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Television The Internet

Is Streaming TV About To Get Really Expensive? (theguardian.com) 378

"The golden age of streaming is over," writes Stuart Heritage in the Guardian, arguing that TV "will become more elitist, tiered and fragmented than it already is." One report last year said that The Office accounts for 7% of all U.S. Netflix viewing. So, naturally, NBC wants it back. This week, it was announced that Netflix had failed to secure the rights to The Office beyond January 2021. The good news is that it will still be available to watch elsewhere. The bad news is that "elsewhere", means "the new NBCUniversal streaming platform". As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy. The industry-disrupting success of Netflix means that everybody wants a slice of the pie...

Friends is likely to disappear behind a new WarnerMedia streaming service -- along with Lord of the Rings films, the Harry Potter films, anything based on a DC comic and everything on HBO -- that it is believed will cost about £15 a month... Facebook is making shows, for crying out loud. And this sucks. Watching television is about to get very, very expensive.... There's a huge difference between not being able to watch everything because there's too much choice and not being able to watch everything because you don't have enough money.

The Netflix model was great for viewers, but it couldn't last. The content creators got greedy and scared, and now they're determined to drag things back to the bad old ways. They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split, and the providers will have to recoup the money they are spending to take on Netflix -- such as the $500m that NBCUniversal spent to get The Office back, the $250m Amazon is spending on a Lord of the Rings series and the $500m that Warner just spent to win the services of JJ Abrams -- which means that subscriptions will rise. Make no mistake: we're the ones likely to get stiffed here. The golden age of television may be going strong, but the golden age of streaming is dead.

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Is Streaming TV About To Get Really Expensive?

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  • by sosume ( 680416 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @05:41AM (#58849006) Journal

    If this becomes too expensive, or the quality of offered content on current streaming platforms drop, people will stop watching them entirely and move to sites such as YouTube. No customer wants to have 10 streaming services.

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      I'd pay money for an auto-rotating service. Some people do a month of Hulu, then a month of Netflix, etc., rotating through the digital providers. Instead of having to manage all those accounts and billing info and apps and websites, it'd be great if I could just use one service/site/app that's a portal that lets me access these other providers, and crucially, has an option to automatically rotate me through subscriptions to them.

      I begrudgingly admit that activation fees/minimum length contracts are probabl

      • by swimboy ( 30943 )

        As useless as I thought Apple's TV app was, this is exactly what it does. It provides a single interface to all of the streaming services that you have on your device. Maybe they really are skating to where the puck is going to be.

  • I canceled my Netflix subscription when I realized that I was just watching the same Star Trek episodes over and over. The same episodes that aired 30 years ago and which I already paid for many times over.

    You have the right to legally record broadcast television therefore you have the right to download all these shows legally. Is paying hundreds of dollars annually in subscription costs worth the convenience of being able to stream? I think not.

    • Not sure if there is an easy netflix ripping tool, but seems to me so long as web viewing works....
    • You have the right to legally record broadcast television therefore you have the right to download all these shows legally.

      The law does not work that way.

      You typically have the right to delayed viewing. The law varies depending on where you live, but generally it is accepted by law and precedent that recording a show, and watching it later does not deprive the copyright holder of revenue, so is fair use. Long term archiving is not so clear cut.

      You do not have the right to download a show. This is gene

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @05:46AM (#58849022)
    People will watch and unsubscribe. Unlike cable, if there isn't anything interesting you can easily cancel subscription.
  • Discovery (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @05:52AM (#58849030)

    If I don't have a subscription to $platform, how am I supposed to find out about all the great shows on $platform that they want me to subscribe in order to see? They can't just take out commercials on broadcast TV, because I cut the cord and they'll never reach me. $otherplatform doesn't have advertisements, either at all, or not for $platform at least. There are WAY too many shows to rely on watercooler talk or word of mouth to reach me. I think Dexter was the last TV show I had a conversation about with someone in person. Online there's tons of noise, it's hard to tell if I'll like something just from your online ad, and I use adblockers anyway. It takes SERIOUS amounts of word of mouth online to get me to check something out, or a review on a site I read or a mention by a Youtube influencer I happen across.

