Definitely going to have to get a free trial at some point! Think we may have to start rotating streaming services, currently sharing Netflix and crunchyroll, but would like to see Dune and I think we're going to blitz Disney+ at Christmas (free trial) for some movies.

Perhaps this is how it should be though? Enough new content gets a subscription for a month or two. Worked with NowTV and Game of Thrones. Only prime is the odd one out, but we don't really watch anything on there regularly but do pay annually…

I think there is too many streaming services, they should put themself under one nametag and take it from there.

Looks like some worthwhile content but we already have Amazon prime and Disney+. I can't justify any more a month. Never understood why someone would pay Sky £50+ a month so I'm not going to do it for streaming.

HEXUS
However, due to the Sky / Now TV relationship in the UK it might not be available here..

Oh dear, how sad…

Honestly, the whole initial/permanent exclusivity rights with Sky needs to go, aren't these the same rights that were negotiated almost 30 years ago?

I don't want to give Sky any money but I also don't want a million streaming services, catch 22!

F*ck sky

I can't understand Sky's business practise. Here in the UK most households would love to have Sky sports mainly for football but are priced out on affordability. Unless I'm being stupid they are broadcasting it anyway nomatter how many people are using the service so other than installation costs it's there. If they just charged say , £20 per month , they would most likely increase their customer base a 100% and make more money. Pubs I know are dying out but I've seen so many stop because they are charged hundreds per month for it , rediculous. On the football side of things I hate Sky even more for the fact they got the rights for some of the England matches ,now that I find disgusting , our national side playing should be on regular TV. Pensioners and low income families can't afford these exhobitant prices to watch our boys playing in internationals , sick.

Does Forsell really think people should subscribe to this instead or as well as other services because of how they're presented, and is proud of “recommendations” based on both data and human involvement? Give me strength.

I'll tell you what would impress me, Mr. Forsell …. don't bother with presentation, and I'll just find what I want to watch. And do not track data on my usage. Oh, and for pities sake, let me turn off getting any “recommendations” at all. Just let me pick the content I want, and am paying for, and otherwise, keep your nose the hell out of what I watch or don't watch. I also have some ideas I'd pay to watch of where all these services can stick their “recommendations”.

So, this service might not even come to the UK?

DILLIGAD.

Let's subscribe to 100 services and pay £100s a month. At this point,these companies need to understand that splitting content amongst so many platforms,still means those with the widest coverage will win. As much as people moan about Sky and Netflix,once you add up these individual services it gets expensive,very quickly!

mers
I can't understand Sky's business practise. Here in the UK most households would love to have Sky sports mainly for football but are priced out on affordability. Unless I'm being stupid they are broadcasting it anyway nomatter how many people are using the service so other than installation costs it's there. If they just charged say , £20 per month , they would most likely increase their customer base a 100% and make more money. Pubs I know are dying out but I've seen so many stop because they are charged hundreds per month for it , rediculous. On the football side of things I hate Sky even more for the fact they got the rights for some of the England matches ,now that I find disgusting , our national side playing should be on regular TV. Pensioners and low income families can't afford these exhobitant prices to watch our boys playing in internationals , sick.

Sky is the reason we have to pay for many sports including Cricket,and why the BBC,ITV now don't broadcast many sports. They just outbid everyone else with very high bids. For example a mate of mine was watching the IPL for free on terrestrial TV until Sky stuck its fingers and paid for it. Now you need a subscription to Sky Cricket.

CAT-THE-FIFTH
Let's subscribe to 100 services and pay £100s a month. At this point,these companies need to understand that splitting content amongst so many platforms,still means those with the widest coverage will win. As much as people moan about Sky and Netflix,once you add up these individual services it gets expensive,very quickly!



Sky is the reason we have to pay for many sports including Cricket,and why the BBC,ITV now don't broadcast many sports. They just outbid everyone else with very high bids. For example a mate of mine was watching the IPL for free on terrestrial TV until Sky stuck its fingers and paid for it. Now you need a subscription to Sky Cricket.

All this does make me glad I have zero interest in watching most sports on TV, and not that much even in those I might watch a bit of if they happen to be on. But I'm more likely to pay in order to not watch cricket, rugby, football, etc.

