boat load of money. I've tracked it.
4
@Rick Tornello - I think I just woke up the neighbors laughing at your last paragraph:) I think I'm guilty of that. I'm not an Adele fan, nor Taylor Swift, I never watched an episode of Big Bang Theory or Game of Thrones, and I have no idea who the last musical guest of SNL was. Oh, and I didn't see Black Panther. Are we related?
1
Please take note. I have put all of my entertainment dollars in the Amazon basket. Even if that is to change, I am ready to put all my dollars into an Amazon TV to facilitate that entertainment.
It's a great time to be a viewer!! Services like YouTube TV that bundle the best channels including those needed for live sports and news allow for elimination of cable TV packages (1,000 channels and nothing's on!). The sports packages such as MLB TV permit watching every game other than the home market. Streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO, and Disney add tons of extra content. I keep my red packet Blu Ray service from Netflix to watch movies and TV shows not licensed to those few streaming services I subscribe to. Many of us don't find ourselves watching more TV. What we watch is high quality and what we most want to watch. The choices and convenience have never been better while the monthly outlay is less than it has been for a long time due to getting rid of cable TV. A home theatre setup negates the need for the Cineplex. The pause button and making popcorn are a terrific combination! We've come a long way already from the days of VHS!!
3
I gave up cable a while back and now watch old b&w movies and listen to radio dramas (Lux, BBC, CBS Radio Mystery Theater) on youtube. I contemplated signing up for Disney Plus, mainly for the 20th Century Fox catalog but there are only about a dozen films available, and the Disney films I like can be viewed elsewhere.
2
The pacification of the American citizenry via continues unabated. At some point there will be unintended consequences for the ongoing effort to keep Americans glued to their TV sets non-stop. Eventually "cord-cutting" will come to mean "I don't watch passive media at all." Creativity will become concentrated in the hands of the very few, the very rich, the very powerful, who will dictate what you get to see, hear, and learn. We continue to create an Orwellian dystopia with each succeeding generation. It's the digital version of bread and circuses.
88
edit: "via media"
3
@tom
It's not Orwellian, it's "Huxleyian" aka "Brave New World". We're not going to be destroyed by what we hate and fear; our downfall will be brought on by what we want and love. Pass the Soma.
47
@Rich Big props to you for pointing this out. Brave New World is a lot closer than 1984.
12
How about expanding your analysis to include selecting "premium channels" like HBO ? (sorry if I've overlooked that). That would be extremely helpful.
I may be an outlier, but I don't like to watch the same movie or series more than once.
Thus, for someone like me, the ideal would be a pay-per-view for any movie, series, sports contest, special event, documentary, etc.
If they are smart, the big content providers will offer both subscription service for members, but also a pay-per-view for any of their content for non-subscribers.
5
Our local, very, very small cable company quit cable a couple of months ago. Everyone is now streaming content. The old cable company offers our internet and a streaming program. I did the research about streaming and over-the-air TV and decided that paying for "cable" TV that streams is a rip off. I now get my TV mostly through Amazon Prime for free (other than paying for Prime) and without commercials. I miss some shows that I no longer get and some over-the-air TV, but for the most part, I do not miss my cable TV. If you can forgo sports, you can save a bundle on TV. I cannot believe the money I wasted on cable over the years!
1
As a consumer I don't see much downside; we are on the verge of a la carte TV. Instead of a $160 cable bill for 400 channels of mostly ad-infested garbage, I pay $50 for internet and then subscribe to whatever commercial-free streaming services and movie rentals I want, canceling channels when there's nothing worth watching. Comcast/NBC is planning commercials for Peacock? Let's see how that works out for them -- once you get used to commercial-free programming, there's no going back.
86
@Tom B.
NBC/Peacock most likely will "offer" an ad-free package that costs a few dollars more per month in addition to its basic ad-based offering. Hulu does that now and the extra couple of dollars or so is certainly worth it.
4
@Tom B. However, some of us are old enough to remember when PBS had no commercials!
17
@Tom B. When the cross subsidies from cable end because everyone flocks to streaming services, watch the fees for streaming services climb. Your bill for internet + services will climb.
They can't keep losing money forever.
This merry-go-round is based on free money from Wall Street. Enjoy it while it lasts.
12
The author mentioned YouTube as a player in the streaming landscape, however, it’s actually a much bigger thing than just YouTube. Outside of accessing videos for my DIY projects, YouTube impacts my life very little. I know it’s huge with teenagers and their social media craycray. But for adults, and this is just my experience, it is hardly ever utilized.
YouTubeTV (emphasis on the TV), however, has been a game changer for me. I cut the cord 1 1/2 years ago and I’ve never looked back. For roughly $50/month I get access to almost all the channels I want (add the History Channel....please!!!) and can share it with 5 other family members on their individual devices. It recognizes when I travel and will populate those local channels that are relevant to me. And I can record a seemingly unlimited amount of movies and shows to their cloud for access whenever I desire.
Not sure why people forget the TV in YouTube, but for me YouTubeTV is the best alternative to cable.
22
@Barb I'm surprised at your opinion of YouTube. For me (a boomer) YT is a treasure trove of public domain TV shows from the 50s and 60s, amnd movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
For example, last month I went through dozens of episodes of One Step Beyond. Then there is the 40 episodes of Boris Karloff's "Thriller." The acting is excellent and the stories are always thought-provoking.
Yesterday, I watched Basil Rathbone in House of Fear (1945). Another classic.
YT is also a great resource for browsing recipes and cooking methods. There are highlights of sports events and clips of special events (e.g., the performance of the Pentatonix of "That Thing You Do" at the event honoring Tom Hanks at the Kennedy Center).
The list goes on, but as with much of the content on the "free" Internet, it is how you use it that determines its value for you personally.
17
@A
Both you and @Barb make good points. Like yourself, I watch YouTube for many many things. Sometimes I want it more than anything else. Which always surprises me, I like for instance, review shows of my favorite streamed shows (incl. networks that have a streaming option/app) but I'm impressed with the TV part of YouTube as Barb lays it out.
3
@A
I support your Youtube enthusiasm. It is a bargain bin of treasures. There is access to college courses and other educational material. I'll soon complete 'Moral Foundations of Politics (PLSC 118)' taught by Ian Shapiro, one of many Yale courses available.
4
Let me tell you one thing that will change. If the content producers and the content distributors cannot get their act together and find a way to distribute the most content, to the most people, with the fewest services then I am going to be doing a lot more reading and spending a lot more time at the gym. I am not going to have a dozen services, with a dozen different logins, and a dozen different bills to pay. Give me one or two services where i can see everything or lose my business.
383
@AR I think you've just described cable TV.
But to your point, the balkanization of desired content into dozens of streaming services, each with their own exclusivity deals, is going to be good news only to pirates.
65
@AR: On my Amazon Fire, all the things I subscribe to are there, with passwords already saved in its little brain. On one screen - Amazon Fire's interface - I can access everything easily because it's all there. Nothing could be simpler. It is so handy, and the little gadget didn't cost much. Now I stream everything. I wouldn't go back to cable, because there is so much more in good, quality streamed content - and zillions of films of all sorts - than on all the cable channels combined. All with one little box and one remote.
