The Streaming Chronicles III - Attack of the Pandemic

I want to start off this blog by saying that I hope it finds you and your family well during this time of uncertainty. One of my classmates wrote a blog about how to cope with this difficult time and I linked it here.

Rather than discuss the virus, which I am sure everyone is as sick of reading about as I am, no put intended, I intend to discuss the effect it's gonna have on the entertainment industry.

We have been inching towards chord cutting for years. Personally, I haven't paid for cable in years and neither has my family. My dad subscribes to an internet TV service so he can watch live sports but for those of us more interested in the storytelling aspects of television, streaming has always been a much sweeter deal by both being cheaper and delivering significantly more high-quality work.

But with the penetration of COVID-19 into most of the world, something has changed. Cable's golden goose, live sports, had been halted. NBA, NHL, The Premiere League, The PGA Tour and almost all other sporting events have been cancelled until further notice.

In early March, after the nth market crash this year, I recommended to friends that we keep an eye on Netflix because if live sports are no longer an option people would definitely be more willing to subscribe to a streaming service. A few days later a Wall Street analyst released an article saying the same thing and Netflix's stock skyrocketed.

Another reason I think more people will forgo cable is that networks have started making deals with streaming services. David Burd, more commonly known as lil Dicky, is creating a new show for FX called Dave about his life. While watching the show I saw a tag I had never seen before "FX on Hulu." After a brief internet search, it turns out, that FX inked a deal with Hulu that has many of their new shows' episodes on Hulu the morning after they air on FX. Rather than creating a new streaming service that I am unlikely to subscribe to for a single show, FX made the smart move of becoming available on a service I already own.

This is a feature I'm sure many of us viewers have been aching for. The idea of setting aside time to watch TV rather than watching TV when you have time is an idea that is becoming harder to grapple with and I think FX and Hulu took the first step towards a solution.

With live sports being on hold, and network TV shows becoming available to stream virtually at launch, I predict we are going to see a sharp rise in streaming and a decline in cable.

Until Next Time...

Stay Healthy.