    So for me, TV is about to stay really cheap, because I'm blissfully ignorant about it.

    • Yup. Advertising to promote all the fragmented bullshit is going to get expensive. I will stick to my Amazon Prime until it no longer serves me. Not looking for epic quality, just something to spend a few hours with.

      Dumped Netflix when the prices went up; the service just isn’t worth that much to me.

    • Slashvertisement!. Or on bus stops & billboards you drive past. Or on music streaming services you don't pay for. Or YouTube. And Facebook/twitter.

      Unless the only media channel you consume is $platform they'll get you somewhere.

      And if all else fails there's word of mouth. Sega stopped advertising in game magazines ages ago because they ran the numbers and found it didn't help much. Big ad campaigns are only worth it for huge releases like your GTA or Call of Duty where if you don't advertise your
    • I likewise 'cut the cord' a long time (10 years at least?) ago, but I have an antenna all this time. Some people say OTA is dead and dying, but I say maybe if they start gouging everyone on all these 'streaming' services, that people might flow back to free OTA TV instead. Works for me if they do. :-)
    • by TheSync ( 5291 )

      how am I supposed to find out about all the great shows on $platform that they want me to subscribe in order to see? They can't just take out commercials on broadcast TV

      NBCuComast owns the NBC TV network and can insert cable ads locally, Disney owns the ABC TV network...

  • Globally, though (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Titanek ( 4829413 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @05:57AM (#58849048)
    Over the past two or three years it seems that Netflix has been able to secure international streaming rights to series and movies, titles which in the US would be spread across over half a dozen paid services. Living in EU I remember 3+ years ago using proxies and VPN etc to bypass geolocking so I could watch the US Netflix material, which became more and more of an uphill battle. Today, though, it seems it's the other way around, and it doesn't seem Disney+ will hit EU before 2021, let alone NBCUniversal or WarnerMedia. Prime and HBO already have a presence in EU, but Netflix is still king, and there's no way I'll be subscribing to 10 different services to get to watch the stuff I want. Me subscribing to the aforementioned 3 services (Netflix since circa 2014) also meant I didn't since turn to piracy, as it was usually already available on Netflix or the others. I do not like the idea that more and more streaming services pull their content to their own servers, ultimately meaning you'd pay $200 per month in xx amount of time from now to be able to view interesting content legally.
  • The solution: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30, 2019 @05:58AM (#58849050)

    Just don't watch that crap. It's a total waste of time, anyway.

    Play guitar. Go out. Meet with friends, cook something yummy. Have sex. If it starts to bore you, shift into high gear and become a political activist.

    Life can be so wonderful.

  • by el conejo ( 1865440 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:18AM (#58849088) Homepage
    I see this fragmenting argument come up again and again over the years but I just don't get it. Why do I have to see absolutely everything? Is everyone so afraid of missing out? If a shoe isn't available then so be it. There's plenty of other things to watch and if I really want to see it that badly I can boy or rent it. To me, this has always been a non issue.
    • You don't 'have to see everything' but between the corporate shills who work hard to try to indoctrinate everyone to believe you 'have to see everything or you're missing out' and the useful idiot fanboys/fangirls who have already been indoctrinated, think they're the smartest people in the room, and who are more than happy to Tell You All About It, that's what they all make it sound like. I've been on OTA for more than 10 years and I don't miss cable at all or feel like I'm 'missing out', I can download re
    • We had a system where you could see everything. Now, we're losing that. It's the world getting strictly shittier for no real benefit.

      You can say "it's not that important", and I would agree there are bigger issues. But, what's happening is that everyone's life is going to get worse to some degree or another so that big media companies make more money. I'm not happy about that.

  • The nightmare comes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:33AM (#58849130)

    >"They will force everyone to pay for everything separately, and the subscriber base will split,"

    I don't want to "subscribe" to 15 different streaming services, each having only a few things I would want to watch. Each with "updates" and incompatibilities and app I have to wait to load and limitations and different to-do lists and support lines and downtime and terms of service and pricing models and quality and billing.... and user interface (not that I like Netflix's UI, it really sucks).

