entertainment

The rise of on-demand viewing divides Hollywood

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Well, the cable companies have had it coming. Horrible programing at expensive monthly costs. 95% of the programming is unwatchable. Let`s face it. When the movie of the night is Sister Act Two, how can you blame your customers for wanting something else?

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I hope that Comcast finally figures out that a la carte packages are the future as cable is still miles ahead of streaming in terms of reliability. The bundles created now by cable providers are bloated and they'd win over customers if they could choose to receive only what they want.

OnniyamaMAR. 29, 2016 - 08:28AM JST Let`s face it. When the movie of the night is Sister Act Two, how can you blame your customers for wanting something else?

Shown on four channels at the same time (one in Spanish).

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LOL

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The writing was on the wall 10 years ago...

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as more people opt-out of cable they must raise the prices to pay the contracts. The number 1 threat is Roku, AppleTV (gen 4+) and AndroidTV -many of these streamers are built into "smart" tvs now. With the apps and streaming you have the choice of what, where (mobile) and when to watch = cable doesn't offer that.

if they were smart HBO et al would just offer an app without the cable subscription. =These cable providers should cut the cord for the new generation. They won't do that so they keep losing subscribers.

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Goodbye most of the shows I could've started watching only because they would've been lead-out programs for decent shows on TV.

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At $50 per rental plus $150 for a set-top box, it remains to be seen whether the idea, led by social media impresario Sean Parker, will be of interest to anyone who isn’t a film buff, or rich.

Remains to be seen? My prediction? A year from now no one will even remember there was such a thing.

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I just can't believe you have to pay for Monday Night Football now! Cable sucks.

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badsey3MAR. 29, 2016 - 09:07PM JST if they were smart HBO et al would just offer an app without the cable subscription.

No. If they were smart, cable companies would allow subscribers to choose what they want to pay for. There is no advantage to wi-fi streaming and if you "offer an app," you're just substituting inferior technology to deliver an existing content stream.

TahoochiMAR. 30, 2016 - 05:24AM JST I just can't believe you have to pay for Monday Night Football now! Cable sucks.

Where do you live that you pay to watch MNF? Are you the last person in NA using an antenna?

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if you "offer an app," you're just substituting inferior technology to deliver an existing content stream.

How is it inferior technology?

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I think a major reason why Comcast here in the USA has started customer testing of the new DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit-speed cable modem Internet access is even they realize that the future of TV viewing is heavily on-demand viewing, not viewing shows on a set schedule. And it will require the type of Internet speeds the Japanese in metro areas are used to--just under one gigabit per second--in order to do a consistent quality stream of Ultra HD 4K resolution TV. As such, Comcast could end up making more money from gigabit-speed Internet access than from cable TV subscriptions probably within the next ten years.

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theaters warned of a possible “wildfire spread of pirated content.”

Hmm... Where have we heard this before?

Media companies have been warning about a "wildfire spread" of piracy since Napster in the late 90s, and somehow, it paradoxically has not come to pass, even as assorted legalities crack down with ever increasing efficiency on popular sources for pirated content.

The music industry and film industry have supposedly been on their last legs for the past 15 years, yet both seem to be turning over profit in the range of tens of billions of US$ annually, with the film industry consistently topping their previous year's global take almost every year since 2001.

This myth that keeps being perpetuated that money is regularly being taken from the pockets of publishers and studios is absurd because the fact of the matter is very few consumers who pirate digital content would have ever bought the content in the first place, even if all pirated sources magically never existed. These people aren't traditional consumers and never would have been. So the theoretical "lost income" is just that -- A theory based on an insupportable assumption that every pirating consumer is merely a regular consumer who suddenly decided to stop paying for content legitimately and go rogue with the ubiquitous availability of online content.

These people never would have paid for this content in the first place. They never would have signed up for cable service. They never would have subscribed for a SVOD service. So having never expressed a will, desire, or even ability to pay for this content, the lost income to content providers hovers near at a consistent and quite predictable zero.

I would argue that what people who acquire content illegally is increase buzz for projects that are of actual quality. This in turn translates to greater interest among traditional consumers who might not otherwise have had an interest in, say, Game of Thrones or House of Cards and compels them to seek this content out via legal channels (no pun intended).

In which case, the industry should be a little more acknowledging of so-called "pirates" for the heavy advertising lifting they do for them without compensation. Everyone knows perfectly well that word-of-mouth remains the greatest single determining factor for whether a project will sink or swim in the entertainment world. And if the industry can't bring itself to acknowledge this, then at the very least, they could shut the hell up with this empty bleating about how impoverished they supposedly are.

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StrangerlandMAR. 30, 2016 - 08:34AM JST if you "offer an app," you're just substituting inferior technology to deliver an existing content stream. How is it inferior technology?

Wi-fi is never likely to be as reliable as cable. You can't consistently send as much information as cable and it will always be susceptible to interfering/competing signals. About as close as you can come are with houses wired for wi-fi in every room.

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I'll stick with cable and my big screen TV, thank you very much. I'm not entirely happy with my cable company, let's be honest. But it's still far far better than streaming in terms of both reliability and variety. Though it is rather ironic that my cable company also provides my internet connection which lets me strea, Hulu and Netflix and such. Though, to be honest, the only service I do stream at all is YouTube, because they have such a wonderful variety of old and abscure movies of the type I like. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and the rest can't compete with YouTube for my viewing pleasure. Especially when it comes to a great number of films which, for whatever reason, are not on DVD and should be.

Cable just gives me more of what I want as far as viewing pleasure. I say, without an ounce of shame, that I am a habitual TV watcher. My TV is on 24/7 and, as a disabled person, it is my major form of entertainment. Does cable cost too much? Hell yes it does. But the various streaming services aren't any cheaper if you watch a lot of TV as I do. In the end, it comes down to what I want to pay for and what gives me the most value for my money. In my case, cable does that.

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