16
@Russian Princess So true. I never have to put in a password with Roku and the billing is set up one time and then comes out of the checking account. I like documentaries and serious dramas. So few of those on TV. Streaming channels have almost all of the documentaries of Ken Burns, which originally appeared on PBS, and many other great documentaries and features that people with cable would never get to see. They also have the best international movies and series available all the time. I also like to "binge watch" series that I get interested in and not have to wait week after week. Commercial TV is one long low-level marketing tool. It's tiresome, mostly dumb and irrelevant and that is probably why 33 million people cut the cord last year and more will continue to do so.
28
Funny, I had a breaking point this year. I used to watch most of the shows in the Zeitgeist (Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Veep, Breaking Bad, etc.) and which many of my friends were watching. But, this summer, after a long vacation, I canceled everything and have not signed up for anything since. At a recent dinner with friends, they were discussing shows I hadn't seen and, for once, I didn't care. It seemed few of them were watching the same shows and that there would just be another new series next week. I stopped going to blockbuster films years ago, and now I recognize the same indifference to the latest streaming "sensation."
186
@sansacro
Correct. There is far too much content out there, not like the old days where everyone watched HBO. And all those programs you mentioned were available at one location, cable tv.
6
Another downside to this new era of TV -- increasingly, people watch shows alone. Appointment TV, prime-time, hard start times forced everyone around the TV to watch together, to laugh together. Children learned about their parents' sense of humor this way. Now families are streaming on their laptops alone. This is sad.
185
@PE I completely agree. One of the best parts of watching something is experiencing it with friends and family. It is sad.
35
@PE Not in our household. I watch more TV than ever before with my wife primarily because the shows are much better overall. My 2 sons stopped playing video games last night while we watched the new Star Wars show together.
8
@PE Maybe bathed in the soft glow of nostalgia, a family silently sitting in front of flickering images on a tube may seem like something wonderful to you, but it always seemed to me to be much more a symptom of families NOT spending quality time together.
15
"... traditional entertainment companies are for the first time selling content directly to consumers".
No. They are not. They are leasing it to the public a view to ensuring that 'consumers' are being converted into ongoing, lifetime revenue streams. The entire enterprise is profoundly exploitative and parasitic, and I cannot wait to laugh as anyone with any kind of tech savvy returns to piracy.
This is not some utopian techno-cultural revolution which democratises access to media. This is a sleazy back alley racket being executed by the big media conglomerates, in cahoots with the tech sector, to indoctrinate people into a lifetime of cultural serfdom via ongoing 'subscriptions'.
Never forget that if you pay thousands of dollars over ten years in subscription fees, if you ever decide to stop being a bottomless wallet for Time Warner and Disney, you get....
... nothing.
This is benefits nobody outside of the privately owned and operated media sector and their shareholders. In no way is this any kind of 'win' for the public.
78
@Captain Midnight This is the same problem I have with streaming music services. If an artist doesn't participate, will he or she even exist in our collective consciousness in 5, 10 years? If I don't own what I like and want to revisit, I'm giving up my right to access it indefinitely. If my daughter wants to see Frozen 2 in two years' time and I haven't ponied up for endless years of Disney+, am I out of luck? Probably.
10
@Captain Midnight Yes and no.
While I'm happy to concede media companies are gorging themselves on the new capital sloshing around and, of course, are happy to keep as much as they can while paying as little as possible to their artists, there is another benefit.
I recall having dozens, if not hundreds, of VHS cassettes and DVDs with content that will never get watched again and only sits in my basement, collecting dust or being donated. Paying a fee to occasionally "rent" stream a film or a very minor amount of money for a Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription is worthwhile.
Having said that, definitely feeling content saturation/fatigue.
5
@Captain Midnight Exactly this. A subscription service is essentially permanent pay-per-view. I'll buy the blu ray disc instead, thank you very much.
And if they won't sell blu rays (as Fox does not now, they only sell DVD because they're trying to push you to Streaming for the HD version), well...fuhgeddaboudit.
1
This is me (and yes, I'm, if not old, aging):
"So much change is suddenly happening so quickly that viewers are becoming overwhelmed and, studies suggest, not in a good way. For some people, the cable bundle is starting to seem downright manageable in comparison."
Why, now, is my preferred entertainment -- in-home, via a TV screen -- like all the rest of life, have to become so darn complicated?
The digital divide in entertainment will now separate those that are 'in the know' and up to date on the latest show/trend/what people are talking about -- and the rest of us.
I think of my elder neighbors, etc. I expect they'll have to ask their kids -- or grandkids -- to set things up for them. And yet, once the kiddos leave ... it will still be too complex. This I know.
I miss simpler days. Easier -- and yes, fewer -- choices.
3
@jazz one
"I remember when this was all farms." - Abe Simpson
1
Yes trying to find something to watch is incredibly boring and taxing...i often give up and read.
3
@jazz one - "I think of my elder neighbors, etc. I expect they'll have to ask their kids -- or grandkids -- to set things up for them."
I collect Social Security. The "kids" in my building call me MacGyver. They ask me where I learned to build computers, recording engineering, film editing, growing cannabis hydroponically, how to build a website (using nothing more than Notepad), how to sew, cook, etc. It seems all they know how to do is hit some letters on their phone with their thumbs. Then, they watch grandpa sit down at his laptop and type about 70 words per minute:) I truly don't know how they put their pants on in the morning without a phone app. They can't even parallel park without help. They are never going to make it to Mars.
4
the end of the cable mafia. good riddance.
2
"The annual pace of [cable TV] subscriber decline hit 5.4 percent in the second quarter, a statistic Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, referred to in a recent report as “freaking ugly.”
About eight weeks ago I took my "box" and its remote back to my cable provider, to cancel my cable subscription. The place was overrun with customers, most of whom were also carrying equipment to be returned. It was obvious to me that the cable-TV jig was up. Good riddance.
1
A blast from the past: we are entertaining ourselves to death.
I was fine with a non-flat-screen TV and rabbit ears. A lot cheaper for a few okay choices that didn't show graphic autopsies (really????) and bizarre dystopiana.
1
Sounds like piracy is about to experience a new surge in popularity!
3
This article made me dizzy.
1
The big money and platforms are paying everyone to walk away after they give them their creative content. Finally the industry is catching up with the way the rest of the economy works. There are no more pensions. There are no more backsies. There's just a check for your service and then being shown to the doorsies.
1
I am a multimedia artist here in NYC who has paid his dues for many moons. I have been waiting for the age of content forever. I know the the odds for me to break through are better than ever right now - so I am trying to get someone to help me get my latest and most important work made into a miniseries on one of the streaming networks. It's a cautionary tale/allegory set in the near future and is based on the limited science predictions of what will actually happen here the US if we do not end the age of fossil fuels asap. I feel story telling to the best way to influence folks on any issue. I wrote it as a podcast dialogue play but it could easily be transformed into a miniseries script. I have kept my karma clean for a long time and deserve a break! Check it out...
www.tentcityacautionarytale.blogspot.com
(new episodes every week!)
