(This article is from the UK, but applies here as well)
Streaming TV is about to get very expensive – here's why
With Disney, Apple and others about to launch their own services, a lot of your favourite shows are likely to vanish behind paywalls. The golden age of streaming is over
Stuart Heritage
The most watched show on US Netflix, by a huge margin, is the US version of The Office. Even though the platform pumps out an absurd amount of original programming – 1,500 hours last year – it turns out that everyone just wants to watch a decade-old sitcom. One report last year said that The Office accounts for 7% all US Netflix viewing.
So, naturally, NBC wants it back. This week, it was announced that Netflix had failed to secure the rights to The Office beyond January 2021. The good news is that it will still be available to watch elsewhere. The bad news is that “elsewhere”, means “the new NBCUniversal streaming platform”.
Is the end of Netflix's golden age in sight?
As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy. The industry-disrupting success of Netflix means that everybody wants a slice of the pie. Right now, things are just about manageable – if you have a TV licence, a Netflix subscription, an Amazon subscription and a Now TV subscription, you are pretty much covered – but things are about to take a turn for the worse.
In November, Disney will launch Disney+, a streaming platform that will not only block off an enormous amount of existing content (Disney films, ABC shows, Marvel and Pixar films, Lucasfilm, The Simpsons and everything else made by 20th Century Fox), but will also offer a range of new scripted Marvel shows that will directly inform the narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Essentially, if you want to understand anything that happens in any Marvel film from this point onwards, you’ll need to splash out on a Disney+ subscription.
Apple will also be entering the streaming market at about the same time, promising new work from Sofia Coppola, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Brie Larson, Damien Chazelle and Steven Spielberg. In the next three years, Apple will spend $4.2bn on original programming, and you won’t get to see any of it if you don’t pay a monthly premium.
There are so many others. NBCUniversal is pulling its shows from Netflix for its own platform. Before long, Friends is likely to disappear behind a new WarnerMedia streaming service – along with Lord of the Rings films, the Harry Potter films, anything based on a DC comic and everything on HBO – that it is believed will cost about £15 a month. In the UK, the BBC and ITV will amalgamate their archives behind a service called BritBox. The former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg is about to launch a platform called Quibi, releasing “snackable” content from Steven Spielberg and others that is designed to be watched on your phone. YouTube is producing more and more original subscription-only content. Facebook is making shows, for crying out loud.
And this sucks. Watching television is about to get very, very expensive. There will be a point where viewers are going to hit their tolerance for monthly subscriptions – I may be able to manage one more service, but only if I unsubscribe from an existing platform – meaning that TV will become more elitist, tiered and fragmented than it already is. There’s a huge difference between not being able to watch everything because there’s too much choice and not being able to watch everything because you don’t have enough money.
Most importantly, we should all remember that this content war is hinged upon a fundamental misunderstanding of viewing habits. Netflix didn’t become a monster because people wanted to watch a specific show; it became a monster because people wanted to watch everything. When its streaming platform launched, people were spending more than £15 just to watch a single season of a show on DVD. So to be able to watch every season of a show – and every season of hundreds of others of shows – for a fiver a month was revolutionary. The whole point of Netflix was that it was a relatively affordable bucket that contained an awful lot of television. That’s why people liked it. That’s why so many people subscribed and continue to subscribe. To pretend otherwise is to miss the point.
That will be a memory soon. The Netflix model was great for viewers, but it couldn’t last. The content creators got greedy and scared, and now they’re determined to drag things back to the bad old ways. They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split, and the providers will have to recoup the money they are spending to take on Netflix – such as the $500m that NBCUniversal spent to get The Office back, the $250m Amazon is spending on a Lord of the Rings series and the $500m that Warner just spent to win the services of JJ Abrams – which means that subscriptions will rise. Make no mistake: we’re the ones likely to get stiffed here.
The golden age of television may be going strong, but the golden age of streaming is dead.
Save yourself a lot of money buy yourself a 60 dollar Micro Tick (tiny computer) mount to back of TV, and buy USB/WiFi/whatever remote or keyboard and use reddit to stream NFL games in up to 4K.....
