Verizon gets into over the top streaming, Facebook dropping thousands, and people don’t like cable companies. With special guest Ron Richards.
Download audio
Download video
CordKillers: Ep. 172 – Cordkilling Purgatory
Recorded: May 29 2017
Guest: Ron Richards
Intro Video
Primary Target
- Verizon CEO confirms company’s plan to launch a streaming TV service
– Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo is expected to close mid-June
– Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam expects to use the Combined Yahoo-AOL, which will be called Oath, to “test out an over the top service.”
– This would be different than Go90.
– Verizon is paying the NFL some $21 million for rights to the Sept. 24 regular-season game between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars in London, and the telco will stream the game live across its portfolio of video platforms including AOL, Yahoo, Fios TV, Go90 and Complex.com.
How to Watch
- Facebook signs BuzzFeed, Vox, others for original video shows
– Sources tell Reuters Facebook has signed deals with Vox Media, BuzzFeed, ATTN, Group Nine Media and others to make shows. A new video service from Facebook would have long and short-form content with ad breaks. Scripted shows would run 20-30 minutes and unscripted shows range 5- 10 minutes long. Facebook is supposedly paying up to $250,000 for the longer shows and between 10 and 35,000 for the shorter episodes. Shows will premiere exclusively on Facebook but run on creators sites after a period of time.
What to Watch
What We’re Watching
- Brian: Better Call Saul, Fargo, Justified, The Leftovers, The Wizard of Lies
- Tom: Better Call Saul, Bob’s Burgers, Fargo, Justified, Handmaid’s Tale, The Leftovers, American Gods
- Ron: Twin Peaks, Iron Fist, The Get Down, The Good Fight
- On the Look Out: Catastrophe
Front Lines
- Netflix is bringing Ellen DeGeneres back to standup
– Netflix posted on Twitter to Ellen Degeners “Looks like it’s been 15 years since you did a stand-up special, @TheEllenShow. How about one for Netflix?” She replied “Let me think about it. OK I’m in.” In an official statement Ellen sais she’s writing it now and will let folks know where and wen it will be recorded.
- Netflix cancels Baz Luhrmann’s ‘The Get Down’
– Netflix will not give Baz Luhrman’s The Get Down another season. It’s unusual for Netflix to cancel shows especially after only one season.
- The Cable TV Industry Is Getting Even Less Popular
– A survey from the American Customer Satisfaction index found that cable operators and ISPs tied for last place with an average customer satisfaction rating of 64%. That’s down 1.5 percentage points for cable. Wireless carriers improved 3 points to 73%. Comcast was near the bottom at 58% down six points just above Mediacom’s 56%. Verizon FiOS was top of TV services at 71%. The top-ranked industries in this year’s survey were makers of television and video players at 87%, and soft drink makers at 84%.
- Almost every adult still watches TV the old-fashioned way
– Nielsen’s numbers show 92 percent of those older than 18 watch television on a TV. And 82.1% of total minutes of TV watched last year were watched on a TV. Computers, phones and tablets made up less than 8 percent of total viewing time.
- Jon Stewart isn’t doing an animated HBO show anymore
– Jon Stewart’s four year deal to create animated shorts for HBO has been shelved. A joint statement said “technical issues in terms of production and distribution that proved too difficult given the quick turnaround and topical nature of the material.” HBO and Stewart said in their statement that they’re now working to develop new projects, “which you will be hearing about in the near future.”
- Twitter for Apple TV adds live, 360 degree video and Periscope’s global map
– Twitter updated its Apple TV app to include support for Periscope’s Global Map and the ability to watch live 360-degree videos. Viewers use the Apple TV remote to navigate the 360-degree videos.
Dispatches from the Front
Hey, guys. Just have a couple of questions about all of the proxy banning going on.
I’m an American, living in America, with an American debit card and accounts that were all set up without anonymization. I just got DD-WRT set up on a new router so I could run openVPN and anonymize my traffic without breaking things like Google Cast and wifi direct by running VPN clients on individual machines.
