| Sometimes just one channel stands in the way of someone cutting the cable TV cord. And given what I’ve heard from readers, it can often be something niche like The Hallmark Channel.
For those prospective cord-cutters, a new streaming called service Frndly TV might be the answer. It starts at $6 per month and has a dozen cable channels, including The Hallmark Channel (plus its Movies & Mysteries and Drama offshoots), The Weather Channel, and Outdoor Channel.
Frndly TV is by far the cheapest and most focused live TV streaming package yet, and while it might not have everything cord-cutters want or need, it could supplement other streaming services and spare folks from getting much more expensive channel bundles. In a perfect world, we’d have a lot more options like it. Read the full column on TechHive. |
| The password sharing crackdown that wasn’t: Over at Fast Company this week, I wrote about how we keep hearing about an impending crackdown on password sharing for TV network apps, only for little to come of it. The instigator is usually Charter CEO Tom Rutledge, who’s made a point of complaining publicly about password sharing since at least 2015, and has steadily enlisted networks such as Disney and Viacom to collaborate on stopping it.
As I wrote in the story, preventing people from sharing their cable TV logins isn’t easy–at least not without annoying legitimate customers–and not everyone in the industry believes password sharing is a major problem anyway. While some companies are working on novel ways to prevent password sharing, even they admit that it’ll be a while until those methods come to fruition. In other words, if you’ve been mooching someone else’s cable login to use apps like HBO Go or ESPN, you can be fairly confident that a crackdown isn’t imminent.
Roku’s kid content push: The Roku Channel isn’t just for grown-ups anymore. The free app now has a kids section with thousands of ad-supported movies and shows, all picked by humans. If you subscribe to video services such as HBO or Noggin through The Roku Channel, their child-friendly videos will also appear in this new section (without ads).
The human curation angle is probably an answer to YouTube, whose machine-driven recommendations can sometimes send kids down a bad path. But the section as a whole may be a response to the growing number of streaming services that are catering to kids. CBS is adding children’s programming to its All Access service later this year, and Apple TV received a Kids section in its TV app in May. Meanwhile, the launch of Disney+ and its huge back catalog of family-friendly programming looms large. With The Roku Channel essentially becoming a hub for all kinds of content, adding a kids section was a logical step.
YouTube’s original confusion: I wish I could tell you that starting September 24, you can stream YouTube Originals without a $12 per month YouTube Premium subscription. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. While YouTube says it will start making originals free on that date, it will also stagger out free episodes so you may not get to watch them all at one time. YouTube also has a long list that will still require a Premium subscription, except in a subset of cases where it will also makes some episodes free on a different timeline.
This seems like a pretty convoluted scheme given that the whole point of making Originals free is to get more people to actually watch them. So here’s the main thing to know: The first season of the excellent Karate Kid successor Cobra Kai will be free on YouTube from August 29 to September 11, and the second season will have a free run sometime after that.
Disney+ snubs Amazon: When Disney+ launches on November 12, it’ll have apps for Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. Conspicuously absent from that list is Amazon and its Fire TV devices, even though Disney CEO Bob Iger called out Amazon by name as a possible distributor during an earnings call earlier this month.
The absence of Disney+ on Fire TV devices probably won’t last long. My guess is the two companies are squabbling over revenue share for in-app subscriptions, or possibly inclusion in Amazon’s Channels service. Maybe Disney’s announcement of platform support three months out from the actual launch was meant to apply a little extra pressure. Either way, it’ll be in both their best interests to work something out quickly. |
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| If you want get smarter about technology beyond the world of cord-cutting, please check out my other newsletter, Advisorator. With each issue, I’ll help you get more out of your phone, computer, and other tech products, and I’ll also send occasional deal alert emails so you can save even more money. Sign up for a free trial, and you’ll also get the latest issue, covering Apple’s take on the credit card, a handy trick for fingerprint readers, and more. Thanks for your support! |
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| Thanks for reading! |
| Oh yes, friends, we are at last arriving at that busy time of the year, with new streaming services on the way, devices to review, and features to play with. Thanks for giving me some space in your inbox to talk about it. If you have any questions or comments, just reply to this email.
Until next week,
Jared |
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