Compared to HBO and Showtime, Starz may not be the biggest brand in premium TV, but the network isn’t without its many fans. And last year, Starz execs seemed destined to jump on the bandwagon of offering a standalone streaming service for people who didn’t also want to pay for cable TV packages. But now the network’s CEO is saying he’s in no rush to offer such a product. [More]
year of the cord cutter
Verizon Makes HBO Now Available To FiOS Customers
By 7.29.15
Since the spring launch of HBO Now, the streaming service that allows you to get HBO content without having to pay for a cable TV package, New York-based Cablevision was the only pay-TV/broadband provider selling subscriptions directly to its customers. Now the folks at Verizon have seen that there’s money to be made from people who want TV but don’t want cable, and is making HBO Now available for its FiOS and other broadband customers. [More]
Comcast’s Broadband Customers Officially Outnumber Its Cable Subscribers
By 7.23.15
The writing was on the wall last quarter when Comcast’s dropping pay-TV subscriber base was only 6,000 more than its growing pool of broadband customers, but with today’s release of the latest subscriber numbers it’s official: Comcast now has fewer cable customers than it does Internet subscribers. [More]
Netflix CEO Hints At How He Hopes To Get People To Pay More
By 7.16.15
With HBO successfully charging $15/month for a streaming service and the $11/month sticker price for Showtime’s new online offering, why does Netflix continue to charge as little as $8/month without running ads like Hulu does (for the same rate) or without the huge online retail business to back it like Amazon Prime? [More]
HBO Now Finally Launching On Android
By 7.16.15
Now that Apple’s exclusivity period has come and gone, users of Android devices will finally be able to access HBO Now, the standalone streaming service that lets users access HBO content online without having to pay for a basic cable package (or borrow a friend’s HBO Go password). [More]
Comcast’s “Stream” Online TV Service Is Basically Aereo With HBO
By 7.13.15
Comcast is, by far, the biggest cable TV provider in the country, but its pay-TV numbers is sinking while its Internet user base grows. In an effort to sell some sort of TV service to this increasingly large segment of the market, the folks at Kabletown are testing an online-only live-TV service dubbed Stream. [More]
Lifetime Bets On Cord-Cutters Willing To Pay $3.99/Month For Streaming Library Of Schlocky TV Movies
By 7.2.15
Are you thinking about getting rid of cable but simply can’t because you have to catch the next Lifetime Movie Network schlockfest starring actors from ’80s and ’90s TV shows alongside 20-something Canadian thespians pretending to be American high school students? Then you may be in luck, as Lifetime’s parent company is launching a $3.99 on-demand streaming subscription service just for you. [More]
Why Cord-Cutters Aren’t Getting The Holy Grail TV Of Streaming Services Just Yet
By 5.14.15
As a growing number of consumers drop — or never sign up for — traditional pay-TV services, it’s easy to point to Netflix as a big reason. And yet, Netflix and similar services don’t actually replace the TV experience, especially when it comes to sports. Newer offerings, like Sling TV and PlayStation Vue, replicate the live TV watching experience, but falter compared to traditional pay-TV when it comes to things like DVR functionality. What’s stopping the big players from offering an all-in-one online service now? [More]
Standalone Showtime Service Confirmed To Launch In Coming Months
By 5.7.15
While CBS Corp. didn’t provide any pricing details today on the long-hinted-at standalone Showtime streaming service (a la HBO Now), the company did confirm that it will indeed be giving consumers this new cable-free option at some point in the coming months. [More]
Showtime May Soon Announce Standalone Streaming Service
By 4.24.15
Back in Nov. 2014, CBS CEO Les Moonves said that his company’s Showtime network would “fairly definitively” launch some sort of standalone streaming service in 2015. Since then, there hasn’t really been much news about it. But since HBO has launched HBO Now without the world coming to an end, it looks like it might be time for CBS to unveil that service. [More]