1
I'm reading a lot of old fogey comments here. As an old fogey myself who lives in the boonies of northern Alberta and who has just subscribed to Netflix, I have to say just one thing. I love it! I'm connecting to some amazing television. Black Mirror, my current favorite explores the ramifications of our tech involved culture. It's fabulous. And so are others.
I am somewhat puzzled by the numbers of detractors who seem helpless and overwhelmed by the choices.. No one is forcing you to sit in front of any device, be it laptop or television. Nor is anyone suggesting you can't stream on the traditional television in the living room and watch with the whole family. It's up to you to make that happen.
"Consumers are upset about the imminent changes in the media landscape." according to researches. They need to get over it. Changes are coming thick and fast on all fronts and will only get faster. It doesn't mean you have to run to keep up, it just means you have to do some research and make some choices that agree with you.
5
@Memi von Gaza .
Like you I will not see 50 or anything like it again but I do love the challenge of all this ease of access to not only entertainment but information...and I do not mean the various media things that pass for information.
As to cost you mention, for a fraction of what I used to spend on newspapers and magazines I can access world renowned outlets for my news and with Netflix or any of its competitors can see just about anything that fascinates.
Nice to know that not all in our supposed demographic can keep up....and as you say CHANGE is everywhere...as it always was..just faster.
2
I just cut the cord. Fios was almost $180 per month for a tv/WiFi/phone. I never wanted the phone line ( and never used it) but was told it would cost more without the bundle. My custom package was ridiculous not providing basic channels like CNN or MSNBC. For those channels another charge. I finally got fed up. Now I have YouTube TV and optimum for WiFi. Monthly should be about $110. Plus my streaming services - Netflix and Amazon Prime. I still pretty much watch local news and stream shows so at least it’s 800$ less per year. Luckily I have no desire for Hulu, Apple and Disney plus. I spend enough time scrolling through menus and then just shut the tv off.
There’s a whole story about how people who create content are being paid and will be paid for the future of their content. I definitely see a strike coming since this is a significant issue for writers, actors and directors.
2
I dumped cable years ago. I quit watching tv shows many years ago and completely turned the tv off in August of 2016 due to the political ads and the election. I had been streaming Netflix until last year when I discovered BritBox, the BBC/ITV streaming service in America. It’s quite inexpensive. Add to that a very inexpensive PBS streaming service and I have quality entertainment at an affordable price - around $15 a month. Better than commercial tv or cable by far.
4
@Catx2 Once "Homeland" and "Outlander" wrap up, I am quitting cable, too. "The Walking Dead" I assume will go on for another 10 years.
1
I think it's a category error to frame this as a "once-in-a-generation shift." That may apply to Hollywood, but the latest shift away from the hundred year old model of movie theaters towards digital streaming is just a tremor in the sweeping transformation the digital revolution is bringing about--wreaking?--inflicting?--on our civilization.
It's all 7.0 earthquakes, all the time, everywhere. All that was solid has melted into thin air, and will just keep on melting more and more rapidly, forever. So our capitalist overlords promise. To me, it sounds more like a mortal threat, and at age 61, I find myself feeling better and better about mortality.
5
You're confusing too many new platforms and too few projects worth putting into production. Consolidations and bankruptcies are the only certainties which will follow, after most viewers become bored with repeats of old stuff.
5
New method of delivery. Same dreadful content - sex, violence, greed.
Nothing new to see here. Same old hype.
10
What ever happened to Greta Thunberg?
5
Dear Etherstream,
I'm old. I just want to watch the Yankees and the Mets live once in awhile. Like I used to before it became "content".
Thanks.
13
Networks will ruin it coming late to the party and trying to save their stupid network business model. The biggest joy of streaming is no commercials and freedom to watch what you want when you want. Networks could have adapted way quicker and knocked out streaming. Now they will cannibalize it. Most network shows are drech anyway, dumbed down and censored - wouldn’t watch on cable so not paying extra. And there is foreign and niche programming on any subject from around the world available on streaming and better.
1
Revolution? A nice start maybe. Contact Hollywodbandb to find the real revolution.
The silver lining through all the commercial hype will be when non-for-profit activist organizations can deliver live legislative video interaction between Congress, state legislators and constituents on subjects that really matter to us like legalizing marijuana;
https://norml.org/action-center/item/federal-the-marijuana-opportunity-reinvestment-and-expungement-act?link_id=3&can_id=c7081f78687aecccbc7395b49b6b291c&source=email-urgent-biggest-marijuana-news-of-the-year&email_referrer=email_665227&email_subject=urgent-biggest-marijuana-news-of-the-year
There could be a NORML TV stream channel that connects subscriptions to in depth investigative reporting and live legislative participation between viewers/subscribers and their representatives.
If Cenk Uryk from TYT is running for Congress on his network donations why can’t Democracy NOW or NORML launch their own networks?
You don't mention the simple disappearance of content. We've got a bookcase almost full of VHS tapes - classics, foreign films, and just stuff we loved - that never made the transition to DVD. What about the thousands of (ahem) celluloid films that simply vanished when video came on the scene, lost forever in vaults somewhere? Each time the technology shifts, a certain portion of existing content just dies. And even if, in a perfect world, all those movies were actually digitized (fat chance), how am I ever going to be able to figure out who owns what? IMDB, are you listening? Can you add that data to your films' records? It's overwhelming, frustrating, greed-driven, and yeah, a lot of us hate it.
9
'....the friction-cost of having multiple streaming accounts.”
What kind of doublespeak is that?
It's just that we're getting sick of being nickeled and dimed every time we turn around.
12
How many hours of TV viewing does anyone need? Maybe it's time for people to consider other activities.
12
Streaming is a joke, I will be returning to cable TV and canceling the internet soon.
1
This donnybrook for distribution looks positive for viewers but I'm not so sure. What we risk losing is a commons.
TV during the Big 3 era was certainly a commons. Conversations about TV formed the back bone of the American identity from Uncle Miltie to Game of Thrones. I think we will lose this commons, certainly in the short term.
Let's be clear TV is nasty, as Hunter Thompson famously put it:
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench... a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.”
But TV has given us something: a national conversation. Let's hope the suits don't ruin that during this grab for viewership.
1
I get Amazon Prime, Netflix and many of the rest of them, and a librarian who lives down the street brings me all the new DVDS.
But all I end up watching are the old classics and black and white comedies and mysteries from the 30's and 40's.
Last night I watched "Lonely are the Brave" with Kirk Douglas and a Gena Rowlands to die for.
The new stuff just plain doesn't work for me, and I am pretty sure I am not alone.
Give it five years or so and people may start talking to each other again.
13
This donnybrook for distribution looks positive for viewers but I'm not so sure. What we are losing is what looked like a commons.
TV during the Big 3 era was certainly a commons. Conversations about TV formed the back bone of the American identity from Uncle Miltie to Game of Thrones. I think we will lose this commons, certainly in the short term.
Let's be clear is nasty, as Hunter Thompson famously put it:
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench... a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.”
But TV has given us something: a national conversation. Let's hope the suits don't ruin that during this grab for viewership.
Why support theaters when they waste half an hour of our time with trailers and commercials AFTER movie start time and charge ridiculous amounts of money for snacks? Let them go out of business.
