We do hulu, amazon where we also pay for pbs kids, and out internet provider offers a basic streaming cable package for like $20 per month that give us our local channels plus TBS and Discovery. We’re under a $100 per month for the whole package.
I subscribe to one or two at a time and rotate through them. I currently do Amazon Prime ($10 per month) and PBS passport ($5). When I run out of things I want to watch on those, I’ll cancel them and switch to Netflix and/or CBS All Access.
I also have an antenna for free over-the-air broadcasts from CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, a couple of independent stations, and their subsidiary channels, which include MeTV and AntennaTV. Most days I only watch Jeopardy and the news over-the-air. If you miss a show, you can often stream it from the network’s website (with ads) after a delay of a day or a week.
There are also free streaming services with limited ads (way less than broadcast TV). I’m currently working through Fringe, The Rockford Files, and Columbo on IMDb TV. They also have some movies on my watchlist. Crackle, Pluto, Tubi, and Popcornflix all have a similar business model, but I haven’t checked out what they offer recently.
To be fair the “nickle and diming” was still happening with the giant cable bill and a bunch of channels you (the general “you”) didn’t care about, you just couldn’t see it as easily as having a bunch of different companies bill you directly. But I’ll agree that the difference accounts, UI, sign-ins, etc. are more of a hassle (although I think the UIs have matured somewhat and most of the them are so much better than the old cable box UIs I remember).
I do wonder about the sustainability of having dozens and dozens of separate streaming services. Right now things work great for us: we subscribe to the “big ones” (e.g. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu) and HBO for a few of their interesting shows. Our internet is currently $65 per month (incl. taxes and fees!) for a gigabit fiber service. I’d pay that much for internet even if I didn’t use streaming, so I don’t really count it as a “cable” expense.
One of the side effects of a more fractured landscape is that the pressure I feel to make sure I’m not missing out on shows has greatly diminished. Even with just 3-4 subscriptions there’s no chance I’m going to watch even a fraction of what is popular. And there are so many shows that are so niche I’m actually discovering a lot of shows that seem specifically designed for me to love (e.g. Patriot on Amazon, Chernobyl on HBO). So it’s easy to stick to a few subscriptions, watch a couple of shows that I love, and just forget that CBS, Disney, etc. even exist. Maybe I miss something great. Who cares, probably didn’t have time for it anyway.
The one downside I can think of is if the contracts between content providers and streaming services become more adversarial and restrictive. Right now it seems that Netflix and Amazon can more than cover my television entertainment needs. If they’re cut off from a lot more content because it’s only available on CBSDarkComediesSetInLosAngeles.net (only $5 per month!), etc. then I can see that getting annoying. There does seem to be some of that happening. But I think there’s a limit to just how much they can get away with that with the “nickle and diming” so much more out in the open.
And I think I’ll take the disadvantages of a fractured landscape over the disadvantages of a more centralized closer-to-a-monopoly structure any time. I think we’re seeing a lot more interesting, experimental shows as a result.
There are also the apps which can be downloaded via the Amazon Fire Stick (and probably with other setups, idk). Each app corresponds to a separate channel - TLC, Discovery, et cetera, and each has a limited set of free shows you can watch. New shows are added occasionally.
We have Youtube TV and get the channels you mentioned plus our local stations (except PBS, we get that through a separate app on our Roku).
I’m still waiting for everything to be pay-per-view. I mean absolutely everything–any TV show, movie, live TV, sporting event, etc., would be available for a set price any time you want it.
The price could range from around $50-100 per view for some huge, live boxing match, down to about $0.02 per episode for re-runs of WHMB-40 (Indianapolis) 3rd rate preacher show from the 1980’s.
The streaming companies and cable don’t want this though… because it would mean they could no longer package metric tonnes of garbage with one or two hit shows. But I think the Invisible Hand would take care of that. The profits would be assured as long as the Hand set the price at the perfect place.
I used to think this pricing was inevitable. Now I’m not so sure.
Wow, now I feel extra-smart for just getting all of my “TV” by buying DVDs and blu-rays. I always thought I was blowing money on the indulgence of permanently owning the shows, but now it seems I’m saving money too!
