When you watch TV, is your phone always within reach? More importantly, are you just listening to the TV while you fiddle around on your phone, tablet, laptop, smartwatch, web-connected crockpot? If so, then you’re like the 88% of millennials who are regularly using “second screens” while watching video. [More]
streaming video
Spotify Introducing Streaming Videos On Its Mobile Apps
By 1.25.16
You may be familiar with Spotify, a streaming music service that offers commercial-free listening for a monthly subscription price, as well as a free version that comes with ads. The streaming platform is now branching out with the debut of music content on its mobile apps this week. [More]
MLB To Offer In-Market Streaming Starting In 2017 (But You’ll Still Need Cable)
By 1.19.16
The settlement of a years-old class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball means that fans will have more streaming options for watching their favorite teams. Unfortunately, it also means that if you live in the same market as your favorite team, you still need to pay for cable. [More]
Netflix Laughs Off NBC’s Obsession With Streaming Service’s Ratings
By 1.18.16
Last week, NBC spent a good chunk of its Television Critics Association press event claiming that it has reliable Netflix ratings, and that once people bore of binge-watching a show they go back to “watching TV the way that God intended.” Now Netflix wants to know why NBC is wasting its time focusing on something other than NBC. [More]
You May Soon Not Be Able To Access Any International Netflix Content You Want
By 1.14.16
Sure, your U.S. Netflix account offers a wide variety of movies and TV shows, but those offerings vary from country to country. Some show that aired in Europe last year may not even be available for Netflix to license to stateside viewers. Or an American movie may be unavailable locally because HBO or some other service has an exclusive, but people in Colombia can watch it on their Netflix. Clever Netflixers have long employed various workarounds to access international Netflix offerings, but now the streaming video service is warning that these may soon not work. [More]
Would You Ditch ESPN To Shave $8/Month Off Your Cable Bill?
By 1.14.16
ESPN is, by far, the most expensive single channel on most cable customers’ basic cable bill, responsible for more than $5/month, with some industry analysts putting an approximately $8/month price tag on ESPN and ESPN 2 together. While it’s long been considered a basic cable must-have, millions of Americans have been dropping their pay-TV packages altogether, and recent surveys show that ESPN wouldn’t be a part of many folks’ ideal a la carte cable menu, meaning not everyone has a desperate need for ESPN. So, could cable companies hold on to their customers by lowering rates in exchange for saying goodbye to the 24-hour sports channel? [More]
T-Mobile Execs Say YouTube Is “Absurd” For Complaining About Downgraded Video Quality
By 1.7.16
The war of words between T-Mobile and YouTube continues, with executives from the wireless company claiming it’s “absurd” that the streaming service should care so much about T-Mo downgrading the quality of YouTube videos. [More]
Netflix Goes Live In More Than 130 New Countries (But Not China)
By 1.6.16
In the span of an hour this morning, Netflix more than tripled the number of countries in which it offers service, effectively serving everywhere in the world with one huge exception: China. [More]
Yahoo Kills Streaming Video Service You Probably Hadn’t Heard Of
By 1.4.16
Unless you were, like some of us here at Consumerist HQ, such an ardent fan of Community that you followed the sitcom when it made the leap from network TV to streaming video, you are probably only vaguely aware that something called Yahoo Screen even existed. Well it did. Notice the use of the past tense. [More]
Warner Bros. Trying To Block Devices That Get Around 4K Video Copyright Protection
By 1.4.16
A week ago, Warner Bros. home video folks announced they would be catering to the growing number of 4K TV owners by releasing 35 recent titles — including Mad Max: Fury Road and The LEGO Movie — on ultra-HD BluRay discs. Two days later, the entertainment giant was in court, suing to stop a company from selling devices that would let users get around the digital copyright protections on these, and other, 4K titles. [More]
YouTube Calls Out T-Mobile For Throttling Video Traffic
By 12.23.15
Net neutrality says that internet providers can’t throttle some services and speed others up. That much is clear. But if they’re throttling literally everyone, even those who didn’t sign up for it, is it still a violation? Google says yes, and has a definite complaint about the way T-Mobile is starting to handle video. [More]
Apple Reportedly Shelving Live-TV Streaming Service For Now
By 12.9.15
The last we heard – just four months ago – Apple planned to offer a live-TV streaming service in 2016. But apparently a lot can change in that amount of time, as a new report suggests the company has scrapped the venture — at least for now. [More]
YouTube Wants To Be Your New Netflix, Seeks Rights To TV And Movies
By 12.3.15
If you want to curl up on the sofa on a cold winter night and watch a movie, that’s what Netflix is for. And if you want to watch music videos, mash-ups, or cats doing foolish things, you’ve got your YouTube. That’s how it’s been since approximately the dawn of time, by which we mean roughly the last five or six years. But it looks like the times, they are a-changing, and YouTube wants to be your one-stop shop for video of any and all sorts. [More]
Two-Thirds Of TV Viewers Say They Get Frustrated Trying To Find Something Worth Watching
By 12.2.15
If you’ve wasted minutes of your life scouring the hundreds of available TV listings for something — anything — to watch, you’re not alone. A new survey shows that the large majority of TV watchers (especially those with families) are frustrated by the difficulty of locating something you might enjoy. [More]
Amazon Prime May Soon Be Portal For Other Streaming Video Services
By 11.30.15
After a few years of deconstructing video entertainment into dozens of individual streaming sites, we’re beginning to see a trend toward re-bundling of those services. Hulu sells access to Showtime, Sling TV offers streaming HBO, and now a new report claims that Amazon Prime will soon be offering one-stop shopping for other streaming video companies. [More]
Netflix Adds 5-Minute Videos For Kids To Give Parents A Bedtime Bargaining Tool
By 11.4.15
If you’re a parent, you probably face bedtime with a grim determination to stick to your guns, stay firm and get that kid tucked in and the lights out when you say so. Not as easy as it sounds, as many of you likely know: kids are wily adversaries, armed with a seemingly endless arsenal of excuses and a knack for bargaining. Netflix wants to help parents compromise with their tiny foes, launching a collection of five-minute bedtime videos. [More]
Networks May Be Preparing To Wean Themselves Off “Pure Heroin” Of Netflix Money
By 11.3.15
For years, Netflix has been showering networks and TV production studios with gobs of cash to run their shows online. Not even two years ago, one executive said the money was so good that it was like “pure heroin” for content producers. But the best drugs often have the worst side effects, and now some TV folks are reportedly looking to break their addiction to Netflix. [More]
Report: T-Mobile May Let Customers Stream Video Without Eating Into Their Data Plans
By 10.29.15
Maybe you’ve had that moment, the one where you’re 47 minutes deep in a Star Trek: The Next Generation binge session on your phone (because you can’t be bothered to find a larger screen) and you suddenly realize you haven’t switched over to WiFi. Visions of your swiftly dwindling data plan may no longer dance in front of your eyes at such times if you’re a T-Mobile customer, if a new rumor proves to be true. [More]