3
This leaves poor people behind who can't afford internet and/or subscription fee. What about them?
3
@katetex Ear buds at the public library. Or wait for the DVD. We didn't have cable from 2012 - 2016 so I was hopelessly behind on some of the best series of the time, like "Mad Men." Our public library didn't get the DVDs for such shows for the longest time.
@katetex
Nobody cares. Obama gave the poor people a reprieve of a few months to figure out how to borrow or steal a flat screen TV when everything went HD. But if you think the feds paid disabled people or vets, or kids in school (k-college) whose programs require internet access, or Social Security recipients for even cheap, slow internet, you're wrong. That's still the case. No help for the needy.
1
They’re gonna stop making dvds.
All TV is "streaming" and has been since its invention. It seems to me that this article is actually describing an expansion in "on demand" video services. Now, please get off my lawn, you're blocking my TV antenna.
2
..."Feeling the need for more “quick bite” videos while standing in line at the grocery store? Quibi, a streaming start-up led by Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg, is due in April." ...
Yet another perfect distractions for the 90% of Americans who are already so uncomfortable in their own skins. What an anxious, fearful bunch of adolescents to adults we've raised in our country.
Great conversations, wonderful books, connecting to animals and nature, and creating our own adventures cannot make enough money for CEO's .....therefore - STREAMING! Baaaaaaaaaaaa......
4
This is coming about because legacy cable companies weren't allowed to let customers cherry-pick which stations they wanted to receive and pay accordingly. I cut the chord 15 years ago when I realized most of my cable bill was going to the plethora of sports stations that I never watched.
17
@HKGuy And after I did, I discovered that I could almost anything (not that there's been much I've wanted to watch) in a month, three months or a year online for free.
2
Just wait until Internet providers start reducing speeds and capping data.
14
@Gusting
You do realize that the exact opposite is happening and both are accelerating.
Not having commercials is always worth it and people will just have to learn they can’t have everything always when they buy streaming services.
1
This is too large a topic to address in a single article (of course), but I appreciate the "general overview". As a huge film fan, like millions of other people, I have sampled so many platforms. Netflix was indeed the first megaplatform. Their simultaneous transition from DVD & Blu-ray rental combined with their streaming app paved the way like no other company. Of course Amazon Prime soon followed; along with the a host of other platforms like Hulu, etc. Now it is far too diverse. As mentioned, the cable "bundling" I use to grumble and moan about is now almost attractive. Another article mentiontioned this: Write down what you watch, how often and how long. My particular favorite is VUDU. Look what Netflix and Amazon did: They copied VUDU's platform significantly (as did others). For me, one of their finest features (albeit still flawed) is the "disc to digital" transfer. For only $2, you can transfer a DVD/Blu-ray disc into "my library" (or TV)". They have many free films (with ads), too. Of course, you can do the opposite with Netlix and Amazon Prime: Download a film onto whatever device(s) you use. They're all synced (of course). Then you can watch them offline. As far as merging awards, I think not. The former ho-hum Golden Globes are now a highly promotable item. Now, on late night TV, actors intros are inevitably prefaced with "An Academy Award (and/or) Golden Globe Nominee/Winner", and whatever new film they're in is promoted. Bummer. Please remember Cannes!
Regardless, almost nothing worth watching will be on, just as before.
17
This hits the nail, as they say, on the head.
3
@sloreader
if you have honestly surveyed the buffet of superior productions available at a 'click' from all over the world and say that - then you must really... really... hate innovative and original film content.
I can watch something interesting from china right after supper - I could never ever do that even a decade ago
So in conclusion It is better to keep cable or satellite to watch a syndicated show instead of paying multiple streaming services for a favorite evergreen.
@I have had it If you are in or near a city, a good digital antenna and a Tivo will entertain you completely. If you also subscribe to Amazon Prime for movies and some shows, you're in heaven for about 1$1.00 per month, including Amazon.
That is true. I'm just being sarcastic about the fragmentation of the digital technology. I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, Criterion, Amazon and Disney . A lot of the movies I would love to see play only in NYC. I live in Jersey and it is way cheaper to subscribe to these services then going to the Film Forum weekly. Just going through the tunnels is the cost for one month of a streaming app.
1
Actually the same old Hollywood using newer distribution models to enrich the bottom line by wielding their power to bludgeon once industry standard employment contracts of creatives. And then there is one studio female executive among all the men listed, though there are a few more than usual female showrunners listed. Not much new here. Seems like the new version of "57 channels and nothing on."
6
The thing I like most about Netflix and Amazon at the moment is that they’re a challenge to old Hollywood guard. They’ll take chances on things that the big studios won’t even glance at or consider because it’s not written or directed by an established insider with a big name or somebody’s relative.
What I hope for in the very near future is the true democratization of all media.
The tools of high quality production are there. Just add distribution platforms and eyeballs.
Man has entered the forest, er, Netflix. So now I can't watch a bunch of things on Netflix that I used to be able to watch there, and the only option is to subscribe to multiple streaming services? I guess if there are no contracts I can sample one or another, one at a time. But if they pull any contracts out, I'll stick with Netflix. Hey Netflix, more overseas shows, (and I admit I'm fine with dubbing).
10
No. Streaming has not arrived until I get something faster than 3.0 mbps from my DSL. And I only live 10 miles from the Atlantic not way out in the country. Comcast doesn’t serve my area and Uverse is only 1.5 mbps.
13
Thanks, but I'm sticking with my trusty library card ....
53
@Papercut61
Check your library for streaming--mine offers Kanopy, a fine, free service for high-quality films, like breeding Criterion with Netflix DVDs. The only downside, perhaps, is a monthly limit on films.
4
@Eric A. Blair
Thanks, Eric. I will ....
Netflix, and I"m sure others, are not earning that $12 billion, it's venture capital and other borrowing. As with WeWork, it's a huge gamble that hopes to become profitable at some point, but if it doesn't that cash firehose will stop. My opinion of Netflix is 90% junk; if you want quality you still go with a proven media curator like HBO, Disney etc. This is a rapidly evolving system and as others have said, it can't be priced a la carte - consumers won't do it. So streaming faces two hurdles: quality and packaging/pricing. Let's see what happens I wouldn't move my Netflix department into a WeWork building just yet.
3
@David Law
Netflix 12 month net income in 2017 was $558M
In 2018 it was $1.2B
In 2019, 9 months has earned them $1.3B.
In 2019 so far they have 158,334,000 paid memberships with a total 14,460,248,000 in revenue from them that membership.
Its not venture cap and borrowing that's generating those revenues. Though the 12B in debt they carry is a bit heavy.
And I do agree that 90% of Netflix programming is junk. So is 90% of my Spectrum cable.
10
Curate, proved media provider. How millennial. How wrong. Films are put together by agents and producers. Distributors buy story and talent. Money is money. Creative freedom is attractive to talent. Last I checked product goes to those who are easy to work with and can pay. To limit Netflix as amateur hour in relationship to HBO is asinine. Eighty percent of a film catalog or more is filler. There are a few must haves. Everything else is filler.
