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ABC Kills Next-Day Streaming For Non-Subscribers
jfruh writes "ABC shows are available for free to anybody with antenna on the day and time they're first broadcast. But if you want them at any other time, it's getting harder to see them unless you pay someone. The network had previously made free ad-supported streamed versions of its shows available on its website the day after they aired, but now they're shifting that back to a week. Next-day streaming is still available if you have a cable or Hulu Plus subscription, showing the extent to which "broadcast" networks are dependent on subscriber fees."
The biggest commonality of cable cutters (including me) I know is that they don't watch or care about "live" TV. The difference between a day and a week is nothing to them. DVRs changed a lot of peoples watching habits and these people aren't paying the premium anymore.
Look at Redbox, does a 90 day DVD release delay help sales? Not likely, you just shift what I watch 90 days in the future.
... will ensure they don't buy anything. Similarly, making it hard for people to watch will ensure they don't. If they do want to watch, more will look for torrents (amongst other things) than go back to the stone age days (before PVR's, etc). People nowadays will not bother being inconvenienced unless you have awesome stuff - although it's not my cup of tea, Apple is an example of where people will stand in line for hours and be inconvenienced.
I wouldn't say ABC shows are worth putting off tennis practice (or whatever hobby you have) for. This will not end well.
This is move is going to lose me as a viewer, not push me to subscribe to cable.
I have netflix. I get TV over the air. This sort of access was the only way for me to watch current shows other than at their prescribe transmission time. Other networks have made it "enter your cable bill number" to access this content as well.
I guess they don't want me, and those like me, to watch their shows at all.
I am certainly not going to subscribe to overpriced pile of crap that is basic cable. I grant you can get some good stuff by going specialty cable, but that is even more $$ on top of basic. I am almost never home at the right time to watch it "live" over the air. So count me and countless others like me off the viewship list. This is move is going to lose me as a viewer, not push me to subscribe to cable.
Bu-bye.
Waiting a week / month / year is fine. I accept the business model at play here... Milk the wallets of those who can't resist instant gratification, and find some nominal revenues from everyone else. It's just... I hate the ad interruptions. I'd gladly pay for Hulu Plus... if there were no ads!
Hooray for not understanding the advertising model.
I disagree with GP and P; this trend is very positive. The reason why networks have been fighting against streaming is because they didn't see a business case. If ABC is starting to see how it can make money online, then it benefits all of us who want to watch shows online and cut the cord. A watershed day is when HBO GO becomes available without a cable subscription.
As an added bonus all the ads will be stripped off. Sorry ABC, you blew your opportunity to make money off my eyeballs.
If only there were a way to get my favourite TV shows soon after being broadcast, preferably in high-definition and without commercials, so I could watch from the comfort of my couch at my leisure.
Trolling is a art,
A watershed day is when HBO GO becomes available without a cable subscription.
Interesting indeed. I wonder if Netflix will become what HBO GO could have been sooner? They're starting to develop some stuff of their own and don't require cable at all.
Time shifting is no longer the "killer feature," time shifting IS television. This is the equivalent of a TV station in the 1950s saying "we will no longer be offering moving pictures with our radio programs."
I have not watched TV on a network schedule for a decade, and my children don't even have the concept of a "TV Schedule".
Fighting consumer demand is difficult, fighting consumer default expectations is suicide; especially in Entertainment media, where the whole world can turn on a dime, except you.
Seriously. $75 to $100 a month for cable? Haven't done that for years. $8.95 a month for Netflix, plus a bit of Pirate Bay to top up the offerings. You tell me what makes more sense.
Although honestly I'd be happy to pay say $25-30 a month for some hybrid of the two - at least for news channels.
Of course the downside of not watching cable or network TV is that you really appreciate how horrible advertising is. Easily the most painful part of going out to a movie.
Three Squirrels
Netflix: "The Goal Is to Become HBO Faster Than HBO Can Become Us"
Did you know producing and marketing high quality TV and movies costs money? Shocking news!
It is a major inconvenience when watching shows that have an on-going story line. You either have to watch the episodes out of order or stop watching the broadcast shows all together and watch all on-line if you miss even one episode. And what in the world does it accomplish for ABC? It only makes over-the-air broadcast TV less attractive to viewers. It hurts local affiliates (if viewers choose to just watch the rest of the season on-line 8 days later when they miss an episode). ABC just annoys people with this with no up side.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.