    But if we had just a few streaming services with open access- each distributor then starts to demand entry and also brings a bunch of stuff to the table, unlimited.... Hundreds of "channels" of which most are nonsense and a bill of $200 a month! So because it is too expensive, they start injecting ads and WHAM! We are right back to cable TV again! Except it is worse, because you can't store anything locally like a DVR, and commercials will be UNSKIPPABLE.

    The only way I see this might work are a couple of competing clearinghouse services and metered, commercial-free watching. I am OK with even paying something like $0.50 per hour. Hmm...

    • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @08:13AM (#58849382) Homepage

      But if we had just a few streaming services with open access- each distributor then starts to demand entry and also brings a bunch of stuff to the table, unlimited.... Hundreds of "channels" of which most are nonsense and a bill of $200 a month! So because it is too expensive, they start injecting ads and WHAM! We are right back to cable TV again! Except it is worse, because you can't store anything locally like a DVR, and commercials will be UNSKIPPABLE.

      We already have the "random nonsense + ads" model, it's called YouTube. It's not going anywhere. Is it going to pay for HBO series and Hollywood movies? No. I'm pretty sure the paid model isn't going anywhere. That said, with streaming they can have many different business models if they want.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:42AM (#58849150)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Presumably they gave Netflix an exclusive streaming license, and now they think that it's worth that much to get it back given how much traffic they think it will bring in. They are almost certainly wrong, but oh well, good for Netflix. They can spend that money making new content, which is what nbcu should be doing. Unfortunately for them, they have no one sufficiently imaginative for that, so they're spending their money on the past instead of the future. You know, like you would expect a fossil to do.

  • I hope so (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:43AM (#58849158) Homepage

    Maybe if it gets expensive enough, more people will go back to reading books and having sex.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sex? Are you serious? With all those pathogens, disgusting bodily fluids, inconvenient social things... Zeros and ones are clean and neat, streaming or not.

      • Sex? Are you serious? With all those pathogens, disgusting bodily fluids, inconvenient social things... Zeros and ones are clean and neat, streaming or not.

        True. And sad. And true.

  • by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:44AM (#58849160)
    It doesn't bother me. Let them take their content back because all that Warner, Disney et al do is just bring out new series of existing franchises that are or have got stale and run their course. They've lost the ability to take risks. Hell we're on what, the 8th Fast and Furious now? And most series are on season 8/9/10 etc. I find myself watching less and less from established companies and more original content from Netflix and Amazon.
  • Huh?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Type44Q ( 1233630 )

    As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy...

    Queasy?? Because the 'retard-drug of the masses' is about to go up in price?? This only affects the truly-pathetic; granted, they sadly represent the bulk of the curve... but those who've chosen to actually live their lives won't give two fucks.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      As a viewer, you are right to feel queasy...

      Queasy?? Because the 'retard-drug of the masses' is about to go up in price?? This only affects the truly-pathetic; granted, they sadly represent the bulk of the curve... but those who've chosen to actually live their lives won't give two fucks.

      Well, aren't you just the most precious cognoscenti elitist there is?

      If you were as high-brow as you try to present yourself as, you'd be aware that television spans a wide gamut of material, ranging from mind-numbing drama-churn through educational, making stops in areas such as insightful and artistic. For every afternoon soap opera, there's something like the first couple seasons of Black Mirror, or Sherlock, or even Battlestar Galactica. I'm sure you can't take a break from reading cutting-edge quan

      • I can't speak for him. I saw a couple episodes of Black Mirror, and although I admit it's well made, it's not my thing. Sherlock was amazing, but it had, what, nine episodes total in the last decade? Sherlock isn't much of a time investment. Got through the first season of Orphan Black, interesting premise, but never found the time to go back to it. Same with Killing Eve. Loved, what's her name, the assassin's quirkiness but a little goes a long way.

        Currently giving Catch 22 a try, was a big fan of th

  • by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @06:48AM (#58849176)

    Don't worry about it. It won't last long. The model is unsustainable and there just isn't space in the market for 35 different streaming companies.

    Mark my prediction if you like: 2 Years from now there will be at least 100 streaming services. 5 years from now, there will just be 2 or 3.