I have crunched the numbers and I really don't see how anyone prefers streaming to a "one stop" service like cable. I pay $94/mo for a high speed internet and cable package. The internet alone is $60 - and if I subscribe to a couple of streaming services, it adds up to $40 or more for premiere channels like HBO. And don't you lose access to live tv? Like the news channels and sports networks? This might be the future -- but it seems to me that streaming services have a long way to go before I would consider switching.
7
@Julie
You are paying a reduced rate then under some kind of 'bundle' arrangement. After the first year your prices will rise, substantially most likely. You will pay closer to $70.00 for the internet, and likely that much or more to keep the cable package you have right now. Local channels are available with an antenna, why pay for local channels? I stream Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney. I pay just a tad more than $30.00 month and stream what I want, when I want it and watch my local channels in uncompressed High Definition through my antenna.
14
The seismic shift in my house has been getting rid of everything except internet. I am saving a small fortune. And to be honest, most movies are so bad or repetitive , that I have not even seen a movie in at least ten years. I read and actually, (gasp!), live my life and do actual things instead of watching others do things.
30
@Chris from PA
Hope you dropped that annoying book-reading habit as well.
1
I come off as an elitist every time I make this comment, but maybe somebody else will pull the plug too...
I have not owned a TV since the late 1980's. Try it. It's not for everybody, but for me it was the right choice. I'll add much of the information in this article to the reasons I will continue to not have a TV in my home.
20
@john Most Millennials and Gen Zs don't own a "TV" either. They watch films on their computers and laptops.
2
@john
If you are reading this and writing a comment then you have a computer and guess what - you have a 'TV' - I am assuming you don't really 'get' streaming.
5
@Sándor I'm a boomer. :)
1
I only go to see films at independent theaters, like Cinestudio on the Trinity campus in Hartford. The theater is a throwback, with balconies, pipe and drape curtains that ripple back as the film begins, thinly padded chairs you can barely fit into, and Art Deco lines. It’s dark even when the lights go up. For ninety minutes, it’s a delightfully intimate experience. I’m in my own dream-like world, divorced from society’s cacophony, but still connected to those around me. I watched the Bergman canon over a week last summer, immersing myself in his technique and the movies’ hidden meanings. There were no cell phones or talking, just a blissful opportunity to engage intellectually and emotionally with a film. I’m pleased that Netflix and other streaming services are investing in intelligent filmmaking, but I fear that the rise of the small screen contributes to the atomization of our culture, denying a shared, collective experience that produces a subtle, yet real, bonding among moviegoers. In a lonely world, we need theaters like Cinestudio.
49
Unfortunately these movies are not coming to everyone. Thus Criterion channel is a godsend.
6
We very recently dropped all our cable TV and switched to streaming services. Very shortly, we will convert our telephone landline to cellular. When all is said and done, we will be denying the greedy, inept cable company about $200 a month in revenue and will be saving ourselves about $110 a month off our previous exorbitant TV/phone/Internet bill.
Our new TV services are far superior to the outdated cable offerings with their shoddy graphics, and we now have access to a huge programming library, either on-demand or through unlimited cloud recording. All our outdated cable boxes are gone, the number of remotes is reduced to two (TV and sound bar) and we bought our own modem to save a $10 monthly rental fee. We can’t tell you how satisfying it felt to dump off the old equipment to the sour customer service rep at our area cable office.
We will never go back. Switching to the streaming services has been far less complicated and far more rewarding than we ever imagined.
23
@LIChef -- "We can’t tell you how satisfying it felt to dump off the old equipment to the sour customer service rep at our area cable office."
So true! It seems like many (not all!) of Comcast's CSR were hired for their surly attitude alone; nothing like spending half an hour in line so's you can then argue over overcharges with someone who seems to prefer it if you'd just keel over, asap...
"Next."
1
I saw Terminator: Dark Fate at the Regal in Battery Park. The sound was stupendous. I can't replicate that at home. I see movies after 10PM, so that i don't have to deal with people talking or texting.
6
@Anti-Marx
Cinema viewing is not going away, but most movies don't need the big screen and big sound. I go the movies about 10-12 times a year (mostly summer and winter) but I watch everything else at home through my internet connection (haven't had cable for most of the last 20 years).
@AN
I have a big TV. So, my choice is between a big screen (home) or a huge screen and surround sound (cinema). I live in an apartment, If I buy a house, I'll build a viewing room with surround sound. For me, stuff like The Walking Dead, True Detective, and Watchmen doesn't require a huge screen. I streamed Alien> Covenant on my TV, but I should have seen it in the theater. I saw Blade Runner 2049 in the theater. I streamed The Nice Guys on my TV.
@Anti-Marx Oh, Watchmen on a huge screen with surround sound is amazing! I miss living in the city, but this is one advantage to living in the 'burbs...
1
I hope part of the “seismic change” will include more streaming of movies from 1920 — 1960. They can’t be that expensive, surely, and I do miss the old b&w films that used to be broadcast on regular TV when I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s.
I’m still in shock from Comcast removing TCM from our bundle...mixing it up with sports which my husband and I never watch.
It’s weird, too, that there aren’t more cheap streaming services of older films and classic TV from the 50’s. I would think that residuals are not prohibitive now.
I’ve heard about but never seen “Our Miss Brooks” ... it’d be kind of fun to view shows like that, somewhere.
33
@Meg
"They can’t be that expensive"
That's true but the market for older movies is very small. Most teenagers and young adults won't watch anything in black and white regardless of how famous or highly regarded the movie is. There is so much content available on demand that they have no interest in watching older stuff (even the 70s).
3
@AN
I find it's less the B&W (The Artist did well) and more the music. I tried rewatching The Fugitive. I loved it, when it came out. But the music/orchestration feels dated now (and the movie isn't even THAT old).
@Meg -- I had hazy but very positive memories of watching "Our Miss Brooks" when I was about 5 years old and Eisenhower was president. Then I recently watched a handful of episodes on a DVD and was very disappointed. I've had similar disappointments with other TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s. The quality of TV content back then was extremely low -- and all comedies had laugh tracks, which annoyed me even as a child. But I still very much enjoy movies from the 1920s through the 1990s, though it's getting harder to find them in any format.
2
I physically went to the movies this weekend. It was kind of great to sit in the dark and laugh with dozens of other people when Christian Bale had a great line. It was nice to go somewhere that wasn't my office or the grocery store. We ran into a couple of friends and chatted on the sidewalk in front of the theater for a bit before heading home. I will be sad when the option to go to the movies is gone.
21
You left out VHS for home entertainment and the DVD for retail ownership of movies. The latter ended up far more profitable than theatrical. But yeah now we should see that decline and cord cutting accelerate and theatrical being really just 10 teenage fantasy tentpoles a year seems a bit precarious.
3
They’ve also gone away from selling seasons as DVD box sets. I would love to own The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag on DVD, but instead we have to pay each month just to rewatch the same shows.
14
@MH
My iMac (2015) doesn't even have a DVD slot.
3
In my mind the way forward is to prohibit (or severely limit exclusivity clauses for shows/movies. The fact that some movie/series are only available on service X and are not allowed to be bought by service Y only stymies competition, forcing people to subscribe to all the services.