That’s the business model I dreamed of; you the consumer access a front-end service where you tell it what you want to watch, it figures out who owns the streaming rights and tells you what it would cost to watch that movie/TV episode or whatever. You don’t need to know and don’t really care whether the program is at Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or whatever.
As I mentioned above, YouTube TV says they’ll have PBS by sometime in November.
The search function on roku mostly does this. It’ll list what apps carry the movie or TV show and how much they charge.
Yeah, me neither. It takes less than a minute for me to add or cancel a streaming service via my Roku account.
And when you cancel one, you get to keep watching it until the current month is up, so you can literally do it in one step if you want to just watch one show for a month!
I don’t own one, but I’ve read that AppleTV does a better job of unifying interfaces of different apps compared to other streaming platforms. The UIs will look more similar, the way FF/REW works will be more similar, etc. And I think AppleTV itself may have a list of the shows you’re watching and you can get to them straight from the AppleTV list instead of having to go into each app. If you want that more cable-like unified interface, that might be your best option.
Apple has tried to do that with the TV app, but then neutered it. It used to be unifying your apps, but then they put in a ton of ads for shows for services you don’t have. TVOS13 got even worse with that.
Oh and Netflix never agreed to participate in the TV app, so that was a big miss from the get go.
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I did not know you can do this. I just bought a Roku, actually. So Roku is providing that streaming service your payment information and handling login for you? That would go a long way towards making this painless. Just subscribe for 1 month whenever a service has something I want.
Does HBO go allow you to watch old shows, or just the current lineup? $15 isn’t too bad, I thought it would be more than that. Might be worth it for a couple of months.
We have netflix and Prime (I’d have prime for the shipping, anyway.) I tried to watch something at my mom’s house on Hulu the other day and it wouldn’t allow us to skip commercials, which I found absolutely maddening. She pays for the super-premium Hulu, too. Some of the shows skip commercials, some don’t. I cannot abide advertisements; I’d rather read a book.
The hell were you watching on Hulu with ads? Do you mean, like, in between shows the way HBO does, or like, commercial breaks mid-show?
I’ve never had to sit through mid-show commercials on Hulu. Maybe I’m not watching the cool stuff.
Hulu has a tier that has ads. They are awful and are mid program and also come up whenever you want to seek looking for a specific joke in South Park, etc.
A few more bucks a month makes it ad free- but the “free” Hulu included with Spotify has ads.
You cannot upgrade but must pay for a full separate subscription to Spotify if you want the ads gone.
It’s not totally clear but I believe that existing HBO series (Rome, True Blood, Game of Thrones, etc) will be available to watch, along with stuff from the CW, TNT and TBS. As for the fifteen dollar per month charge, I read someplace that they had to price it that high to avoid pissing off the cable companies that charge people that much for an HBO subscription. (Because if they priced it at less than fifteen bucks, some people would cancel their HBO subscriptions in favor of an HBO Max subscription.)
There are currently two HBO streaming services, soon to be three. HBO Go is the online streaming service you get from HBO for free if you already subscribe to HBO via satellite or cable. It includes (I’m pretty sure) most of their original series, documentaries, etc. and movies that rotate in and out. HBO Now is (again, I’m pretty sure) the exact same thing as HBO Go except you don’t need a cable or satellite subscription, so you pay the $15/month. HBO Max is WarnerMedias all-encompassing streaming service that will arrive in Spring 2020 and include all the HBO stuff plus WarnerMedia catalog stuff like Friends and The Big Bang Theory and original content. Seeing as how HBO Now alone is $15/month, it’s hard to see how HBO Max won’t be more expensive. Yet if it is, that will make it look much less attractive than, say, Disney+ at $7/month.
May you stream in interesting times.
Personally I have Netflix and that’s it. I did subscribe to HBO Now during the last season of Game of Thrones, but with the free week I saw the entire series and only paid for one month (I also watched the first season of Westworld)
I watch most of my TV OTA which does have ads but is free.
I use my internet for a lot more than streaming, so I’m not sure I would allocate all of that cost to that.
Brian