ScreenHits TV To Launch Streaming Aggregator To Combat 'Subscription Fatigue' (hollywoodreporter.com) 47
Technology company ScreenHits is launching ScreenHits TV, a streaming video aggregator app that lets consumers bundle different services together in a single interface. From a report: The service creates a one-stop electronic programming guide where users can search the libraries of both free and subscription streaming platforms, as well as live online TV without jumping from platform to platform and without having to repeatedly sign up for new services. Subscribers of SVOD platforms such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, MUBI and other streaming services, including BBC iPlayer, can integrate their existing services within the app, which is set to go live across multiple territories, including the U.S. and the U.K., by the end of this month. Entry-level subscriptions to ScreenHits will start at $1.99 per month and will initially be available on Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple Store, Google Chrome, Android and for the desktop.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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2nd that, although getting just one streaming service is tempting but I haven't checked them out, don't like DRM and don't want their crappy bloatware software on my PC.
Comes built in to Apple TV (Score:3)
The Apple TV app (not the same as Apple TV+) does exactly this, only probably with greater functionality - you can go there to see shows you were in the middle of watching across multiple video streaming apps, and searches work across not just apps you have installed but video streaming apps generally, even ones you have not installed...
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Roku does the same via both the app and its settop devices.
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Re: Comes built in to Apple TV (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:3)
Ive had discussions about this quite a bit. I dislike having to have subscriptions everywhere, eventually its going to be as expensive or more expensive than premium cable.
The app could be at least part of the solution, I hope they do the app well though. I never did like applications that try to streamline like that. Those multi-platform instant message apps come to mind. They fundamentally work, but without the best features of any platform.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)
I didn't understand how it works...TFA states:
Entry-level subscriptions to ScreenHits will start at $1.99/£1.99 per month and will initially be available on Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple Store, Google Chrome, Android and for the desktop.
For $1.99 I doubt I am getting NetFlix, AmazonPrime, Disney+ or other paid content. They probably give unified access to the free services (IMDB.tv, etc.)
I envision either they will still require you to subscribe to the individual services and then provide them with credentials for each service....they will provided a unified interface (other services already do similar for search), or you pay them an aggregate amount and they will subscribe for you and do the account setup for you.
Either way I doubt it will be cheaper...probably more expensive if they are taking a cut. But it may be more convenient if you don't need to mess with individual subscriptions and people may pay a premium for that.
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I didn't understand how it works...TFA states:
Entry-level subscriptions to ScreenHits will start at $1.99/£1.99 per month and will initially be available on Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple Store, Google Chrome, Android and for the desktop.
For $1.99 I doubt I am getting NetFlix, AmazonPrime, Disney+ or other paid content. They probably give unified access to the free services (IMDB.tv, etc.)
I envision either they will still require you to subscribe to the individual services and then provide them with credentials for each service....they will provided a unified interface (other services already do similar for search), or you pay them an aggregate amount and they will subscribe for you and do the account setup for you.
Either way I doubt it will be cheaper...probably more expensive if they are taking a cut. But it may be more convenient if you don't need to mess with individual subscriptions and people may pay a premium for that.
For $1.99 you're not getting Netflix, AmazonPrime, Disney+ or anything. For $1.99 subscription you are letting them curate your already existing Netflix, AmazonPrime, and Disney+ subscriptions.
You still have to pay the streaming services yourself and then pay ScreenHits on top of that.
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Yeah that's the impression I got as well. But having a single app to run them all is definitely an improvement; and closer in a user experience sort of way to what we might get with cable. You know... a basic package still has the channels for HBO, but you'll get a message indicating you don't have the service if you try to access it.
It's funny in a way, I couldn't imagine if I had to make other payments for a service to different places. So if I say for example, I'm paying $50/month for my TV services.
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There's no advertising.
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I dislike having to have subscriptions everywhere, eventually its going to be as expensive or more expensive than premium cable.
You're doing it wrong. You do have to juggle a bit, but the best thing is to binge, cancel, sign up for next service and repeat until the first one has enough content to binge on again. This is still way cheaper (and better) than premium cable.
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100%! =)
Actually my comments on it becoming more expensive than premium cable have more to do with the fact that my wife gets addicted to shows either on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video (Whatever they call that one), and my step daughter needs her Disney movie fixes.
The real issue I've seen is the move from licensing shows to different cable companies from networks, to networks exclusively hosting their own content for that sweet, sweet sub income. Disclaimer, I don't actually understand how the system works
Give it another 6-12 months... (Score:1)
Personally I'm just hoping Epic Games Chinese (Tencent) Spyware dies fast so games go back to Steam already.