3
@Sergey
Or:
1st QTR you subscribe to Netflix
2nd QTR subscribe to Hulu
3rd QTR subscribe to AppleTV
4th QTR subscribe to Disney Plus
Repeat as desired
2
@Sergey This is not even a first world problem. Who really cares? Who anymore is so possessive about a show?
1
Yes, you have the idea.
The two real "seismic shifts" here are going to be in revenue for both (a) the networks and (b) the advertising agencies. The networks' current revenue streams are massively tied to payment remitted from advertisers’ media buys. With consumers willing to pay more for access to content that won't be interrupted by advertisements, how will the network streaming services survive without (or with much less of) their main source(s) of income?
Currently, costs to run an ad anywhere other than network TV are minuscule in comparison to their old-school counterpart. Smaller advertisers are already shying away from traditional media buys, but the top companies still spend the money to have their product on broadcast. The death of broadcast is imminent and inevitable.
While the ad industry is trying to keep up with the rapid shift into a more digital landscape, how are they going to manage the eradication of their favorite cash cow when the new platforms won’t be giving them a space to remain profitable?
4
@MH Unfortunately, the answer will probably involve product placement gone wild.
2
"Peacock, an NBCUniversal streaming service also scheduled for a spring debut, will offer 15,000 hours of content: complete seasons of “The Office” and “Frasier..."
All I know is, if they also have every episode of The Rockford Files, I can absolutely promise that I will be a subscriber. As a matter of fact, I can't wait.
6
I own no subscriptions to online media, except to newspapers.
I'd pay for a service that bundled a breaking news channel, weather, international affairs, a lively but well-moderated debate channel, and one dedicated to dealing with current events in depth.
Then there are those of us who will most definitely follow independent YouTubers and video bloggers to whatever online delivery format they end up on when YouTube's mistaken pretensions at being a media company instead of a hosting service finally kill it. This vibrant indie market is usually completely left out of most discussions of the future of online media, unfortunately, as is the case here.
7
You can have all of these without paying anything.
We cut the cable years ago, can't get broadcast TV reception, but my library card can get me all of these programs since I'm willing to wait. Those the library doesn't have, I can get on an interlibrary loan.
19
I only watch Discovery ID, The Property Brothers and Love it or List it : Vancouver on cable. But I watch them a lot. If I could watch them on Netflix and/or Disney+ I would cut the cord too.
(Meaning: cable is harder to leave than you'd think)
2
I do like streaming services (I have Amazon, Netflix and DC Universe) but I’m clinging to broadcast/cable for news, politics and sports. Streaming is great for entertainment, but is useless when major national or local events occur (impeachment hearings, presidential addresses, even tragic news like school shootings).
Reputable online sources for breaking news (like the NY Times) are not free. And Netflix and other streamers are not required like the networks to provide local/civic/voting info to subscribers. When broadcast and cable are gone, will their local/national news platforms be extinct as well?
41
@Roy Yes. As it is, Hulu TV,my main service, can't figure out how to work any of the PBS stations I could get through old cable. It also has a terrible time holding onto the display of anything coming from a broadcast channel, so last week's impeachment hearings were constantly broken up as the signal was lost.
@steelmen, if you donate to PBS and/or one of the local PBS stations, you are already eligible to get their programming free through their apps. If your smart TV won’t load those apps, a cheap device added to your TV, such as an Amazon Fire Stick, will. Worst case, you can donate $5 a month to Locast and get its full array of live local stations up to and including Thirteen.
9
@Steelmen
Get an antenna and you can pick up the networks and your local PBS station.
3
With all the different streaming services, customers are going to start subscribing only long enough to watch the show they want to see, then unsubscribing till another show they like comes out. To counter that, companies like Charter and AT&T are going to sell you streaming bundles, where you get access to several services for one discounted price. And now we've got cable again.
Remember how cable used to be commercial-free? Probably not, but it was. That was the deal: you pay a monthly fee so you don't have to see commercials. As streaming matures, it'll happen there, too. There are already shows on Hulu that have commercials regardless of your plan, and there's no incentive *not* to monetize everything. So enjoy commercial-free access while you can.
They'll also break their services into hierarchies (or just split it up randomly, like HBO, HBO Go, HBO Max, etc.) and they'll put certain properties in their own bundles.
I wouldn't be surprised if cable companies try to set up an all-in-one-place streaming service where you can watch Hulu, Amazon, etc. all on one screen. At that point, it's pretty much just cable online. And with smart TVs and all that, it's essentially going to be just cable again.
67
@Andrew I think you’re absolutely right. I think we’ll have a little more choice than we used to in terms of picking only the content we want, but they will try to monetize everything unless consumers push back.
Seems like a seismic shift for cable and satellite tv operators not so much Hollywood. It's goldmine for Hollywood to create and recycle content until these streaming services consolidate and or shut down. It already feels like the market's saturated to me.
6
Another installment of the "Attention Wars," brought to you by, Amazon, Netflix, NBC, Disney, Youtube, Hulu, CBS... yes, the list continues to grow.
Must crawl into hole with decent novel... Oh wait! I can't read anything unless it's in tweet form! Three Cheers for my Dwindling Attention Span!!!
52
@Jack
Dwindling attention span is right. I've noticed in myself and it's spooky.
24
@Jack It's curable, just do a digital fast day every week.
5
@Stretchy Cat Person
Didn't finish reading Jack's post since it had 2 paragraphs. Now I've been distracted from yours to write this...
7
"...that’s an issue worth striking over," says the creator of "Power"
Then don't write for a Netflix show.
Streaming companies, like Netflix, are winning over creators by paying big fees upfront and granting more creative control. Shonda Rhimes left ABC after 15 years for big guaranteed dollars, as have others. They are winning over investors by saying - the costs are high now, but our margins will improve as we add viewers.
For the creators - You can't take the money and run,
then circle back and say you want more of the back-end too.
1
These creatives need to support themselves and their families. A piece of the back end (exploiting their intellectual property) is key to long-term survival and well-being.
10
@Jscotti
I guess they can always go back to writing for network shows:
Take less money upfront and have 80% of their jobs eliminated when their shows are cancelled.
There are already way too many streaming services, with many more yet to come. It is unreasonable to expect people to subscribe to Netflix ($12), HBO ($15), Disney ($7), and Apple TV ($5), not to mention Starz, Showtime, and the upcoming Peacock. Enough! American consumers don’t have this kind of disposable cash to blow.
52
@CP , And that's IN ADDITION TO $60 for the cost of cable.
2
@Eric
I saved $70 when I cut the TV and just started paying for internet. Those services would add up to only $39 and have far more of the kind of shows I want to watch. What needs to come down is that cost of internet service, which for me started at $60, but has now increased to $70.
6
One episode of the Simpsons summarizes why. Grandpa is watching cable, Bart up and steals the CTD from his old tv and replaces it with Snowball the Cat. Grandpa sits there clicking the remote, then comments '800 channels and all they have is cats'.
That's about right. Cable was about 800 channels of the stuff I would never watch. And pay per view for anything I was interested on.
I cut the cable bill about 15 years ago. I never looked back.
I've had Netflix,or RedBox or HBO or now Disney+, and the ever present YouTube since then as my source for entertainment.
