ATTN cord cutters: HBO's over-the-top service, HBO Now, coming to AppleTV next month for $15.

[Hardly Worthit]

Sports programming for cord cutters $20/mo.

sling.com

[deckeda]

Notice this sort of thing is similar to "packages" offered elsewhere ... a neighbor recently signed up with Hulu Plus to get one or two shows in a different way but complains about there being commercials. And yet, found a reason to get it despite subscribing to TV and with a DVR.

Packages are the a la cart programming people have been asking for, in nascent form. And yes, if you want it all, or even most (probably) you're going to be better off sticking with subscription TV for a long time to come unless and until the tide turns.

And with the way content ownership is aggregated its difficult to see how channels will ever truly be a la cart. That supposed efficiency of cost will ensure an inefficiency in weeding out the cruft so long as there remains that 80-90% of the population who will continue to write monthly checks that support it all. That's a ton of power we give them!

Of course, it won't change on its own, and so Comcast regularly sends me Xfinity mailings aimed at hammering home that magical $99 price point all providers want us to acclimate to. As it is I'm already 2/3 of the way there just for IP, and don't have time in my life anymore for TV like I used to.

In several key ways, it makes sense for a multitude of channels to remain the purview of cable or satellite. Cable has bandwidth, even satellite does as well (it's the latency and some other tech issues that prevent it so far from being a serious IP service.)

In the early days of TV it was a luxury because the hardware was expensive. Now it's expensive because the software is expensive.

[michaelb]

Seems like a great option, and I would love to get game of thrones. The key for me will be whether this is a month by month price or whether I will have to sign up for an extended period of time.

[rjmacs]

mikebw wrote:
For ATV 2 I wonder?

I wouldn't hold your breath. HBO Go will still work until HBO Now is more broadly available, at which time they will suddenly START caring about how many people use HBO Go logins/subscriber.

[freeradical]