Back to cable (Score:3)
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TV: Pay for a bundle? Why would I want that? Just bill be specifically for what I use
The grass is always greener on the other side
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Internet: Pay by the GB? Why would I want that? Just bill me whatever so for unlimited usage TV: Pay for a bundle? Why would I want that? Just bill be specifically for what I use The grass is always greener on the other side
Not remotely similar. Internet service is a question of metered vs. unmetered, whereas cable TV is a question of paying for specific channels' content versus paying for a bunch of channels' content, some of which you don't want or care about.
If your flat-rate ISP came bundled with free access to sports events via ESPN.com, Sirius XM online, and Netflix, with no way to unbundle any of those things, then it would be comparable.
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All the effort focused into a hand full of channels, producing quality content for free, some of which is still worth watching today.
The grass is always greener in the 20th century.
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Bundles exist for valid reasons and they're very cost effective for what they provide, but people are shortsighted. Yea, maybe you don't want to pay an extra few bucks a month for ESPN, TBS, and USA Network, but what you get out of it is cheaper than paying individually for HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, and Peacock
Only because they're all trying to bleed more money out of each customer. A more players enter the market, there will be increasing resistance to joining new services, and thus increasing pressure to cross-license content.
The real problem with bundles is that they are unrelated content. If it were USA, NBC, and (arguably) SyFy it might make sense, but as soon as you forcibly bundle ESPN with Disney, you're hurting consumers by forcing everyone to pay for some of the most expensive-to-create programming (E
Re:Back to cable (Score:5, Insightful)
forcing everyone to pay for some of the most expensive-to-create programming (ESPN) just to get some of the cheapest-to-create programming (Disney).
Lots of good stuff in your comment, just wanted to point out a couple of things. Sports content is relatively cheap to create. The cost of creating Disney content varies wildly so it's hard to rank it overall. In general, though, reality TV shows and local programming both tend to fall on the cheap end of the spectrum, while high quality episodic content and movies are the most expensive to create. Of course, that's the cost to *create* the content; the cost to acquire distribution rights is a whole separate thing, and can make sports more expensive.
Also, a "funny" thing about cable subscriptions that goes along with your point is that the bundled price of course derives, in part, from the distributor's cost of each channel, but there is incredible disparity across those prices. Some channels actually pay the distributor to carry the channel, some channels are free to the distributor, and then many channels are paid for by the distributor. And at the top of the pile of channels are the Disney properties (ESPN, Disney Channel, etc.) - the last figures I saw (several years ago now), it was not uncommon for ESPN+Disney channels to command a third of the total fees paid by the distributor, even if their offering to consumes was 100 different channels - it's just amazing. Part of the reason bundles are packed with so many goofy channels is to hide the fact that a small number of channels cost a ridiculous amount relative to others.
The reason of course is customer demand - while it seems like there are many people who don't want ESPN and/or Disney, the reality is that they are a relatively small slice of the market - the majority of the market won't even *consider* a cable package that doesn't have both those channels (and Disney knows it, which is why they push so hard to package them together and why they charge so much for them).
Hopefully this will start to get fixed. It's already started some, both because other sports networks have come into their own and because so many people have ditched cable. But the Disney family of properties (Disney, ESPN, ABC, etc.) are very well entrenched, so there's a lot of resistance to be overcome.
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Lots of good stuff in your comment, just wanted to point out a couple of things. Sports content is relatively cheap to create. The cost of creating Disney content varies wildly so it's hard to rank it overall. In general, though, reality TV shows and local programming both tend to fall on the cheap end of the spectrum, while high quality episodic content and movies are the most expensive to create. Of course, that's the cost to *create* the content; the cost to acquire distribution rights is a whole separate thing, and can make sports more expensive.
It's cheap to create in the sense of "Stick a couple of camera operators in there and a switcher operator and you're done," but not in the sense of "This show has an ensemble cast of 30 people who are all being paid millions of dollars per year," which is why the distribution rights cost so much. The fact that there's a process boundary doesn't mean the work doesn't cost CPU cycles. :-D
Also, a "funny" thing about cable subscriptions that goes along with your point is that the bundled price of course derives, in part, from the distributor's cost of each channel, but there is incredible disparity across those prices. Some channels actually pay the distributor to carry the channel, some channels are free to the distributor, and then many channels are paid for by the distributor.