They don't broadcast NFL games in 4k.
BTW what is a micro tick. Google search literally only pulls up ticks. No computers. [Reply]
Originally Posted by 007:
They don't broadcast NFL games in 4k.
BTW what is a micro tick. Google search literally only pulls up ticks. No computers.
He's full of shit as usual. Microtik makes some small raspberry Pi like boards. But they're not actual computers that could access a reddit stream by itself. And like you said, games aren't even broadcast in 4K. Currently there's very little 4K content available anywhere. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fish:
He's full of shit as usual. Microtik makes some small raspberry Pi like boards. But they're not actual computers that could access a reddit stream by itself. And like you said, games aren't even broadcast in HD. Currently there's very little 4K content available anywhere.
Cracks me up that there are people out there that think buying a 4k tv means you are watching 4k content. Some of that falls on salesmen but I still find it amazing. [Reply]
Soccer is currently being broadcast in 4K. It's the upgrading of the video that a 4K TV does that sells them.
Originally Posted by Fish:
He's full of shit as usual. Microtik makes some small raspberry Pi like boards. But they're not actual computers that could access a reddit stream by itself. And like you said, games aren't even broadcast in 4K. Currently there's very little 4K content available anywhere.
Originally Posted by Fish:
He's full of shit as usual. Microtik makes some small raspberry Pi like boards. But they're not actual computers that could access a reddit stream by itself. And like you said, games aren't even broadcast in 4K. Currently there's very little 4K content available anywhere.
Miss spoke you faggot.
I meant to put MicroPC and for what ever reason I put microtick, (again instead of microtik) [Reply]
DTV has been 60 bucks a year the past year but that’s ending. After 20 years and way to much money we are dropping them. Bought a fire recast currently on sale by $100 on Amazon. It’s a really nice DVR and works great with the fire stick. We can record local channels on it. Living in NE I can get all the Chiefs games. I’m curious how easy it is to watch other live games on reddit. I’ve never used it. At this point the only thing I’ll miss are morning sports shows on NFLN like Good Morning Football as well as ones on Fox and ESPN. So far I’m not seeing a good way to watch them and would appreciate ideas if anyone knows how. I was mainly watching Netflix when not watching sports stuff anyway. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BleedingRed:
Miss spoke you pillowbitergot.
I meant to put MicroPC and for what ever reason I put microtick, (again instead of microtik)
You're a pathetic liar. You found a $60 Microtik router board, and didn't actually know what it was. You were wrong about the name. You were wrong about the price(You'll never find a $60 MicroPC, but conveniently you can find a $60 Microtik router board.) You were wrong about reddit NFL streams being in 4K. Just stop. [Reply]
Originally Posted by patteeu:
One of the points of the article is that the amount of desireable content on any one service is going to decline.
I bought a used $50 Roku 3 that does all my streaming. I've been without DTV (though still paying for it :-) ) since the tornado here. What's also convenient is that it searches multiple apps for a movie at the same time. I can check Amazon, Netflix, vudu, etc. at the same time for a movie or show without launching each one by one. [Reply]
Originally Posted by InChiefsHell:
This shit was bound to happen.
Originally Posted by loochy:
#pirateTime
Originally Posted by Detoxing:
People just won't pay for the shit, it's that simple. A-la-carte streaming services were partly popular because people were tired f being raped by cable companies.
Fact is, there's only so much money to go around. Just because Disney and NBC want to bury their content behind their own subscription doesn't mean im going to pay for it. It just means i'll stop watching their content.
And IF i just have to see it:
This trend of moving everything behind a paywall will be a relatively short lived effort. You'd think these companies would have learned from the huge amounts of people cutting cable over the last 10+ years that we just don't want to pay the huge fees for little return. They'll get a bit of traction as their services roll out, and then people will cancel en masse and only subscribe when a new show they want to see is out.
Or pirate it all again and pay nothing for a service they would have paid a reasonable rate for as they have been with Netflix, etc. [Reply]
It seems a lot of these stations that used to provide a streaming service incuded with having them on a cable/satellite package are scrapping that for an extra pay streaming service such as ESPN3 switching to ESPN+. [Reply]
