On the 9/24 EW Radio Morning Show, the hosts were discussing how popular the concept of paying for one month of a premium or streaming channel (e.g. Netflix, or getting HBO for a month just to watch Game of Thrones), binge watching all of the episodes of a particular show on that channel, and then canceling the channel was. I notice a number of people have mentioned the same thing concerning CBS All Access and Star Trek Discovery.
Just how widespread is binge-and-bail, and has anybody noticed any serious attempts by the channels to stop it?
I would assume that Comcast (for example) would rather get your $15 for a month of HBO than to have you give it to Netflix or find the program through less reputable internet methods. So I can’t imagine they’d work all that hard to stop you. And, of course, there’s always the chance that you’ll decide you can’t live without HBO in your life and stay subscribed or forget to unsub, etc.
I know that it is/was common enough to subscribe to HBO for a couple months while a show was in season. While a shorter duration, this seems like more of the same.
Well, all they would have to do is make their contracts require some period greater than 1 month? But they haven’t done that, so I’m guessing they have worked this all out from a risk/reward marketing perspective. Perhaps they’re relying on the percentage of people who signup intending to bail, but never get around to it. It’s like the old book club/Columbia records model - people are too lazy to cancel.
This would work best for Netflix shows, since they release all the episodes all at once. For a show like Game of Thrones, you’d miss the opportunity to watch each episode as everyone else is. If that’s OK with you, this plan would work.
One of my friends from grad school would sign up for cable for a few months every four years for the World Cup, and then while he had it, record a bunch of movies to watch later (this was back in the day when recording a bunch of movies was done on VHS tapes). So it’s not new to the streaming era.
I don’t know that companies would see it as a problem. They’re always wanting you to try out their service. If you pay them to try it out, they may see that as success even if you leave quickly.
Some services give you a month free, so sometimes you wouldn’t even have to pay. Even if some people binged-and-bailed, I would guess some would stay for longer even if they only planned on 1 month.
I knew people who did that for the Sopranos and HBO and who now do it for Game of Thrones. I myself plan to do it for Discovery. In those cases you can’t binge because the episodes are weekly but I will only keep it while the show is being released. Why would anyone care as long as you paid for your time? If there was a minimum time you had to keep it they would put that in the contract.
I just did this very thing for Game of Thrones. Signed up for HBO Now a couple days before season 7 started, watched every episode live for seven weeks in a row, and cancelled.
Since I got the first month free for signing up it just cost me the second month at $15.
Everyone I know has done this. I believe CBS gives you a free trial week with their streaming service. I’m going to wait until Star Trek is done, sign up for the free trial, then binge over a weekend.
I did a free month of Hulu to watch Community and cancelled after the trial. They still spam me – a couple of days ago, they offered me another free month. I guess they specifically might be less mad because I still have to watch ads, but I don’t have any inside information on that.
My mom upgrades her satellite subscription to premium every year for a couple months to watch Game of Thrones and then reverts back to the “regular” channels. I upgraded my Hulu subscription this year to include Showtime so that I could watch Twin Peaks. Just cancelled it recently.
I got Starz for a month to watch American Gods, then dropped it; I’ll do it again when the next season is complete. But since they’re charging Netflix-level prices for a fraction of a percent of Netflix’s content, they never really had a chance to keep me for long, anyway.
I do actually feel a little bad about it; enough so that if they put the show I want to watch on iTunes, I’d buy it per-episode instead. But not enough to stay with a service that’s basically empty of content.
Netflix gave me a free month introduction. They had my CC# for hopefully (to them) more months charges. When I saw the selection was limited to my IPS location, I wasn’t interested in the selections they had. I immediately cancelled within two days. They said enjoy the rest of the free month of Netflix.
FWIW, it looks like American Gods and other Starz content is available on iTunes after its first run on Starz. The length of the interim seems to vary, though. I guess it depends if you’re willing to wait.
Keep in mind that the margin cost of transmitting TV to a home already wired to receive it is practically nothing. For the most part it probably already is being transmitted there, they just have to tell your receiver to let you see it. Thus, they are very keen on anything that will let more people possibly become hooked on it, and definitely will not turn away people who constantly cancel and renew for short periods. They are getting some money out of those people, probably more than if they were forced to pay for a year at a time since they’d just use a different entertainment source.
Back in the day before internet TV and also before my area had cable, I did travel a lot for business. I would bring a VCR and several tapes and would record hours of cable TV from the hotel to watch at home. The amount for work I traveled ensured that I had plenty to watch and a shitload of VHS tapes (which I still have).
I’ve been getting e-mails for the last few weeks offering me a free month if I will “come back” to Hulu, which is interesting since I’ve never subscribed to Hulu, not even for a free trial. I keep thinking about it, because I’d like to see The Path, but that’s about the only thing they have that interests me and is exclusive to them. I suspect that it will eventually be issued on DVD, which means that Netflix will probably make it available at that point. The other thing I’d like to see is Man in the High Castle on Amazon, but again, I don’t want to go through the whole subscription thing for one show.