Posted on 01/21/2014 4:14:42 PM PST by Red in Blue PA
Some tech industry heavyweights took to Twitter on Monday to vent their frustration with the user-unfriendly state of television in the broadband Internet age. The conversation pointed out the conflicts between the freedom to chose that users crave and the content gatekeepers who are reluctant to change from business as usual.
BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield documented the Twitter conversation in a blog post Tuesday.
It started when Jason Hirschhorn, CEO of Redef, complained about the cost of cable and what he received in return.
"It's amazing to me that I pay a cable company $250/month and I can't view all the content anywhere at any time. Are they nuts?" he tweeted.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
HuluPlus is good for carrying currently running content and acts like a DVR. They carry a good deal of content from Fox (broadcast), ABC, NBC and some other networks I like including Comedy Central and a few others. CBS is not represented at all really.
Netflix and Amazon Prime have a good deal of the same content but sometimes Netflix has a TV series free whereas you have to pay for it on Amazon.
Redbox Instant, Target Instant also seem to carry the same movie content as Netflix and Amazon.
Netflix's main advantage is simply that they carry more content however the quality of the excess stuff is surely questionable.
I have 2 Roku 3's now. They are AWESOME!
“They sound like morons.”
They’re young. They’re not in debt. They don’t realize good times end.
“no children for this couple I take it?”
Dogs! What a surprise.
Prime is still worth it considering the free shipping. I also bought a Kindle Fire HD and they allow you to 'borrow' books rather than buy them. Certainly easy to justify the price of Prime.
I am hooked on foreign programs with subtitles still.
Love Dramafever.com and Viki.com
$250 a month is obscene.
I am surprised that my cable company spends a lot advertising their On Demand, but the contents are slight for most channels.
I prefer On Demand because I can start and stop programs when I want.
More and more, channels are offering their programs On Line. Some require viewers to sign on through their cable provider, however.
The Wall Street Journal already discovered that Amazon have a Roku-like set top box in the works, and now they’ve followed through with some details of what the device will get to carry.
According to their latest report, Amazon are brokering deals for live TV content, wanting to secure the channels of “three big media conglomerates.”
In effect, it would be cable TV but delivered over the internet. I’m assuming it would be provided on a similar basis to Amazon’s current on-demand subscription service, which is to say, bundled with the annual Prime shipping deal.
Supposing those “three big media conglomerates” are on a par with Disney, Viacom, NBCUniversal or Fox then this service could well lure a lot of folk away from cable and into Amazon’s arms.
It’s a trend that’s already started, it would seem, with NPD reporting a 4% increase in American households subscribing to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus services between march 2012 and August 2013 while, concurrently, the percentage of cable subscriptions dipped by 6%.
I’m not sure this is a good move for Intel. OTOH, cash in the hand.....
don’t forget food and coffee in nyc. if they’re like most there they eat when they leave their apartment. have nothing in the fridge.
“A vast wasteland?”
Nah, after that guy was hired by the TV industry he said that TV is wonderful! ;-)
It's all good if it's in the Public Interest, like PBS stuff.
If you have a Roku, you can get access to The Food Network through its plug-in either using Plex or PlayOn (I think the latter is still a “private” Roku channel). Both require that a computer somewhere on your home network act as a media server.
The private Food Network channel for Roku has been taken down at the request of Food Network.
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