Weekly Rewind
Netflix-by-voice with Google Home: If you’re an early adopter of the Google Home connected speaker, now you can use it to launch Netflix videos on Chromecast. The setup’s a bit convoluted, though: You must open the Google Home app, then head to Devices, then tap the menu button on your Home device, then head to More > Videos and photos, and finally link your Netflix account.
Once you’ve jumped through those hoops, you can say, “OK Google, watch [show or movie] on Netflix on Chromecast.” Assuming you’ve set up HDMI-CEC on your television, it’ll automatically turn on and start playing the video. I couldn’t get this working on my Nvidia Shield Android TV (which has Chromecast capabilities built-in), but it worked flawlessly on my first-generation Chromecast. Is this truly useful? I’m not sure, but the coolness factor is through the roof.
Cord cutting slows, thanks to skinny bundles: Talk to enough people about ditching cable TV, and you’ll hear the same story come up repeatedly: They were on the verge of cutting the cord, when the cable company countered with an amazing deal on basic TV networks and Internet service. As a bundle, both services would be cheaper than Internet alone.
A new survey by PwC provides more evidence for this trend. Although the rate of cord cutting was slower than expected in 2016, cable subscribers are shrinking their TV packages at a faster rate. (The rate of pay TV subscribership is still down overall, from 79 percent last year to 76 percent in 2016.)
One other interesting takeaway from that survey: Of those people who reduced their cable packages, roughly half are now paying more for TV content than they did a year ago. PwC speculates that these customers are willing to pay extra because the streaming video experience is better than cable. That’s what I’ve been saying, too.
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