    • Or, there will be still 100 streaming services, but you can only subscribe to them through your ISP's "umbrella service", which means subscribing to 90 or so in a big glob at around $200/month. (Cable services seem to like that price point.) Just like the final days of cable TV, 70% or 80% of the content you have to pay for will be stuff you'd never watch. Ala Carte will only apply to a few high priced services, which will be extra.

    • 5 years from now, there will just be 2 or 3.
      ..and they'll charge about as much, if not more, than a Cable TV subscription used to cost, and I'll laugh my ass off at the so-called 'cord cutters' who went to 'streaming' in the first place. Meanwhile my antenna paid for itself a thousand times over.
    • Yep. We've seen this in some cases (such as the closure of UltraViolet).

      In fact, I'll add some predictions along with it. Netflix takes a subscriber hit but survives, due to sheer momentum and smart investment in new content. Disney gains a foothold with a broad & deep catalog and reasonable start-up pricing. Warner and NBC are late to the game with weak offerings and sub-par user experience, teaching them that their content isn't culture lifeblood quite the way Disney/Marvel/Star Wars are. Amazon prime

  • Not just Netflix, but a lot of sports is going this way too. In the old days you would get the "package" that let you see all of the games, not just the one in your area. But now there is some content provider that wants to sell you the streaming access to that sport, which you can do instead of buying the "package".

  • by ledow ( 319597 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @07:27AM (#58849276) Homepage

    Television isn't a necessity.
    I did without any for many years.

    I moved just over a year ago and in my new place, I didn't even bother with a TV. I put in an old projector from work, I have a set of DVD's of all the stuff that was good before it all went stupid. I didn't watch much at all, to be honest.

    I was given a free subscription to TVPlayer (which lets you stream most UK Freeview channels). I didn't really use it much. I was given a discounted subscription to Netflix. It was 2018, I decided to see what people were fussed about. I watched a couple of shows on it and quickly became disillusioned. I never bothered to renew after the discount run out a couple of months later.

    I have iPlayer, I haven't used it once since I moved (same for ITV Player, 4oD, etc.). It's all dross. For Christmas last year I bought a RPi DVB-T hat, more because it was GBP20 an meant I could just pluck from the schedule Tivo-like, and record to a saveable MP4 file, and I could watch recordings or live TV on my phone.

    I watched a couple of old movies on it that everyone probably saw a decade a go. Some Christmas TV specials from the 70's and 80's. A couple of little sciencey programs. Literally nothing that I'd hate to lose or miss. My RPi plays way more old games than does anything else. I currently have one automatically recurring recording for a program that stopped airing a few months ago but I don't want to miss the next season if it starts. It's literally the kind of program that you watch once and enjoy but delete (a mocking current-affairs comedy programme).

    I have an Amazon Prime account, not for the video part at all but very occasionally an old movie I haven't seen in a while will pop up there. Oh, and I watched Good Omens. But that's because it costs me nothing that I wouldn't pay without the video stuff (I don't pay for the music and other things). I have a Google Play account that's basically a bunch of my favourite books (that I have in paperback already), apps and some movies (when they do deals or I get given Google credit for something). It could disappear tomorrow, I wouldn't care.

    I'd happily ditch it all. And that's when it's convenient to access in multiple formats across multiple platforms any time I like and not at all tied to my home setup. Faffing about finding which service a programme is on, and then being asked to sign up to that just to watch that one programme? No. Not going to happen.

    My specific TV/Movie entertainment expenditure since getting the RPi is basically zero per month. Before that it was an absolute pittance per month. I'm not even willing to pay the Netflix fee, let alone other's.

    And yet, I have 1000 games on a 15-year-old Steam account. None of them are recurring subscriptions. There's *always* something new to entertain there.

    If the market starts fracturing, I will just switch off from it entirely. Yet I see people paying GBP100 per month or more on subscriptions they literally never watch (sports channels, movie channels, etc.) because it's part of a bundle.

    The prime way to kill that kind of income is to fracture the services. The same way making me go to 30-something different websites was basically overruled by making one website specifically to go do that for you, or bring them all together (e.g. insurance comparison, Netflix, Amazon, etc.).

