There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broadcast or Cable

Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by pgrote on Sunday December 16, 2018 @12:16PM (#18693949)

It is funny how the thing that is breaking the cable stronghold is the same thing that will bring it back. By 2020 there will be at least 15 competing streaming services backed by large entertainment companies.

How many subscriptions will people end up paying for then? Someone will then have the idea to consolidate it into one or two packages. Rinse, repeat.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by booleandilemma on Sunday December 16, 2018 @12:37PM (#18694058)

This time it’s without commercials, at least.

I recently watched plain old tv again (after not watching any for several years) and I can’t believe we used to put up with those! It was like I suddenly turned off my adblocker.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by conanbatt on Sunday December 16, 2018 @12:46PM (#18694117)

Its truly incredible. I also had to stop using ad-block due to some work-related regulations, and I should demand compensation from the state on that.

What is most noticeable to me is how wasteful advertising is. I've seen some of the same ad 1000 times, and im just not going to buy that damn car. I cant drive!

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by xur17 on Sunday December 16, 2018 @01:04PM (#18694197)

> I also had to stop using ad-block due to some work-related regulations, and I should demand compensation from the state on that.

I'd love to hear more about this if you don't mind.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by conanbatt on Sunday December 16, 2018 @03:39PM (#18695088)

I work in healthcare: any plugin with access to your rendered pages is a massive liability.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by pjc50 on Sunday December 16, 2018 @05:21PM (#18695616)

Interesting that having ads profile the browser - and in many cases the ads or metrics have access to the page - isn't. I wonder if you could persuade them to drop a few domains at the router.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by Terretta on Monday December 17, 2018 @12:07AM (#18697009)

Get the IT guy to switch to Zscalar, Adguard, or similar ad blocking DNS:

https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html

At home, I believe the software defined mesh routers from Eero offer a subscription with Zscalar’s malware and ad blocking DNS, 1Password Family, and VPN.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by philpem on Sunday December 16, 2018 @02:44PM (#18694777)

I'd guess it's either "browser plugins are banned" or "one of the advertising companies might sue us."

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by WalterBright on Sunday December 16, 2018 @01:40PM (#18694407)

I tried to watch a half hour episode of "Strange Inheritance" last night. There was probably only about 10 minutes of show - the rest was commercials, "after the break" previews, and post-break recaps.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by Tsubasachan on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:46AM (#18697693)

And on demand. When I come home from work at night there's nothing on television but I can watch an episode on Netflix before going to bed.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by bobthepanda on Sunday December 16, 2018 @05:18PM (#18695605)

Well, depends - the lowest tier of Hulu has ads. Nothing's stopping anyone from being greedy and introducing ads anyways.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by lotsofpulp on Sunday December 16, 2018 @09:05PM (#18696456)

Now the commercials are inside the show and make the whole show unwatchable, at least for me.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by redhale on Sunday December 16, 2018 @05:33PM (#18695674)

Cable originally had no commercials as well...

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by msla on Sunday December 16, 2018 @04:28PM (#18695361)

> This time it’s without commercials, at least.

That's how cable was sold, too.

Some channels still respect that (TCM) but most others don't.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by scarface74 on Sunday December 16, 2018 @01:23PM (#18694307)

Jim Barksdale:

“in business, there are two ways to make money. You can bundle, or you can unbundle.”

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by kqr2 on Sunday December 16, 2018 @01:48PM (#18694445)

https://hbr.org/2014/06/how-to-succeed-in-business-by-bundli...

Barksdale was the veteran of IBM, FedEx and AT&T Wireless (he mostly worked at it when it was called McCaw Cellular) who was brought on a few months after Netscape’s founding to provide adult supervision as its CEO.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by lrrrrrrrrrrrr on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:26PM (#18701866)

Yep, this works in software. Bundle disparate technologies into a solution.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by wmf on Sunday December 16, 2018 @02:33PM (#18694711)

That idea is easy to come up with but impossible to implement. Netflix, Amazon, and probably Apple have no incentive to be bundled.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by slothtrop on Sunday December 16, 2018 @02:55PM (#18694842)

I'm surprised that consumers on the whole are quick to suggest they'd rather pay for one streaming service only, by which they mean one consolidated service rather than one over a competitor. I'd rather see it as competitive as possible. It's OK NOT TO SEE EVERYTHING.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by SpaceManiac on Sunday December 16, 2018 @03:09PM (#18694915)

I imagine most people don't want to see everything, but want to see ten things which are split across five different streaming services (with five different bills, five different user interfaces, and five different sets of quirks) by nothing but licensing. Television is not necessarily fungible.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by TeMPOraL on Sunday December 16, 2018 @05:20PM (#18695612)

Indeed. Television is definitely not fungible, and TV shows are not substitute goods. What you want to watch is a combination of your interests and the cultural context in which you want to participate.

If the top 3 shows talked about by my co-workers are each exclusively on a different paid service, you can be sure I'm gonna dig out my trusty Torrent client.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by slothtrop on Monday December 17, 2018 @10:34AM (#18699543)

Quite right. Wouldn't it be possible to cut out the middle-man, have a Steam-like storefront producers could unload to? Games are now billion dollar affairs and they don't need to rely on the likes of Viacom or the like.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by SpaceManiac on Monday December 17, 2018 @06:26PM (#18703244)

This is basically what Netflix used to be before the existing distributors realized they wanted in on the new action. The same pattern is playing out in games as well, though slower. Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, and most recently Epic are all trying to cut in on Steam's dominance and using exclusives as leverage to do it.

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Re:There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broa... by BurningFrog on Sunday December 16, 2018 @04:31PM (#18695380)

Services will be launched, but it very much remains to be seen if consumers actually will pay for them. I don't plan going beyond my current 3-4.

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