CAT-THE-FIFTH
Sky is the reason we have to pay for many sports including Cricket,and why the BBC,ITV now don't broadcast many sports. They just outbid everyone else with very high bids. For example a mate of mine was watching the IPL for free on terrestrial TV until Sky stuck its fingers and paid for it. Now you need a subscription to Sky Cricket.

To me this is a positive, it means that I'm not subsidising other people who want to watch sport. If you have a non sport Sky package you're effectively subsidising those who want to watch the (mostly, at least financially speaking,) football. I was a bit miffed when BT got in on the gig as I now sub their sports fans via Openreach. Pleased they went down the NowTV route as I can pay for a couple of months in the summer for the cricket and the occasional day pass if they ever show my lower league team.

Saracen999
Does Forsell really think people should subscribe to this instead or as well as other services because of how they're presented, and is proud of “recommendations” based on both data and human involvement? Give me strength.

I'll tell you what would impress me, Mr. Forsell …. don't bother with presentation, and I'll just find what I want to watch. And do not track data on my usage. Oh, and for pities sake, let me turn off getting any “recommendations” at all. Just let me pick the content I want, and am paying for, and otherwise, keep your nose the hell out of what I watch or don't watch. I also have some ideas I'd pay to watch of where all these services can stick their “recommendations”.

So, this service might not even come to the UK?

DILLIGAD.

I appreciate I've said this before but if you haven't already you should really invest in a Pi-hole. A Pi costs buttons and it's less than an hour to get it all setup. Unless HBO Max is different to every streaming service I've seen the addresses for serving the content and for the adverts/analytic are separate. This means that with a quick bit of blocklisting the tv show gets through but sadly (for them,) the ads and analytics never quite make it. The only noticeable difference is some gaps in the UI where an ad should be.

Oh joy ANOTHER streaming platform that will use exclusives to get their cut of the pie….. media companies want the good old days of cable but on the internet and they wonder why people using streaming sites and other means of accessing their video's is on the rise again. People will happily pay for streaming services IF they don't need to spend close to £100 a month to get everything they want. Music streaming has shown that a fair price will work wonders when it comes to getting people to use legal services.

Lets see off the top of my head we have netflix with exclusive content, amazon with exclusive content, disney with exclusive content (not to mention fox, marvel etc), apple with exclusive content (to be fair I don't think anyone has paid for this yet), BT and crunchyroll (exclusive anime now) or funimation (assuming they have the licence for the show in the UK instead of netflix/amazon)… and they all keep seeming to increase price slightly each year in the name of more exclusives…

I'd love to see a government step in and have the balls to say that exclusives must be time limited and/or available on at least one other streaming network….


Mind you I wouldn't mind paying for multiple streaming sites if we could ditch the tv license fees, bbc and for that matter most other channels are filled with so much rubbish these days that the fee really doesn't feel worth it.

LSG501
Oh joy ANOTHER streaming platform that will use exclusives to get their cut of the pie….. media companies want the good old days of cable but on the internet and they wonder why people using streaming sites and other means of accessing their video's is on the rise again. People will happily pay for streaming services IF they don't need to spend close to £100 a month to get everything they want. Music streaming has shown that a fair price will work wonders when it comes to getting people to use legal services.

Lets see off the top of my head we have netflix with exclusive content, amazon with exclusive content, disney with exclusive content (not to mention fox, marvel etc), apple with exclusive content (to be fair I don't think anyone has paid for this yet), BT and crunchyroll (exclusive anime now) or funimation (assuming they have the licence for the show in the UK instead of netflix/amazon)… and they all keep seeming to increase price slightly each year in the name of more exclusives…

I'd love to see a government step in and have the balls to say that exclusives must be time limited and/or available on at least one other streaming network….


Mind you I wouldn't mind paying for multiple streaming sites if we could ditch the tv license fees, bbc and for that matter most other channels are filled with so much rubbish these days that the fee really doesn't feel worth it.

Playing Devils advocate for a moment, lets say a government does as you suggest. Surely one of 2 things happens?