    The only way it could ever work would be to pay the creators themselves, independent of any broadcast giant, directly, and for permanent access to their properties. That would kill the same companies that are trying to jump in now too.

    The modern world replaced all kinds of technological barriers with openness, and now its replacing openness with synthetic, imaginary barriers. It's stupid. Stop it. Because, especially with the younger generations, they don't know, care, or will pay for online video content like previous generations think they still have to.

  • I get free Netflix with family T-mobile plan and it has more original and 3rd party content than I will ever have time to watch. I think the confusion comes from expecting access to every single show without subscribing to multiple services (and then maybe cancelling when you are done watching) or paying ala carte. I in fact also subscribe to HBO Now because Vice News is much more intelligent than CNN or Fox. And, I happen to get Prime originals because I like Amazon Prime for shipping household essentials.

  • I think most people constantly watching reruns just wants some background noise and don't care much about whats actually playing. I guess we will soon find out how "valuable" these franchisees truly are
  • by Rashkae ( 59673 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @08:07AM (#58849362) Homepage

    $30 for a large seedbox used to be fairly expensive, considering I how much I could have gotten with a Netflix and Crunchyroll subscription. The only benefit was satisfying my hoarding dysfunction.

    Now, however, it's starting to look like a really good deal for just about everyone with a little know-how.

  • by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @08:25AM (#58849404) Journal

    No, in general, this is not good, but it is inevitable. There was a reason Disney had a cable TV channel starting way back in 1983 - to directly control and monetize their content. They were one of the few that did have content, and had deep enough pockets to produce a 24/7 TV channel, and had the name recognition that people would actually want the channel and immediately understand what type of content they were getting. The proved the model works and set the stage for all the fragmentation that came after (yes I'm ignoring HBO, Cinemax, etc distributing movies on cable, but they merely licensed and redistributed others' content back then).

    From that day onward it has been the goal of every other player in the game (including players that didn't exist yet, like Netflix) to achieve the same thing. It's taken decades and a complete shift in the technology through which that media is delivered for everyone else to catch up and start playing too. The internet now allows anyone to enter this game without the middle-man that is Cable Television (it is extremely expensive for a cable company to carry a channel - they pay per-subscriber costs, need the hardware to receive the satellite feed for that channel, an encoder to transmit that feed out on their network, and finally they have a finite amount of bandwidth analog or digital), and so now with these barriers gone we are going to see worse fragmentation than we have ever seen before.

    There is one, and only one, silver lining to this. There will be competition between the various streaming services to produce their own content. Good enough and exclusive enough content to justify people paying for their service. This is what brought us the Game of Thrones, for example, and we should expect many series of quality we haven't seen before. The production level is so good it's basically a series of mini-movies. The networks that controlled this monopoly before (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc, etc) had gotten lazy, cheap, and cash-strapped. We all know that Hollywood seems to have lost the ability to innovate and do anything half decent except sequels and remake existing IP (comic books, for example). So we will continue to see these new streaming services bring us better content on average than what we've seen in many years in either television or film.

  • The history of investing is littered with shares that rise in value. Then, just as they peak, Joe Public gets wind and buys in. It is just at that time when the price is highest that a share gets promoted, publicised and popular. After that it is a slide as the price drops and people lose money.

    I have a feeling that TV has peaked. We have enough programmes - do we need any more? The article mentions Friends being paywalled as it is popular and will attract subscribers. Really? it is 25 years old this year

  • I think Netflix is on the right track here by creating their own content.

    Now, if they can just be enlightened enough to realize there could be a better world out there and partner with "friendly" services like Amazon Prime to share their original creations between each other we might get to a world where you can buy 1 service and see everything you want. Imagine going to Amazon and seeing both Amazon and Netflix entire portfolio or vice versa. Hulu is friendly too? They jump on board, you pay $20.00 a mo

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @09:15AM (#58849622)

    If streaming costs more due to the need to pay up for the increased number of streaming services that will exist in the future (NBC Universal, Disney, Warner, Netflix, Amazon etc) more people will turn to "other" ways to get the content (including a certain well-known site with a big sailing ship as its logo and various alternatives to said site that do the same job).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I've been concerned about streaming services fragmenting for a while, ever since I heard Disney was launching their own service. I don't know how that's going to play out but. My guess is in a few years, there will be some consolidation and things will be suckier until then. But I want to make another point.

