Arriving home from work last Friday and just wanting to unwind with whatever digital had to offer was right up my alley, considering I rarely watch free-to-air and my viewing consists of what my collection consists of, I was more than disappointed flicking through the TV guide.
What I was greeted with was 4 different channels (albeit spawning from one parents channel, but still) all playing the very same episode of dreary game show Family Feud. Salt in the wound was that while I was hunting for another channel, an advertise came on to inform me that Family Feud had even been promoted from a 5-night a week program to 6. Oh joy.
A photo I took of my guide telling me that Family Feud is playing on 4 different channels.
Next was commercials for Gogglebox on Channel 10. A show which is literally watching people watch TV and comment about it in their living rooms (the tagline is ‘a show about people watching television). Not to mention the incessant run of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here commercials. Both of which originated in the UK and are (to my shock horror, pretty huge hits). This was all discovered within the small window of television watching I endured, before I quickly put an episode of Parks and Recreation on. And they wonder why Australia is riding high on the world piracy scales.
I did, however, also see an ad for a new watch-on-demand service being introduced. It’s called Stan, a venture by Nine Entertainment and Fairfax, which actually caught my attention. It’s a service that is powered through an app on your device. What the downside was for existing streaming service that I’d seen is the content available wasn’t the content that people were after. Stan however has rights to the back catalogue of Breaking Bad, as well as it’s spin-off Better Call Saul.
Now, I’ve already ‘collected’ all seasons of Top Gear but it being available here is a plus for me.
With Netflix expected to launch March 2015, the worry of segmented shows across several streamed entertainment providers is now the worry. I guess it never ends. Foxtel continues to have a monopolized hold on HBO content so when Netflix does arrive without the haul of favourites Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Better Call Saul, it’s difficult to make a solid decision yet… but it will be interesting to see what titles Netflix uses to get out there. There’s also the existing Presto, brought to you by Foxtel, which does offer a wide selection of HBO content, and yet Game of Thrones is still unavailable due to HBO making the fantasy drama unavailable on streaming services worldwide.
What is exciting about all of this though is that there seems to be a solid future for streaming services and paid television in Australia, though exclusivity deals amongst providers puts a dampen on consumers who want it all, and who can still access all through piracy.
Let’s keep a watch on these developments. I actually signed up for the 30-day trial of Stan so more to come. I gave it a test drive with one of my favourite shows that they have in it’s entirety, The Shield.
The Shield on ‘Stan’
It did as expected, played just fine and had the ability to satisfy my binge-watching habits. I’ll definitely check out Australian Netflix when it launches. I’d already had my try at US Netflix when Arrested Development Season 4 was airing and the selection was insanely immense, fingers crossed for the Australian release.