Weekly rewind
Like it or not, baseball’s on Facebook: Major League Baseball enraged some fans on Wednesday by streaming the Mets-Phillies game exclusively on Facebook. It’s one of 25 weekday afternoon games that will require a Facebook account to watch online, even if you’re already paying for MLB TV or a streaming bundle that carries local baseball.
It’s a bad look for the league given Facebook’s ongoing privacy scandal, but handing over a small batch of games as streaming exclusives is just a bad idea in general. Such deals may command more money, but they come at the cost of confusing and annoying the fans. As I noted in this week’s column, treating fans this way could have long-term consequences as younger viewers drift away from watching sports. Fortunately the same restrictions don’t apply to the weekly MLB games now streaming on Twitter.
PBS in the streaming age: Over at Cord Cutters News, Luke Bouma reports that a couple of PBS stations in Michigan and Texas will be shutting down. As broadcasters switch their channels to make way for new wireless data services, those PBS stations apparently decided the cost of moving wasn’t worthwhile.
PBS downplayed the news, noting that most viewers in those areas can still get PBS through different affiliates. The organization also pointed to its online streaming apps (both PBS and PBS Kids are available for free) and its Passport service that offers more on-demand content for $5 per month. Still, I don’t understand why PBS hasn’t shown up in any streaming TV bundles such as Sling TV, YouTube TV, and PlayStation Vue. PBS’s apps are great, but with some of its stations in peril, working with streaming bundles would allow the organization reach an even broader audience, and possibly sell more Passport subscriptions. I’d love to hear an explanation of what’s really happening here.
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