I see no reason why I should go back.
17
If only all this money could be spent on education and not pablum for the rabble. Just imagine.
120
@Tommybee
Money is being spent on education. You can't fix stupid with money.
3
@Anti-Marx -- "You can't fix stupid with money."
Perhaps. But you can surely cure a tonne of ignorance with it.
Do we want an Educated Citizenry? Or a compliant one?
3
@Willy P
Compliant/ I'm not a revolutionary. I used to be a literature professor at a top 75 university. I have a PhD in English. I taught both liberals and conservatives. My job was to foster reading comprehension (for stuff like Paradise Lost) and, perhaps, spark an interest in iambic pentameter.
When you say ignorance, I think you mean Marxist false consciousness. Assume I used to be a Marxist and then rejected his thought.
I do want an educated citizenry, but mainly for aesthetic reasons (not political ones). I love elegant speech and literary allusion. I'm a big fan of Wallace Stevens' poetry and Nabokov's prose. I'd love for the citizenry to read, love, and allude to their work, but their work has almost no political value.
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Much ado about nothing. Let the CEOs and creative arts unions duke it out and the PAs and the location scouts and caterers multiply and prosper. But, years back, when the half-dozen network channels exploded into 1,000 cable channels, all anyone ever said was, "But I only watch a handful." Which was another way of saying I ignore the rest. Now, we're told, streaming is the answer to the bundle. Which only means, there will be an explosion of WhatnotNOW! and WhoWhereGO! and, once again, the viewers will only collect a handful of streamers and ignore the rest which probably means we'll return to the days when there were only a half-dozen network channels run by roughly the same kind of people as the first half-dozen. Much ado about nothing, full circle. And the hand-wringers who worry about the populace being entertained into intellectual oblivion. Not to worry. Name any era in history when the populace was intellectually present and adroit. You can't. So, sit back, choose your soma-poison and enjoy.
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@Esposito Thank you for this: " Name any era in history when the populace was intellectually present and adroit. You can't. So, sit back, choose your soma-poison and enjoy"
People always cast a golden hue over the past but forget that the vast majority of any population was not, as you put it, intellectually present and adroit.
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This is the best comment!
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Ads/links for other articles in the middle of an article jars the flow. Business ads I get - money. But to insert yourself in the middle of yourself? Strange.
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I refuse to pay for garbage content....period.
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The technology changes, but the marketing doesn't. For some of us, this is retro!
I remember the days of having to pay for multiple cable channels to get the content we want, and asking why one service couldn't aggregate it all. Now we'll have multiple streaming channels to get the content we want, and ask why one service can't aggregate it all.
At least I don't have to drive to my local Blockbuster to bring home videotapes...
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The sooner cable TV dies, the better. It's been overpriced and underwhelming for decades, with exploitative contracts and poor customer service.
We cut the cable cord years ago, and rely on AppleTV (which includes streaming for PBS and other channels) and Netflix for entertainment, and online sites for news. Haven't missed cable at all. In fact, when we stay in a house or hotel that offers the usual cable TV line-up, we can almost never find anything we actually want to watch in the 100+ channels available. We end up streaming Netflix on a laptop instead.
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The problem is that these streaming services and ISP charges are now more than a Cable/Internet deal. Comcast lets you stream on demand to your hearts content and I think throws in Netflix.
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@Nelle Engoron You can take a Roku with you on vacation and watch what you have at home on the hotel's TV.
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Haven't paid for cable in 16 years. We get >60 channels via our little old antenna. Not all are watchable, but enough are to give us free entertainment. Do have Netflix but only occasionally watch it as the content is simplistic. When I am really bored, I'll search YouTube for something different (e.g., video of a musician I recently read about).
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Here is the solution. Binge watch what you want on Netflix for example. Cancel and sign up for HBO. Watch that for 3 months. Cancel and sign up for Hulu, then Disney. No reason to have all of them at once.
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@Bk2 Brava. Only way to go.
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Thank you. That's a great suggestion, and I'm thumping my head that I hadn't thought of it myself. Goes to the top of my "to do" list. (Now which ones am I subscribed to again? And where are my passwords?)
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none of the millennials in my office pay for cable tv, they can not afford it (their words). i do, but i question that expense every month when i pay my bill. (i also subscribe to netflix) i have not yet figured out what is the right solution for me.
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It's getting too expensive.
I miss the pre-cable days of the 1970s, early 80s - free antenna tv, 3 channels.
Love Boat, SNL, Fantasy Island, Chips, Sanford and Son, Happy Days, Good Times, The Rockford Files, Dallas, Dynasty, Mork, The Jeffersons, LaVerne and Shirly, Starsky and Hutch, MASH, 60 Minutes, What's Happening, News at 11 then Johnny Carson....
And so many more. And, again, all these were FREE.
Now look at us.
Every time I turn around it's some monthly charge of $7.99, on top of a massive cable bill.
I don't want my MTV; I want my Big Three TV with Little House on the Prairie and Colombo - free. With a Coke and a bag of Doritos. 70's style.
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@PE , Yep the Mets were on ch. 9, the Yankees were on ch. 11, and on Sunday football was chs. 2 and 4. Then MTV came along and ruined everything.
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@PE Yes there is something to having fewer channels, which enabled everyone to have a unified experience, for a lot cheaper or nothing at all. However, the majority of the shows you listed were not really good at all--and I watched them all. The quality of television has increased even if the mode of delivery and cost has not been as satisfying.
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Eric, and Ch5 played what TCM plays now.
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Seismic shift? From the consumer point of view, streaming is just a re-run of the cable-TV model: to get access to one thing you want to watch occasionally, you have to pay for continuous access to 140 things you'll never want to watch ever. And if you sign up for multiple streaming services to retain access to your must-have content, you'll be paying almost exactly the same size monthly bill as a cable package. Mysterious coincidence, huh? Could it be that the tight little oligopoly of content rights holders is engaged in price-fixing?
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@JL Williams that makes no sense. It’s actually really competitive and they all have different content that they have to pay for. You have a conspiracy without any facts to back it up.
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@JL Williams "From the consumer point of view, streaming is just a re-run of the cable-TV model: to get access to one thing you want to watch occasionally, you have to pay for continuous access to 140 things you'll never want to watch ever."
Yes JL, you are right. Increasing the viewing choices from more sources which are then offered to consumers at reasonable prices is just taking things too far. Shame on the folks who are behind it.
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People will wind up w a few of these apps like Disney, Netflix, etc and they’ll start bundling them together as well. And there is always an antenna, which works really well now. It’s only entertainment. Nobody “needs” any of it. We probably need less of it.
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There are shows I would like to watch but are exclusive to services I am unwilling to pay for.
My solution is simple. I don't watch those shows and they don't get any money.
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After having Netflix for 6 months I found most of their "top tier" programming had a good look to it but the writing was so bad I found myself wasting an hour or two watching something, hoping it would get good, trying to get some value out of my Netflix subscription. I finally gave up and cancelled it.
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How much content can one person stream? I like to watch TV as much as anyone, but the list of shows or films worth signing up for a service for (Like a Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Sopranos, Friends, Office, etc.) is very, very short. 99.99% of streaming content is quite skip-able, and you will find that if you don't bother with that show everyone's talking about, your life will go on just fine.
