This week on TechHive: Solutions to streaming frustrations
Last week, Accenture published a survey that expressed widespread annoyance with streaming TV.
Consumers are frustrated, the firm said, with having to manually browse through lots of different apps and menus to find what they want, and they pined for smarter recommendations that accounted for their viewing habits across all apps. Respondents also chafed at “inefficient” subscriptions full of content they’ll never watch.
None of this is surprising. For years, I’ve written about the overly siloed nature of streaming TV, and how we need better universal guides to make sense of all the options. But as we head into 2022, much of what users claim to want does, in fact, already exist. With just a bit of up-front effort, you can solve some of streaming TV’s biggest frustrations today. Read the full column on TechHive.
Weekly rewind
Sinclair’s NBA breakthrough: Sinclair’s plans to launch a standalone regional sports streaming service are coming together. The owner of Bally Sports networks announced a deal with the NBA this week, granting it local streaming rights for 16 teams. A previously-announced deal with the NHL gives Sinclair local streaming rights for 12 hockey teams as well.
Baseball is still the wild card. Sinclair currently has streaming rights for four teams—the Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Miami Marlins, and Kansas City Royals—but MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed resistance to any blanket deals. Even so, the league is suffering from a lack of affordable streaming options, as the cheapest way to stream Bally Sports right now is via DirecTV Stream’s $90 per month “Choice” package. In markets covered by those channels, baseball viewership tanked last season.
Sinclair hasn’t announced pricing or a release date for its service, but a New York Post report from last June said the company was targeting a price of $23 per month. Stay tuned.
An Olympics update: NBCUniversal has released more details on its winter Olympics streaming plans after announcing last week that all live events will stream on Peacock Premium. The $5 per month service will also stream on-demand replays of all events immediately after they’re over, NBCU says, and it will carry four exclusive daily shows that don’t appear on cable. Meanwhile, pay TV subscribers can see all events by logging into the NBC Sports app or NBC Olympics website, so they won’t miss any event coverage even without a Peacock subscription.
As I mentioned last week, this is a major course correction after NBC’s widely-panned summer Olympics coverage last year, and it’s arguably an encouraging sign for the future of streaming sports. Forcing viewers to have expensive pay TV bundles for major sporting events isn’t the winning strategy it used to be; instead of signing up, many of them will simply tune out.
Roku’s Live TV zone: Roku has added a new “Live TV” section to the sidebar of its home screen, providing quicker access to the company’s free streaming channels and grid guide. You’ll also find links to other apps that include live content, including cable alternatives such as Sling TV and standalone services such as Paramount+.
Sadly, this is but a baby step toward what I’d really like to see from Roku, which is full integration of other streaming sources into its own grid guide. Fire TV and Google TV devices both offer this kind of unified channel guide already, so you can see what’s on services like YouTube TV, Sling TV, and Pluto TV straight from your home screen. It’s too bad that Roku, once a champion of neutrality, continues to prioritize its own content over other sources.
Anyway, if you’d rather not see this new section on your Roku device, you can disable it under Settings > Home Screen.
More catch-up
- Oh dear: DirecTV and Dish want to merge again.
- Apple’s in “serious talks” to stream national weekday MLB games.
- The Nvidia Shield TV gets a modest update to Android 11.
- Protocol has a good interview on what’s next for Google TV.
- Frndly TV gets the Family Movie Classics channel.
- By me: Vizio makes its smart TV software harder to avoid, but there’s a fix.
- Helpful reminder from The Streamable: Cancel your live sports add-ons now if you signed up just for NFL Redzone.
Save more money
HBO Max is currently offering 20% discounts on both its ad-supported and ad-free plans for new and returning subscribers. Sign up by January 25, and you can lock in a year of service at $8 per month with ads or $12 per month without ads. Those are discounts of $2 per month and $3 per month, respectively, and you can cancel anytime.
Also notable: The Roku Ultra is on sale for $70, down from the usual $100. It’s not a record low, but a decent deal on a speedy Roku box with an Ethernet jack, USB port, and a remote with a built-in headphone jack.
Thanks for reading!
As always, send me your most pressing cord cutting questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them. Just reply to this email to get in touch.
Until next week,
Jared
Cord Cutter Weekly is a labor of love by tech journalist Jared Newman. Say hi on Twitter, and spread the word that there’s a better kind of TV out there.