Category: TV
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Rebundling Sports in the US
Interesting news in the US, where Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Fox have announced a new as-yet-unnamed streaming service that will combine all their sports offerings into a single subscription. Combining the resources of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV and ESPN+ into a single…
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Three TV Classics Still Not Available To Stream
There is, of course, an endless list of shows and films that are not available to stream on any platform. But I wanted to examine three series, all dating from the mid-eighties to mid-nineties that are still not available in the UK, but some of which have been appearing in the US. Last autumn Moonlighting…
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Premier League Rights 2025/26 – 2028/29 UK TV Deal
This evening, the first games in Amazon’s deal for TV rights to two rounds of the Premier League get underway. But Amazon’s coverage ends after next season’s Festive period games, because from the 2025/26 season, they will no longer have live rights. Amazon, you will recall, have the rights to a midweek round of games…
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GCN+ Closing Down
There was some sad news on Wednesday, when Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) announced that GCN+ will be closing down in December this year. Unfortunately, it perhaps wasn’t surprising news set against a plurality of WBD sports brands and a massive need for WBD to cut costs throughout its business to service an enormous debt load.…
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The Rising Cost of Streaming
There seems to be barely a week that goes by right now when a streaming service doesn’t announce a price hike of some description. And I’ve just had an email from Netflix about their price increase. Here, as far as I can tell, are some of the UK price rises coming soon. Netflix says that…
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Premier League UK TV Rights – More Games, Fewer Packages
Regular readers will know that I’m a little obsessed with the TV rights to Premier League football, and I only last wrote about the upcoming rights round a month ago. According to the very well connected FT (£), the Premier League is likely to offer fewer rights packages this time around, but with more games…
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Channel 4 and DOGs
Taskmaster returned to Channel 4 this week, with an all-new line-up of contestants. Having got drenched in rain on my way home, I was ready for some stupid challenges performed by comedians. But when I turned on, I was treated to the above image. In the TV world a “Digital On-Screen Graphic”, or DOG, is…
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Popularity Contest – Streaming vs Linear in 2023
The most recent episode of the new(ish) podcast Search Engine with PJ Vogt asked the simple question, “Why is it so hard to figure out how many people watched Stranger Things?” The question was posed by actor Maya Hawke who appears on the Netflix show. And it opened up an in-depth discussion about audience measure…
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ESPN, Charter, The Cable Bundle and the Future
I have been fascinated by the recently resolved standoff in the US TV industry between the second biggest cable provider in the country, Charter Communications, and one of the biggest TV providers, Disney. Over the US Open tennis final at the weekend, and the start of the opening weekend of the new NFL season, millions…
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Premier League UK TV Rights
There’s a good piece in the FT from earlier this week (£) that examines the forthcoming kick-off the next set of UK Premier League TV rights. The current set of rights agreements expire at the end of the 2024/5 season, and with the 2023/4 season just getting underway, it means that the time is right…
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Netflix and Live Streaming
Over the past couple of months, Netflix has dipped its foot into the world of live streaming. Back in March, they broadcast a Chris Rock comedy special live. I can’t think of a real reason for making it available live, aside from building up some audience excitement. But I’ve no doubt it was a useful…
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Max
With Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) having yesterday confirmed what everyone expected, that the new combined HBO-Max/Discovery+ streaming offer will now be called simply “Max“, I have a few questions about what true global ambitions WBD has for the service. To date, HBO Max has only been available in a relatively narrow list of countries. Having…