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The next big career move, streaming content gleaners, slogging through the vast wastelands of the streaming services. Their product will be finding the right combination of programs to fit the niche of the individual viewer. They will have names, voices and affect human traits but they will be algorithms. They will harvest all your known and projected behavioral needs and supply a soothing menu of: "Thought you might like this", "Others like you viewed that", "Want a change of pace that's not too much of a change", "Are you feeling risky tonight.". Once you have made your selection, a patterned voice wafts over you in your self driving vehicle with these assuring words, "Sit back and relax. Your program is about to start. Next stop , your own personal Valhalla."
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Once the likes of ESPN' suite of channels, FS1,TNT, TBS, and the NFL, NBA, NFL, and MLB networks are available as standalones or a bundle that will be it for cable. It already pretty much is with the likes of Sling TV, Youtube TV...but you still get about twice as much junk thrown in with it. Ads supported scripted TV is dead. But the owners will beat the dead horse until there is nothing left. At least with sports the ads are during lulls in the action. I predict that within 5-10 years the only place you will see ads will be on sports broadcasts and over the air tv. I certainly will not pay money to have my time interrupted by attempts to sell things. I am far from alone in that regard.
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@Still Waiting...
Interrupted? I just set my DVR to record a game, and sit down to view it an hour later. Allows for plenty of buffered time to skip interruptions.
Unless you use the TV as a surrogate babysitter for your kids, I don't know anyone who sits around watching thousands and thousands of hours of old TV movies and shows. People have lives to live and things to do that don't generally involve sitting in front of a TV or phone screen.
Instead of this almost breathless gushing report over the wonder of a modern technology (keeping in mind that streaming is really just an on-demand delivery mechanism), it would be more helpful and interesting if we could better understand how people watch streaming media, how much do they watch, where do they watch it, what do they watch, how many services are they signed up for, etc.
Many choose streaming as an alternative to ever more expensive cable service. Do they feel they are saving $$ with streaming?
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Funny, the cord cutters who complained about cable, who complained about paying for content they don't want, will once again be doing that. In the past, you could watch content once past its first viewings on services like Hulu or Amazon. If you wanted to watch Star Wars or Iron Man, you could see it on Amazon or on demand services. Old tv shows were on a variety of sources as well. Cutters envisioned not paying for cable tv and only paying for what they wanted to watch, likely on demand. And they forgot there is no free lunch, they never bothered to understand how cable worked.
For one thing, most people stream these days through cable provided internet (or fios, which is the same thing). Unless they have free wifi, streaming through 4g is expensive and relatively slow compared to cable (5g is another story). That price is expensive, but it is subsidized by the cable tv portion of the business. If cable revenue goes away, then they will jack up the price of internet access and they will pay more there..
Then, of course, the streaming services are building huge catalogs of content that likely is going to be exclusive..so they will need to have a dozen or more services to find the content that they like, and like cable, they will be paying for a ton of content they don't use....
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@music observer The real problem are internet access (broadband at least) monopolies. At my address I can only get Comcast internet. Nothing else. Consequently, my internet only package is eye wateringly expensive. Americans get ripped off for their internet in a major way due to these quasi monopolies - I still can't get over how expensive it is compared to my prior home in Europe, where I got 3x the speed for 1/3 of the monthly price...
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@music observer
Subsidized hi-speed Wifi oughtta be a Human Right.
If the internet cannot be our new Fourth Estate, we're toast.
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Yes, a seismic shift is happening. But only after it became clear that Netflix and Amazon are here to stay, and expanding. Enter the goliath, Disney, and others followed. For a while this will be a free-for-all. But that will lead to consolidation again very quickly.
Meanwhile, there is another seismic shift that is just under the radar. Today's viewers not only don't want to go to the theater, but don't often have the patience to sit for two hours to watch a movie. Shorter content (short story, not novel) will inevitably emerge as our attention spans shrink. Currently YouTube is servicing that need, but mostly with low-quality user generated content. But creating higher quality, short-subject content will be the next revolution. That's why streaming TV is so popular. But even 30 minutes (or is it 22, plus ads) will seem long soon. Just as America invented fast food and became addicted to it, we will become addicted to short-subject content, much like we are addicted to silly apps on our so-called smartphones. Woody Allen had a take on this in Love and Death (his version of War and Peace), in which a 1 minute skit was followed by 3 minutes of commentary about it.
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@PT Avengers Endgame was way over two hours and multitudes saw it and many saw it multiple times. I don't think run time is the issue, I think prices are.
@PT Speak for yourself, please.
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I won’t participate in having to go from service to service to service for finding content I want. Cable is expensive but at least most all of what I want is there.
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I don’t know how sustainable this whole model is. When the market is oversaturated things inevitably decline. It does seem strange they think the average consumer is going to want to pay for more than, say two, streaming services. I’m not sure what the answer is, other than (eventually) some of these giants teaming up.
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@Jlaw I have numerous streaming services and no cable. I only pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and CBS All access - a total of around $35 a month versus the $81 DirecTV/AT&T wanted. I got on Apple, which is just $4.99 a month, and backed off the same night. Not much there. I had an antenna and unplugged it because most of the network shows I watch (very few are worth it) are on Hulu the next day with the commercials removed or I can get on CBS All Access. I get Pluto, Tubi, Roku and numerous other streaming channels absolutely free because they run limited commercials with almost no pharm ads - which are the most annoying. . I will NEVER go back to cable. It is too boring, commercial and annoying.
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@M.K. Ward
That may work for you today, but won't in the future. One of the things that is happening is that content is now going to be exclusive to the streaming service. Disney, for example, has already said that any licenses to stream their products will expire with the end of the contract, so if you watch Star Wars or Iron man on Amazon for example, you will only be able to watch it on disney. Likewise, the tv networks have their own streaming services in place or soon to be, and likely you will only be able to watch their shows on their streaming service after it has been shown on tv. Netflix, hulu, Roku, Tubi et al depend on having a deal with the content provider to show it, that likely will be going away. It is why Amazon and Netflix are spending so much on their own content, they realize the days of being able to have other content on there is gone.
The only possible upside I see if if Amazon makes deals with Disney and CBS all Access and the like to allow Amazon users to get the services as some sort of package (yes, very much like cable used to be), at a discounted price, so instead of 12 channels at 10 bucks a month, you are paying 5 a month. The providers get access to all those Amazon subscribers to build their base, and Amazon keeps their users...but not sure this would work.
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@music observer If I want to watch a movie that is not on a service I'm already getting, I request in online from the library and they email me when it is available. I've rented maybe two on Amazon in almost a year.
I don't want Disney, don't much watch fantasy, Marvel, etc. movies. I'm very happy with some shows that were made for streaming services, particularly The Crown, Bloodline, Jack Ryan, and movies like The Highwaymen, which was made in Louisiana and was very entertaining. I'm not planning ahead with what I'm going to be doing even next year - I'm only interested in what it available to me now. You aren't locked into a contract with streaming. I have to have a computer and WiFi anyway, because I am a freelance writer. The money I saved dropping cable more than pays for my health club fees.
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