    I decided I'd follow a hockey team this year (go Sharks!). What really surprised me was you can't find a good streaming solution for live (or time-delayed) sports. What I was hoping for was something lik

    • well it was the same for music for a wile. dont know if you rember all the music stores that tryed it be iTunes. but people dont play into 50 different services. so most of these will just die off and go to being free or on netflicks.
      • well it was the same for music for a wile. dont know if you rember all the music stores that tryed it be iTunes. but people dont play into 50 different services. so most of these will just die off and go to being free or on netflicks.

        That's what I expect with all these streaming services. Some of the weaker offerings won't survive. I'm predict in five years, we are left with Netflix, Amazon, and Disney. But I can't even predict tomorrow's weather so don't bet a lot on that.

  • by Socguy ( 933973 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @10:22AM (#58849888)
    Sounds like time to invest in a good VPN and rediscover torrents.
  • Guess what, what previously cost $120/month with cable/satellite is not going to be all available for a single $10 subscription.

    Netflix operated at lost in order to gain market share, but price hikes were expected, and there will continue to be a lot of them.
    And no, Netflix is not going to be able to get all the content. Even if it would, it would be a very bad thing for the consumers because they would be a monopoly and would behave just as bad, if not worse, as the cablecos.

    Fragmentation is the best thing

  • If NBC thinks they'll increase profits by making everyone pay them a monthly fee to watch Friends, they're out of their fucking minds. Same goes for any individual network that expects a direct cut of the pie from me. You can play nice, or you can go fuck off.

  • they tried this with music rember all the music store that poped up after itunes. now there all dead. it will be the same for all these paid network services nobody is going to sub to 15 different providers to get all there content.
  • I wanna watch One Punch Man Season two. It's on Hulu, not Crunchyroll. I will wait until it's done, subscribe for 1 month, watch it, then cancel the sub. It will cost me $15 bucks to watch it.

    I will probably do this once or twice a year for a show that doesn't show up on my main platform of choice. In total I will spend around $120-$150/year on TV. For cable TV I spent literally 10x that ($120-$150/month).
  • Everybody will have to pardon me while I look at my lowly OTA antenna and laugh my ass off.

    BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

    OK, that's better.

    I cut the cord over a decade ago after going out on a medical disability and never looked back. I barely watch OTA TV as it is, except for some binge watching of NHK World and Buzzr (for Match Game). I tried some of the new offerings and discovered that the TV being put out these days isn't worth paying for an online service to watch, not
  • for much less than $10/mo.

    And one is all you need.

  • by j-beda ( 85386 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @12:28PM (#58850452) Homepage

    Maybe a lawsuit similar to the 1948 one that broke up the film distribution system at the time would be appropriate?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].

    United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131 (1948),[1] (also known as the Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948, the Paramount Case, the Paramount Decision or the Paramount Decree)[2] was a landmark United States Supreme Court antitrust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would show their films. It would also change the way Hollywood movies were produced, distributed, and exhibited.[citation needed] The Supreme Court affirmed (a District Court's ruling) in this case that the existing distribution scheme was in violation of the antitrust laws of the United States, which prohibit certain exclusive dealing arrangements.

  • by The Rizz ( 1319 ) on Sunday June 30, 2019 @02:47PM (#58851132)

    The really stupid thing here is that a lot of that $10/mo. is for the back-end infrastructure to get the streaming service set up in the first place. These channels would be better off contracting with the existing providers (Netflix/etc.) and having all their content as an optional add-on for $2/mo. or something. I'd be much more likely to pay an extra $2 to get CBS / Disney+ / etc. over my existing Netflix than paying an extra $10 for it (or drop Netflix for them). They wouldn't have to spend all the extra setting up and maintaining their own infrastructure, and they'd be able to put their add-on to multiple other services (no need to go exclusive), so they would probably get more subscribers overall. Odds are they'd make as much (or more) doing it this way without customers having to pay as much overall. It would be win-win for both sides.

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