I know a few families who’ve cancelled all their streaming subscriptions, including Spotify, and have reverted to FTA and FM radio.
One of them have done it for roughly 3/4 months and believe they’ve saved over $400 so far.
They’re just happy with the 6pm news and nightly entertainment shows. On Fri and Sat they’ve been using some of that money to take the family out for dinner and more outdoor activities on the weekend.
When I asked them if they miss streaming they said it’s just too much content to keep up with and are quite happy to support Aussie TV and talent by watching the FTA entertainment shows.
Channels like 10Bold and 10Peach are like quasi-streaming channels - you turn on and know you’ll get NCIS/NCIS LA or Big Bang/Friends non-stop episode after episode - just someone else picks the episodes you will see; you don’t have to decide.
Ah, great point. You’ve reminded me I missed something above. The same family I was talking about also is happy with ABC 4 KIDS & ABC Me. They don’t have to always keep checking if the kids have accidentally gone off the kids section of Netflix etc. Apparently lots of arguments about what to watch. With ABC Me, they watch what’s on. No more arguments!
With FTA, you can press one button and leave it on in the background. With streaming however, you have to set up a show, it doesn’t turn on automatically. Also if the episode ends on streaming there is nothing in the background.
Yeah we’ve done a purge of streaming subscriptions but give it a few months then we might start re-joining but we don’t usually keep more than 2 or 3 going at a time.
I’m also doubtful that we will get Pluto TV in its entirety as a stand alone platform, there are already so many choices for content here and would further dilute audience share IMO.
Adding FAST channels to 10 play, as planned, is surely the way to go locally whilst ensuring that audiences are being served content they can’t get elsewhere for free.
I stayed at an AirBnB recently. The TV was connected to the internet, but not the antenna outlet. To watch TV, you had to start watching TV on your smartphone (and set this up beforehand), then cast to the TV.
This worked well - for me anyway, and I could even watch Foxtel if I wanted to as I am a subscriber. My roommates didn’t set up the FTA TV apps on their smartphones, so every time they turned on the TV and tried to watch something, nothing much happened. I had to set up a TV channel for them. They could have set up the FTA apps but they didn’t.
You could also access FTA TV via the FTA apps that the TV had built in, but it didn’t have all of them, and besides, you had to login to each of them in order to use them, then remember to clear the data before you leave. You could potentially login to the TV and download the missing apps, but given the security and logistical implications, no thanks.
I ended up logging into them just so that the other roommates could watch TV. I erased the data afterwards.
One problem is that in some cases on one particular FTA app, it showed the TV channel from my home location rather than the place I was at. Also, I was in a capital city. Had I been in a regional area, I wouldn’t have seen a local TV channel except in a few cases (e.g . 7 Network in regional Queensland).
Another problem is that if you cast certain apps to the TV, and it has the same app built in, the built in app logs you in without telling you anything. If one of those apps happens to be a streaming service, then the next guest gets free streaming until you do something about it. You have to remember to clear the data from the apps before you leave, or else disconnect the TV from your apps some other way (e.g. from the app if it supports this).
That’s the big issue. A decade ago it was basically a handful, even just one, big show which would tempt you to subscribe and you felt was “must see” TV. Now so much content is churned out it’s impossible to keep up with even all the flagship shows - sometimes less really is more.
I’ve cut back to just Netflix and Amazon (though have that more for deliveries than TV) - others I might sign up to with an offer or free trial, but even then my bank has been offering my six months Apple TV+ pretty much all year and I’ve just not bothered with it as I feel like I’ve so many unwatched shows from what I subscribe too already.
Apart from the too many shows on streaming issue as mentioned above, I’m actually quite happy at the moment watching Australia’s Got Talent, The Traitors and The Block. I haven’t found a need to stream lately. Another benefit is that it’s leaving me free later in the week and on weekends to actually get out and enjoy life. If I’m binging a show on streaming, I’m going to want to ( and have been) wasting my weekends away inside all day.
Thought this was the most appropriate place to post this given the many discussions about whether there’s demand for 9pm shows or are too many people watching streaming services to justify programs.
This is a pitch Rob McKnight made for a 9pm program.
For as long as I can remember, the TV networks have treated the 9/9:30 timeslot pretty poorly with content of really mixed quality, so it’s little wonder that people seek out other options.
The options have to be compelling to get people to watch - this doesn’t strike me as particularly compelling television
Really just sounds like a high budget, no advertorial Studio 10… if the networks thought they could pull off 4 day a week variety they would have tried it years ago when an audience still existed.
The audience for this kind of format in the US also skews extremely old.
Agree that if networks wanted it, they would have done a stripped “late night talk show” by now.
Even 10 haven’tgone down the path of a nightly show. And they have two popular talk shows at the moment (Have You Been Paying Attention on Mondays and The Cheap Seats on Tuesdays). Even in the past with The Panel (Wednesdays) and Rove (Tuesdays, then moved to Sundays).
10 do air repeats of The Project every night at around 11pm onwards though.
I think Ten have the right idea with comedy shows like Have You Been Paying Attention, The Cheap Seats and Gogglebox. I’d be investing in more shows like that for a Wednesday night slot and to fill the gaps when the shows are on a break.