Is this the future of prime time TV?

[Allyance]

I have enjoyed watching Seal Team from the beginning, now in it's fifth season. Last night was the last episode (S5 E4) that will be on cable TV. To watch new episodes requires a subscription to CBS Paramount+, which I feel is the greediest trick CBS could have done, discontinuing a program in the middle of a 3 part series of episodes. I am retired on a fixed income, I can't to subscribe to every networks streaming service to watch favorite programs. I use Apple TV+ and Comcast cable for all my programing. Is this the way network TV is going? I also support my local PBS channel with a modest $5 per month so I can have access to their Passport shows on Apple TV. Tried NBC's Peacock and didn't like it.

 

[SkiHound2]

I think that what we think of as traditional cable television is a dead technology walking. I'm afraid a piecemeal "pay to stream" approach to programming is the future and they'll find a way to extract more coin from viewers. There are more and more paid streaming services and each has a somewhat narrow, and in some cases exclusive, programming. I do agree that moving an ongoing series from OTA to paid streaming is nasty. But that's what corporations do. They don't care about people, they seek to maximize profits for share holders. I'll guess they will increasingly move popular programing to the streaming service.

 

[Juicy Box]

I can't to subscribe to every networks streaming service to watch favorite programs.

Just subscribe to one, watch what you want to watch, then cancel your sub and move on to another streaming service. You can only watch so much content in a given period of time, so why subscribe to a bunch of different streaming services.

I have been doing this for years now, and the only one now keep 100% of the time is Prime Video, and that is just because I use other benefits of Prime.

Netflix used to also be a service that I perpetually kept, but their rates kept increasing and other services started offering more, and I really dislike how they charge extra for the 4K streams. Back in 2020, I cancelled Netflix after paying for the services for over 10 years straight.

I recently signed back up with them, with the intentions of canceling after the next season of The Witcher gets released and I watch it. Until then, I am catching up on some TV Shows that are on Netflix.

Prior to signing up with Netflix again, I canceled Hulu. There isn't anything I watch on Hulu, so it might be a long while before I sign up to it again.

Earlier this year, I cancelled Disney+ after having it for a few months. I will probably get it again when the next season of The Mandalorian gets released.


The point is, you do not have to pay a lot to have access to a lot of content.

 

[w5jck]

Well if the Fall American TV season is any indication, the tradition broadcast networks won’t be broadcasting much programming of interest to me any more. There are only a handful of shows on this season that are even watchable. Mostly just garbage. The cancelled a lot of good shows from last season. On cable, they have garbage too. The Discovery network of channels basically just show reruns on their channels, and most of the programming has nothing to do with history, science, learning, or anything other than scripted so-called reality garbage. There are very few cable channels left that consistently have decent programming. Even PBS sucks now. PBS shows a month of reruns followed by 2 or 3 weeks of their Beg Fest where they annoy you to death wanting contributions while showing you the same damn ancient reruns they have used for the Beg Fest for a decade! Meh….

What I do these days is watch broadcast TV via an antenna, then get a few streaming services that I switch out from time to time as I run out of new shows. I tend to use Hulu, Netflix, CuriosityStream, Britbox, and MotorTrend by rotating to 2 or 3 of them at a time, then later I will rotate to a different one. I also use Philo to get the basic cable channels for about $22/mo. I already have Amazon Prime which includes their Prime Video service, but you won’t get that much free through them. There are also some free streaming services like Pluto, tubi, etc., but they mostly only carry old reruns.

 

[Allyance]

Paramount App:

Cost isn't the only risk.

 

[w5jck]

True, but you can‘t get on the internet without dealing with tracking. 25 years ago we shredded our personal information before putting it in the trash. Now we have to also be very cautious online. Even your internet provider probably sells your tracking information to data mining companies. We have to just understand that if we go online, we WILL get tracked by someone or some company to some extent. BTW, cable/satellite companies routinely track what you watch, and use it to negotiate with channel providers, plus they probably sell that information too.

So change your passwords fairly often. Use unique passwords for each sign in. Use a long password which has random characters rather than words. And be as careful as you can.

 

[Allyance]

I know what you are saying is true and I do use unique passwords for each site. I was just comparing the Paramount App to others I have seen in the App Store, and theirs seemed excessive. Since I like many of the programs on CBS, I will probably end up using the App.

 

[gigatoaster]

I never understood the need for subscription for TV shows. They have been available for many years now on www.rarbgaccess.org but you would need qBittorrent. This is working well, have you tried, yet?