Viacom To Launch Its Own Streaming Service this Year (techcrunch.com)

Viacom said today it's planning to launch its own ad-supported streaming service by September 2018, the end of its fiscal year. The service will include "tens of thousands of hours of content" from across Viacom's library. From a report: Viacom had hinted about its plans in streaming before, but it shared a few more details on the call about what the service will include. The company, which owns cable TV channels like MTV and Comedy Central, already licenses some of its content to other streaming services like Sling TV and DirecTV Now, as well as newcomer Philo. "It's going to be rolled out in the U.S., in terms of the amount of content that it's going to have, it's going to have tens of thousands of hours of content that cut across the library we have on a global basis," the company said.

Comments

Can they charge me instead?

[AlanBDee]

We asked for a la-carte and this is what it looks like. I just hope they offer a commercial-free version I can pay for, any amount will do. Just don't make me sit through commercials. If not, would it kill them to add a small algorithm that if it's already shown a commercial once, don't show it again for like 24 hours. I hate commercials enough, but if they make me watch the same stupid commercial multiple times then I tend to turn it off instead.

On a side note, my 5-year old was at grandma's house and saw a commercial. She had no idea what it was. I was so proud.

Re:Can they charge me instead?

[omnichad]

We asked for a la-carte and this is what it looks like.

A la carte was what we asked for when television was on a schedule. This is just bundling of a different sort. Instead of getting one channel, we're getting an entire production company's back-catalog with a price that reflects that. The goalpost for a la carte has moved for streaming. Let me pay $0.50/episode for each and every TV episode I watch (less for older shows) and networks will make more money per hour of programming viewed and I will get a better value for my money. Right now, the only streaming option for new TV is bundles or purchasing perpetual streaming rights for a TV series at $2+/episode.

tl;dr These services are still only a good deal if you want to consume a lot of content.

Re: Can they charge me instead?

[Ogive17]

My idea of a la carte was to still get the media delivered by the cable company but pick and choose what channels I would pay for. One point of payment.

I have zero intention of managing multiple subscriptions.

Peak Streaming ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every goddamned company wants to have a streaming service.

They're all giddy at the prospect of on-going revenue from a subscription model.

Know what? Fuck 'em.

I'm not signing up for every asshole's streaming service, and I'm tired of the subscription model bullshit.

I have my NetFlix, and I've pretty much decided if it isn't on that, I'll live without it entirely.

I'm not a revenue stream to every asshole of a CEO who thinks I should be, and I'm more than happy to do without your shit.

I'm sick and tired of this shit, every media company thinks they're going to run their streaming service, and I'm completely over it. I'll buy the movies I want on DVD/Blu Ray and watch them whenever I want, I'll stream what I can from Netflix, and the rest simply doesn't matter to me any more.

Re:Peak Streaming ...

[Falos]

There's some game theory or another going on, tragedy of the common prisoner's whatever. They don't give a flying fuck about what it does to the big picture, about any effects outside Ye Bottom Line, not after centuries of "I've got mine" being rule number one.

No one actually cares about the consumer (looking at you, apple fanboy) as anything more than an obstacle to pacify. Normally the distinction isn't too important, eg entertainers will work hard to make their entertainment entertaining "for us". But in this case it causes a blind spot, it means your evening isn't a consideration, it means no concern for what it could hypothetically look like, they're boxed to only methods of exploitation gouging walled gardens harvesting/spamming bigdataz, ie things they directly control.

The masses rushed to Ye Netflix for the aggregation. And you could probably squeeze them for top dollar, because they love having The Best, to treat the scenario as a solved problem. But now the aggregation doesn't exist and probably never will.

Don't believe me? This slashdot is full of people settling for the closest thing to said The Best. "Wellp, netflix/amazon/hulu it is." as a proxy for "I just subscribe to the 99%-of-all-content GodService and that's that."

