When you sit down to watch a favorite TV show, do you check the program schedule for a weekly listing? Or do you turn on Netflix or Hulu and start binging?
This hour, we take a look at what the rise of internet-based streaming services means for the television industry. And we want to hear from you, too. Have you cut the cord on cable?
Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
GUESTS:
- Ashley Rodriguez - Covers media and marketing for Quartz (@AshleyRReports)
- Amanda Lotz - Professor of Digital Media and Communication at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, and author of We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All (@DrTVLotz)
- Eric Deggans - TV critic for NPR (@Deggans)
READING LIST:
Quartz: Netflix’s price hike is a defensive strike in the battle over your wallet (Ashley Rodriguez, Jan 2019) – “Later this year, media heavyweights like Disney and WarnerMedia will be launching new subscription-video services in the US. Netflix got in ahead of those services, grabbing a larger share consumers’s wallets. The price increase could also make people rethink how much they’re willing to spend on Netflix’s competitors each month, experts say.”
Wired: You’re about to drown in streaming subscriptions (October 2018) – “‘I think the bigger issue is what happens in the aftermath of net neutrality's elimination,’ says Lotz, who argues that allowing ISPs to enforce paid prioritization is ‘more likely to change the marketplace for the services in profound ways.’ AT&T owns WarnerMedia, for instance, and so can not only potentially offer its impending streaming service at a discount—or for free—to its mobile or cable customers, but could prioritize its performance on its network, and downgrade that of rivals.”
NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' Proves That More Choice Doesn't Mean A Better Story (Eric Deggans, January 2019) – “The sci-fi series Black Mirror has always been about changing technology and its usually dark implications for the future. Its latest episode, Bandersnatch, is itself the result of new technology developed at Netflix. As you watch it, you make your own on-screen choices that determine which of several possible endings you reach.”
Chion Wolf contributed to this show.
