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ABC Kills Next-Day Streaming For Non-Subscribers

Posted by timothy on from the back-to-piracy-with-ye dept.

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."

11 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Cable Cutters don't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Cable Cutters don't care by Shados · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Cable cutters also often care about different things. Obviously Neflix and Hulu, Amazon, etc are the big boys and contain mostly stuff that came from theaters or normal TV channels, but if you look at, let say, the roku channels, there's a TON of content that is simply not available on normal TV...

      I didn't cancel cable to save money. I did it because while I watch a -LOT- of TV, there's only one show I ever watch that I could watch on cable, among the dozens that I follow.

  2. last days of broadcast tv by RichMan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  3. Less ads please by Scowler · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!

  4. Re:Uggh... by noh8rz10 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Fine, I'll get it off the Pirate Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As an added bonus all the ads will be stripped off. Sorry ABC, you blew your opportunity to make money off my eyeballs.

  6. Oh well... by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    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,
  7. Re:Uggh... by Tamran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Time-shifting is no longer a "feature" by netsavior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. What is This "cable" Of Which You Speak? by rueger · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  10. Re:Uggh... by netsavior · · Score: 5, Informative

    Netflix: "The Goal Is to Become HBO Faster Than HBO Can Become Us"