This week on TechHive: Yes, you can still stream network TV shows for free

Jared Newman
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March 12, 2021

With last week’s launch of Paramount+, one could almost hear the collective groan from cord-cutters. Much like Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and NBC’s Peacock, it represents yet another streaming service to think about paying for.

While the launch of Paramount+ got all the attention—perhaps undeservedly, given that it’s just a rebranded CBS All Access—the bigger news slipped under the radar: Parent company ViacomCBS also launched a separate, standalone version of the CBS app. Unlike both Paramount+ and CBS Access before it, the new app lets you watch on-demand CBS shows for free.

For years, free network TV apps from NBC, Fox, ABC have felt like one of the best-kept secrets in streaming. Now that CBS has joined them, you can watch new shows from all the major networks without paying a dime. Read the full column on TechHive.

Weekly rewind

ESPN’s big NHL deal: The slow unbundling of sports from cable continues with a seven-year deal between ESPN and the NHL. The deal, which starts in the 2021-2022 season, will make 75 nationally-televised games exclusive to ESPN+ and Hulu each year, and it will put the Stanley Cup finals on ABC for four of the next seven years, with an option for ESPN+ to simulcast them. ESPN and ABC will also carry half of all playoff games prior to the finals. (No mention of ESPN+ simulcasting there.)

Perhaps more notably, NHL TV is going away after the current season, and all those out-of-market games will move to ESPN+, which costs $6 per month or $60 per year. That’s less than half the pre-pandemic price of NHL TV alone.

Of course, the deal doesn’t help with in-market games—those remain tied to regional sports networks for now—and the playoff coverage picture still looks a bit cloudy. For diehard hockey fans, big TV bundles will still be necessary for the foreseeable future.

March Madness’ app upgrades: Speaking of streaming sports, the NCAA has come up with some clever ideas for this year’s March Madness app. If you fill out a bracket with the NCAA’s official Bracket Challenge site, you can check on it directly through streaming TV apps and get reminders on which team you’re supposed to root for during the games. The apps will also include condensed game replays, a “Catch Up” feature that shows just the highlights of games in progress, and an interactive tab with polls and quizzes.

Not that any of this changes how you’ll actually access the games. As in previous years, March Madness’ TV apps will offer three hours of free viewing time, at which point you’ll have to log in with a pay TV provider to keep watching. (Games on CBS will stream for free on mobile devices and the web.) Still, it’s nice to see an app imagine ways to do more than just replicate the cable experience.

Netflix’s password proof experiment: Netflix has confirmed that it’s testing a new kind of enforcement against password sharing. In an image widely circulated on Twitter this week, the Netflix app seems to ask for a code sent to the account holder’s phone or email address as an additional form of verification. The idea is to make sure the user actually lives with the account holder, and while the user can apparently skip the verification prompt, it’s unclear what happens if they do. (Netflix also hasn’t said what exactly triggers those prompts in the first place.)

As I wrote over at Fast Company, casual password sharers probably shouldn’t freak out about this. Streaming services have so far been extremely wary about cracking down in a way that might annoy paying customers, and Netflix’s test could be targeted more at widespread, organized password trafficking than controlled sharing between friends of family members. Plus, there’s no guarantee it’ll graduate beyond the test phase at all. A spokesperson made sure to tell CNBC that it runs “hundreds” of tests per year, many of which presumably never see the light of day.

More catch-up

Save more money

NBC is currently offering four months of Peacock Premium for $10 total, which is half-off the regular $5 per month price. The deal is valid even if you’ve subscribed to Peacock before, and is for the ad-supported version of Peacock Premium, which offers more TV shows and sporting events than you’d get with the free version. (NBC is promoting the deal around its addition of the WWE Network, which will require a Premium subscription when it arrives on March 18.)

If you ask me, one of the most underrated tech skills is the ability to get out of your comfort zone, whether it’s by trying new things or rolling with unexpected changes. This week in my tech advice newsletter Advisorator, I wrote about an incredibly simple way to build up that technological muscle. I also wrote about a powerful new tool for Sonos speakers, an easy way out of iCloud photos, and Google’s unproven privacy promises.

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Okay folks, I’ve made it through almost the entirety of my email backlog, so I have a request of you: Ask me anything, no matter how basic. I was thinking back to a couple years ago, when I wrote a column answering some of your most pressing cord-cutting questions, and would love to do that again if enough responses come in. There are no stupid questions in cord cutting, so don’t by shy! Just reply to this email to get in touch.

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Until next week,

Jared