1. If only 1 country does it Netflix et al just pull out of that country.
2. If they do it Neflix et al stop producing their own content. Why bother taking the financial risk in creating things when in 6 months (or whatever time period you set,) a rival service can pick them up (and they'll only pick the ones that succeeded.)

Saracen999
All this does make me glad I have zero interest in watching most sports on TV, and not that much even in those I might watch a bit of if they happen to be on. But I'm more likely to pay in order to not watch cricket, rugby, football, etc.

spacein_vader
To me this is a positive, it means that I'm not subsidising other people who want to watch sport. If you have a non sport Sky package you're effectively subsidising those who want to watch the (mostly, at least financially speaking,) football. I was a bit miffed when BT got in on the gig as I now sub their sports fans via Openreach. Pleased they went down the NowTV route as I can pay for a couple of months in the summer for the cricket and the occasional day pass if they ever show my lower league team.

The IPL was free AFAIK in the UK,its just Sky proactively goes and offers money for stuff. This is the problem,even stuff which shouldn't be expensive Sky pushes the price up off. Even things which probably are close to free,they step in and push the price up off.

Sky is owned by Comcast now. Hence they have tons of money to do this now.

LSG501
Oh joy ANOTHER streaming platform that will use exclusives to get their cut of the pie….. media companies want the good old days of cable but on the internet and they wonder why people using streaming sites and other means of accessing their video's is on the rise again. People will happily pay for streaming services IF they don't need to spend close to £100 a month to get everything they want. Music streaming has shown that a fair price will work wonders when it comes to getting people to use legal services.

Lets see off the top of my head we have netflix with exclusive content, amazon with exclusive content, disney with exclusive content (not to mention fox, marvel etc), apple with exclusive content (to be fair I don't think anyone has paid for this yet), BT and crunchyroll (exclusive anime now) or funimation (assuming they have the licence for the show in the UK instead of netflix/amazon)… and they all keep seeming to increase price slightly each year in the name of more exclusives…

I'd love to see a government step in and have the balls to say that exclusives must be time limited and/or available on at least one other streaming network….

Because they are still thinking in the old ways,where each had their little piece of the pie,and its the reason why piracy became a thing…..fragmentation.

LSG501
Mind you I wouldn't mind paying for multiple streaming sites if we could ditch the tv license fees, bbc and for that matter most other channels are filled with so much rubbish these days that the fee really doesn't feel worth it.

I would rather pay the TV license if I had to,etc because at least the BBC is a UK based broadcaster,and employs a lot of people here and if anything I would prefer any sort of license would also help local competitors such as ITV,etc. The film/tv industry is going through massive shocks now,and we do need to try and support them(not just the BBC IMHO).

Most of these big streaming services are foreign and already taxpayer funded via tax breaks,etc in the US,Europe,etc probably to the tune of millions if not billions of pounds.Their taxpayers are paying for them in other ways which are not so evident.

So we are essentially propping up foreign companies at the expense of our own. So I do not have much interest in paying too much to help prop up foreign companies. The problem is now when you start adding stuff up,its becoming a bit silly in total monthly expenditure.

This is a bigger reason for why I have an issue having to spend loads on tons of streaming services - how much of it benefits our local industries? People complain about £150 for the TV license,but if you are paying £100 a month for services,that is 10X the amount already,and most of that is flowing out of the country.

Its not only the UK which is having this problem,in many countries the local film industries and local media services,are finding it harder and harder to compete against these huge multi-national media companies,and they are just buying up more and more smaller local competitors or driving them out of business.

Do we really want most of the media we consume,made by huge media companies,owned by a few business people located in a few countries?? Its already starting to happen. Look at what is happening in Australia now,and the blowback against this!

We really should be trying to build up our industry here somewhat more. Yes,these foreign companies do make series and films here,but I suspect most of the billions they make is flowing back to their countries of incorporation and helping their taxpayers.

With Covid being a thing,and companies moving more and more to virtual sets,it is not going to help our film/tv industries longterm.

Friesiansam
Oh dear, how sad, never mind…

Comple'ed the quote for you, sah!

spacein_vader
Playing Devils advocate for a moment, lets say a government does as you suggest. Surely one of 2 things happens?