A master service is appealing for reasons beyond the content. It's behind many iphone purchases. Who wants to deal with research and comparisons? Who wants to understand specs and OS variants? They see the iphone as a "safe" purchase. They know it costs more than it needs to, but they can be confident it checks all the boxes, it dodges the potential bullets. They consider it a fully solved concern, and by God I can understand the appeal of that term.

Who pays for ancient content?

[omnichad]

it's going to have, it's going to have tens of thousands of hours of content that cut across the library we have on a global basis

Every TV production company thinks they can prop up a streaming service with shows from the 80's. Cord cutters aren't going to spend $50/mo. on disparate streaming services. Especially if they are only searchable separately. It's hard enough just to go back and forth between Netflix and Prime and keep track of who has what.

Re:Who pays for ancient content?

[AlanBDee]

There's actually a web site that pulls in content from most streaming services and provides links to their web site. I works most the time and when it doesn't at least it helps me search for and find what I want to watch and where it's at. https://www.justwatch.com/us

Re:Who pays for ancient content?

[jwhyche]

I have a Roku (love it, too).

I bought my first Roku about 2 years ago when I was living out of hotel rooms. They only offered shitty basic cable but had decent wifi. It changed the way I watch tv, if you can call what I do watching tv. Our cable box has been unplugged for well over a year. We watch everything through the Roku now.

Have you ever took a stroll down the "dark" recesses of the channel list? There is some strange and weird shit out there. We found some channel that had some old guy in a silver jump suit waiving around some weird models. We wasted 20 minutes listening to him ramble on, then he said his "lecture" was going to go on for 4 more hours. My tolerance for weird shit was empty so off he went. We never did find out what he was rambling about.

Re:More segmentation . . .

[Oswald McWeany]

Great - I'll bet eventually they will pull their stuff back to their own network and I'll have YASB (yet another streaming bill) to pay.

They say ad supported... so there may not be a bill... as long as you're willing to sit through adverts (which isn't that one of the main reasons we abandoned cable in the first place- to get away from ads?)

If Viacom remove their content from other providers- this splintering hurts consumers because as you say- yet another site. If they leave their content on Netflix, et al, and just give an option to go to their site and get it then that is good.

I've already reached my saturation point. I'll just deal with less choice rather than add another subscription. I miss BBC shows from Netflix and Hulu- so many have gone since BritBox started up... but I'm not paying for it. I'd like to see Star Trek, but I'm not paying for CBS. I'll deal with fewer shows before I will deal with paying yet another location.

Re:YASM

[jwhyche]

With Netflix and Youtube, I already have more interesting content than what I could watch in a lifetime.

This,exactly. I subscribe to 3 streaming services now, Netflix, Hulu, and Curiosity Stream. With these services, Youtube, and my Plex collection, I don't see myself subscribing to anything else.

The only reason that I still have my cable service is because I'm under contract. Which will run out next month, then time for trip behind the barn. Besides the only thing I'm now watching on cable is Foxnews. An I don't care how much Sean Hanily thinks the sun shines out his ass he isn't worth 60 bucks a month.

Re:More segmentation . . .

[torkus]

Someone should put together a network of all these streaming services!

They can negotiate access to each service on a large scale basis and show savings as a whole. Then...get this!!!...combine all those streaming services - call then 'channels' - into a single platform and sell it to people at a single price point lower than having to get each one individually. They could have a single, standard interface, single bill, single helpdesk and since it's such a broad offering they'd even have the resources to build a dedicated device that perfectly meets the requirements and provides the best service possible.

Since all this is coming over network cabling...why don't we call them 'cable companies' and they can offer 'cable television service' to us? Wouldn't that be great??? A single platform with all the content and a single bill much smaller than buying anything individually? And no need to look for 'free streams' of anything that might be of questionable quality.

Oh oh oh ... and maybe since we're paying them money for all this they won't even need to have commercials! They'll make all their money off direct payment instead of advertising. /sigh...