I had forgotten, however, that Hulu and Amazon Prime are blocking proxies and VPNs with startling aggression. While my Netflix still works, it’s only a matter of time for that one as well.
I’m wondering what the logic is to so aggressively blocking VPNs, especially on accounts that have all the markers of being American except a verifiable IP address (I typically use a Florida server).
Am I expected to give up the only thing really protecting my online privacy, and my data, just because Hulu and Amazon Prime want to use a butcher knife instead of a scalpel to solve their (arguably) imaginary VPN problem?
– Dean
Hi Guys and possible Guest,
I finally did it, I cut the cable. I still had to keep the phone to keep my modem free for my internet. (Keeping the phone makes my bill $85 vs $89 but it was $156}
Now comes the next step. What services do I want to go with. So in Jun, I’m doing Playstation, July might be Sling if Playstation doesn’t work out. August will either be YouTube or Hulu. [Leaning more towards Youtube if it gets to Omaha]
My question is about these services and which is GeoLocked to the home and which ones aren’t. My daughter is quite used to watching Hulu and Youtube, when at work or her Dad’s all of which is in my same city. Do we have any information on these two and if they tv options can be watched out of the home?
Thanks
– Nicky
Hey guys,
As one that lives just slightly out of reach of high speed broadband (100mb/s stops 3/4 of a mile down the road from me). I use a 4G wireless router in the house with 2mb/s download.
With limited bandwith but still having a household of people fighting for the bits, I was curious if you could point me to streaming services that best accomodate.
My personal anecdotal experience:
Netflix the best as it seemlessly buffers and downres’s to fit the stream without ever a hiccup for me.
Youtube second as it allows me to several different res options that I can pick manually if I experience trouble.
Hulu next as it is usually consistent but very limited options for res changes if I experience problems.
Crackle, same experience as Hulu but the limited show options cause me to rank lower.
Vudu, worst for me, always defaults back to HD res, tends to freeze up when I switch to SD. Even at SD, I have to disconnect every cell phone, game devise and computer from network to stream.
Just thoughts from one of the majority in this country not on Gigabit fiber.
– Joe
Hi Killers,
With the arrival of “American Gods” on Starz I decided to try the service with their 7 day free trial. I quickly decided that there was nothing else on Starz that I cared about watching. Also, their Android app provided a really poor experience. So I decided to take Brian’s advice and look at this logically. I have no great need to watch this series live. I cancelled Starz. Instead, I will wait until it’s offered for purchase. I might have to wait a year. Oh well. As you both often point out, there is plenty of fun stuff to watch in the meantime.
Been a fan and supporter since the beginning. You guys make me laugh, which is reason enough to continue. Love. The. Show.
– Lisa
Hey Guys,
Talking about ESPN for sports is almost like talking about MTV for music. While ESPN has a lot of shows ABOUT sports, they don’t actually air that many games.
I am fully against them counting eyeballs in bars towards their numbers. Most bars have ESPN talk shows on throughout the day that no one is actually watching because, really, what else are they going to put on when there are no local sports games playing. I think that stacking the numbers like this will give them leverage to keep charging their obnoxiously high fees which will in turn keep all of the cable rates, and potentially streaming service rates, high.
I love your show and never miss an episode, but whenever there is a sports question and you guys bring up ESPN, I cringe. I am a huge sports fan and I wouldn’t even notice if someone removed ESPN and all of its channels from whatever service I was paying for at the time.
Your boss and long-time fan,
– Ryan
Links
2017 Summer Movie Draft
patreon.com/cordkillers
Uber fires Levandowski, Microsoft brings Windows 10 to Qualcomm-powered ARM laptops, Twitch plays the stock market.
1941 – Electric eye detectors were first used to measure high-jumping height. A track meet of the Schenectady, NY, Patrolmen’s Association used equipment designed by General Electric, comprising of a movable light source and four electric eyes. 
Andy Rubin’s return with the Essential Company, Intel’s big Computex announcements, and Nvidia’s crack at light gaming laptops.
AlphaGo goes out on top, a massive IT failure for British Airways, and ARM releases new chip IP.