Shopping channels, yes. They pay to get distributed, because they make their money through sales, so their profit is more
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Except that bundling lowers the consumer price for that piece of content. In order to translate that $10 as part of the cable bill for forced bundling of all of those channels spread across 50m subscribers to the 10m wanting unbundled means adjusting the cost upwards for unbundling. I end up paying more for the same content with Hulu+ESPN+Disney($12.99 currently) because I'm an adult male who like sports, television series/cartoons, and movies, so I need all 3 t
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Roku does this already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems legit (Score:2)
I'm sure online services are cooperating with these people, sure. I'm mean, Netflix, Disney+ and others have always wanted a way to deliver their content piecemeal, it is so in line with their business model.
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I would think that as long as they are collecting the full subscription fee, they don't care how you consume the content...
Subscription Fatigue (Score:1)
Comptes with Roku (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprised this arose. My Roku player has similar functionality. Don't know if this new service is $2/month better.
You know what this reminds me of? The Great Messaging Wars of the late '90s. Who were duking it out, AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, right? Each thought owning the IM service was a strategic win. A bunch of groups came out with IM aggregators so you didn't have to know which platform your contacts liked to use.
I want this for social media. My daughters tell me WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and all the rest are basically functionally interchangeable. I really can't understand how or why you'd want to use them all.
Re:Competes with Roku (Score:2)
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I thought that was why Roku existed...
If they just wanted to aggregate, they could have released an app. No need for hardware players. The players was very easy to set up though. My dad might even have been able to install it a few years ago. I wouldn't dare trying to explain how to set up a Chromecast device.
along with giving Hollywood a way to stream safely (for them) within the HDMI-HDCP protocol....
Could you elaborate? I assumed that streaming through a browser was safe enough. If I want to play to an external device, the browser/OS/laptop will enforce HDCP, at least well enough to keep most hackers away. But I am not a hacker nor do
Re: Competes with Roku (Score:1)
"But I am not a hacker nor do I have any interest in ripping video so I know very little about this."
Back in the 1990s, I used to "rip" cable content to a device called a "VCR" for later viewing. So did many, many other people.
A good number of them were by no means "hackers", as evidenced by the flashing "12:00"s on their content ripping devices.
I'm not fatigued because of multiple interfaces (Score:1)
Amen! (Score:2)
doesn't solve the real problem. (Score:3)
i mean, yeah, it is great that it can tell you which service has what, with more accuracy (given that wikipedia seems to be more accurate than canistream these days).
But really what people want is to pay one bill. Go to one web site, pick the services, and pay one monthly bill instead of having 5-10 companies all tracking your credit card. Aggregate the money...like, say, cable companies used to do.
THEN you have the real power of unified search: "This program is only available on Hulu. Would you like to add that to your services ($5.99 more per month) Y/N?"
The failure of cable companies to come up with that idea on their own as their means to counter the cord-cutting is really depressing. Companies are so locked into their cash cow they just can't adapt. Cases in point, IBM's PC's, Xerox-PARC, even Microsoft's initial ignorance of the internet - it was 25 years ago today that Bill Gates released the first edition of The Road Ahead, which brushed off Netscape and the WWW as being a short-term fad given the failures of gopher and the expectation of commercial services to dominate with their dedicated platforms. 6 months later, the second edition came out, along with IE bundled into Windows 95, and a lawsuit was born...
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The state of things truly sucks, but definitely shouldn't be called crimes. And they get away with it because so many customers are ok with it (either genuinely ok with it or are just ignorant of alternatives).
If you truly want things to change, you have to change the minds of the customers. You can do that through some sort of education/outreach thing, or by launching a better business that wins in the market place.
There is zero basis for any sort of legal recourse.
You're on some kind of...dollars trek? (Score:2)
The entire planet isn't enough to generate 4 hours a day of bingeable stuff. No single service comes close.
When people moved from broadcast TV, with the big 3 networks, PBS, and some randos on the higher channels, to cable with 30 channels, wow.
Wait. Still nothing on most of the time.
But 200+ channels? Wow!
Wait. Still nothing on most of the time.
Anyway, that's a long way of saying new Star Treks aren't enough to make me subscribe to CBS all by itself, though putting Alison Pill in came close!
Re: You're on some kind of...dollars trek? (Score:1)
Some of the fan made Star Trek episodes are very damn close to big budget productions in terms of quality.
Does this mean... (Score:2)
Does this mean we'll have one subscription to rule them all?