This week on TechHive: How Disney’s Fox deal could collapse the TV bundle
Disney announced last week that it would spend a staggering $52 billion on Fox’s TV and movie businesses, and it wasn’t long before CEO Bob Iger started making big promises.

The deal, Iger said, would prepare Disney to “flip a switch” and distribute its most popular programs directly to consumers, rather than tying them to a TV bundle. Disney’s own streaming service, scheduled for 2019, could get rounded out by Fox-owned shows like The Simpsons. Hulu, under 60 percent Disney ownership, would focus on adult-oriented programming to take on Netflix. And ESPN, whose own standalone service is coming next year, could get a boost from Fox’s regional sports networks. Iger even hinted at letting people subscribe to all three services as a bundle.

Disney must convince regulators that its mega-merger won’t harm consumers, so it’s probably no accident that Iger’s vision sounds a lot like the a la carte model cord cutters have dreamed about for years. Still, the TV bundle is a long way from total collapse, and in the meantime, Disney will gain immense power over how much consumers will pay for all those channels. The result may be a faster decline for TV as we know it, but with plenty of consumer pain along the way. Read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly Rewind

A “crackdown” on password sharing? Bloomberg’s Gerry Smith has an interesting story this week on how the TV industry approaches password sharing for cable-authenticated apps, but the headline’s forecast of a looming “crackdown” seems overblown. As evidence, the piece points to Charter CEO Tom Rutledge, who’s been fretting about password sharing for at least two years now, and who recently struck a vaguely-defined deal with Viacom to minimize the practice. The story also quotes an ESPN VP as saying that simultaneous streams could drop from three, down from the current five and original 10.

That’s about as low as it’s likely to go, though. Rutledge aside, the industry generally seems more concerned with major abusers—the folks who are passing passwords to friends of friends, or even reselling access online—than with small groups of friends and family. HBO even continues to argue that password sharing isn’t a problem at all. If the industry really wants to tackle the issue, it should focus on making logins less of a hassle for legitimate subscribers—for instance, by allowing one-touch authentication through a smartphone—rather than tacking on more draconian security measures.

Streaming and OTA, together again: Channel Master is ditching its old over-the-air DVR box and embracing Android TV with the Stream+, a $99 4K streaming box with a coaxial input for hooking up an antenna. It uses Live Channels, an Android TV app developed by Google, to offer a 14-day channel guide and DVR features without subscription fees.

There’s just one major downside: Channel Master hasn’t gotten authorization to run Netflix on the Stream+, even though the app is technically available on Android TV devices through the Google Play Store. It’s unclear exactly what’s required to get Netflix’s blessing–the company ignored my request for comment on the matter–but for now, Channel Master is just hoping positive reviews and press coverage will get Netflix’s attention. I hope so too.

More Catch-Up

Save more money
Here’s another chance to get the Nvidia Shield TV for $30 off, as we’ve seen several times throughout the holiday shopping season. The 4K HDR streaming box is on sale for $149 with just a remote control, or for $169 with the remote and a game controller, which is also handy for hands-free Google Assistant voice commands. Both deals also include three months of YouTube Red service.

Given the repeated sales, I have a sneaking suspicion that Nvidia is planning a new model (or, less likely, discontinuing the Shield TV entirely). Even so, this box holds its own against the Apple TV 4K in performance, and has lots of neat features that Apple’s premium streaming box lacks, such as Plex server support and a strong gaming selection.

Thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. I’ll be working next week before heading off for vacation next Friday, so you can expect one more TechHive column and newsletter before the new year. (I promise the column will be more fun than my last few.)

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Until next week,
Jared