1. If only 1 country does it Netflix et al just pull out of that country.
2. If they do it Neflix et al stop producing their own content. Why bother taking the financial risk in creating things when in 6 months (or whatever time period you set,) a rival service can pick them up (and they'll only pick the ones that succeeded.)

They'd still get paid a ‘fair’ rate by the other company (syndication or whatever it's called) or, using netflix as an example, they'd do a content swap… I never suggested it should be free lol. Also remember with all these ‘big media’ streaming coming along there will be less content available for the likes of netflix because they'll be keeping for themselves…. if you get rid of netflix and you allow the ‘big media’ to run everything we can be sure the prices will ramp up far quicker than they are now.

CAT-THE-FIFTH
I would rather pay the TV license if I had to,etc because at least the BBC is a UK based broadcaster,and employs a lot of people here and if anything I would prefer any sort of license would also help local competitors such as ITV,etc. The film/tv industry is going through massive shocks now,and we do need to try and support them(not just the BBC IMHO).

if you ignore the news can you honestly say there has been anything ‘new’ from the bbc that couldn't have been funded by adverts like itv etc…. not to mention a lot of the bbc stuff is outsourced to other countries too.

Most of these big streaming services are foreign and already taxpayer funded via tax breaks,etc in the US,Europe,etc probably to the tune of millions if not billions of pounds.Their taxpayers are paying for them in other ways which are not so evident.

So we are essentially propping up foreign companies at the expense of our own. So I do not have much interest in paying too much to help prop up foreign companies. The problem is now when you start adding stuff up,its becoming a bit silly in total monthly expenditure.

pretty sure we're already one of the largest subsidising countries in the EU when it comes to tv/movies….

This is a bigger reason for why I have an issue having to spend loads on tons of streaming services - how much of it benefits our local industries? People complain about £150 for the TV license,but if you are paying £100 a month for services,that is 10X the amount already,and most of that is flowing out of the country.

I don't think streaming is worth £100 a month either, £30ish would be my limit. I can probably speak for most people on here and say we all know how to get things via alternative means or the tried and tested trial periods etc so I don't think many if any would be willing to pay £100 a month on streaming, at the end of the day I doubt anyone wants to pay for just ‘one show’ (think Mandalorian on Disney)

Its not only the UK which is having this problem, in many countries the local film industries and local media services,are finding it harder and harder to compete against these huge multi-national media companies,and they are just buying up more and more smaller local competitors or driving them out of business.

To be fair that's not just in the media sector (and I sort of work in it), the current legislations in the UK and abroad have allowed companies like Amazon, Google, Disney, Apple, MS, Facebook etc to have far too much financial power/control over competitors etc.

Do we really want most of the media we consume,made by huge media companies,owned by a few business people located in a few countries?? Its already starting to happen. Look at what is happening in Australia now,and the blowback against this!

If you dig down deep enough, most of the major tv shows already are….and to be honest I don't really care where stuff is made as long as it's ‘good’ and they're paid fairly.

We really should be trying to build up our industry here somewhat more. Yes,these foreign companies do make series and films here,but I suspect most of the billions they make is flowing back to their countries of incorporation and helping their taxpayers.

well wasn't that the ‘idea’ behind the bbc, ‘british’ tv paid for by the tv license etc, I remember when I was young and the bbc was pushing out decent, almost cutting edge content… now what do we get, strictly come dancing and stuff that's supposedly funny but is just basically stupidity etc, I don't think anyone would mind if the bbc actually produced ‘decent’ stuff still but lets be honest a large portion of the bbc is repeats or ‘reality’ type shows now.

It's not just about new shows either, the bbc is allowed to waste millions on presenters on popular shows, where it's usually the show that is popular, when realistically they could be using up and coming talent at far lower prices. I wouldn't mind supporting that sort of approach rather than paying liniker his millions for a show about kicking a ball around by overpaid players (I'm not exactly a fan of their wages either, but I don't pay towards that).

It's almost like WB are asking punters to pirate their stuff given the rights and how generally terrible NowTV is in terms of bitrate and resolution, and the devices that actually support it. Not that I would ever condone it but it really reminds me of the Oatmeal GoT strip ( https://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones )