It does seem that they're angling that way, but as big as Comcast is, they're probably putting up a pretty good fight to keep ESPN. They already lost the NFL Network for a minute this week and they got it right back.
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ESPN will do this when they can make more money direct to consumer vs cable.
With so many cord cutters nowadays and people choosing services like Philo where they don't have to pay the extortion fees that ESPN was cleaning up on, they're probably doing the math and realizing the jig is up soon.
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I don't think cable's going to die anytime soon. It's still a one-stop shop compared to streaming services. I don't know of a single service that covers the spectrum of networks carried by Comcast in the greater Seattle area, and the ones that come anywhere close are getting close to $100 per month. If I shop ala carte to get the same width and breadth of choices I would end up paying far more for streaming services unless I constantly turn the services off for seasonal reasons. If I do that I might save a little money for the hassle, but that's going to make it harder on the streaming service to really profit.
If the streaming model does eventually prove to be more profitable, I wouldn't discount the likelihood that the Comcasts of the cable industry end up buying them all out and the cord-cutters find themselves paying the same giants for the content they watch.
Yea but the issue is what do you watch not how many channels are available?
Look at all your recordings and daily watches and make a list.
Frankly we pretty watch some news channels and binge shows at night.
Other than late night we don't even watch broadcast networks.
I live mostly in:
- Netflix provided by T-Mobile
- HBO provided by ATT
- Paramount Plus with a half off yearly subscription
- Apple TV Plus provided by T-Mobile
- Britbox with a yearly deal
- Hulu comes and goes
Our Antenna and Channels gets me locals but we really don't watch them
We have YouTube TV with a $10 discount by T-Mobile but I question its value and if T-Mobile ever drops the discount we might go elsewhere.
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Can the NBC app be added to M3U like Pluto TV ? Just curious... Log On credentials get access to most everything NBC has...
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No, because the NBC streams are now copyright protected by DRM. Pluto’s streams are not. At least not yet.
It looks like you're tracking what you need pretty well and trying not to pay for what you don't use. We probably only have the TV on about 10 hours a week, but when it is we like to have a very broad gamut of choices and cable has made it pretty simple for a long time, so the trade-off is we're paying for an awful lot we don't use in exchange for having just about everything "available". I'm glad we still have that choice - for now.
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The cable of today is not the cable of yesteryear. The vast majority of cable channels are now showing old content. Most of the new original programming has moved over to the streaming services.
... services (pl) - making a strong case for consolidation.
It's really hard to beat live sports on virtually any network with a 4-tuner TiVo with a 30-minute buffer on each tuner simultaneously. Cable gives me that potential and allows me to catch more in far less time than any other solution I'm aware of.
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Neither is OTA I find I am watching more and more Streaming Series ... I just deleted a lot of episodes of Series I had recorded and not watched as they have been canceled/ or boring.
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A multiview grid of live channels via IPTVX (or Fubo or YouTube TV, in active development) beats that hands-down, if you ask me:
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What makes a strong case for consolidation? The fact that you don't like it?
Thankfully, I truly only care about the NFL and can get all my Steelers games OTA. Enough other games are OTA for me to get my fill. So my TV bill is lower than ever.
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To each their own, I didn't have to invest any of my own time to figure out how to set up Quadstream and be able to fast forward to the plays I deem worth watching at real time speed. TiVo gave that functionality to me out of the box (no special setup on my part) and that was valuable to me.
BTW, I was watching the multi-view live stream of the NCAA tournament for several hours and reverted back to the TiVo method where I could "look in" on one game at a time. In my case, seeing everything at once was not what I preferred over toggling back and forth one full screen game at a time, like NFL Red Zone.
A strong case for consolidation is profitability for the providers and convenience to the consumer. Let's give it a couple years and see where it goes.
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If you watch a lot of sports like I do, there's really no substitute for the cable (or IPTV equivalent) package. And losing NBC was a huge blow to Channels if you like racing, Sunday night football etc. I'm not watching any of that live, not with all these commercials. TiVo took care of all that for me on Comcast, but now I live in an area where I have U-verse so I'm kind of stuck with it right now.
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Tangentially, it is related. The over the air ATSC 3.0 streams can have DRM activated. The SF Bay Area market's NBC affiliate has activated DRM on their ATSC 3.0 stream (111.1). Channels DVR and HDHR are not able to decode the stream. Of course ATSC 1.0 which does not support DRM should remain available for years, but this offers a glimpse to the future of OTA and TVE DVR recording. Content producers have longed for this day since the introduction of consumer video recorders.
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There are bound to be bumps in the road but we'll have to see how it all plays out. If DRM is being used to protect monopolization that is against the public interest, I don't expect it to go unchallenged - at least if we ever get back to a justice system that protects individuals as much as it protects those who have captured it and us.
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This news seems noteworthy in this context. At least for FireTV users. More lost local NBCU channels to be able to link externally to?
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