Streaming TV question.

[RVTECH]

Ok, having a 'discussion' with a friend about TV and ads. He seems to believe subscription TV services (streaming, cable, SAT etc.) should be ad free since one is paying for it but here is my question - Do TV stations such as AMC, FOX, The History Channel, the Weather channel and tons more, that are typically part of pay services, have to PAY to be a part of that service or do they RECEIVE income from the service?

His 'rant' is because he has a friend who has a subscription service and still sees ads - and he somehow believes this to be 'corporate greed' (don't go there - this friend of mine lives in a very 'sheltered world' and has some very abstract and different thought about things in general...)

If anyone has any experience or knowledge of this I would appreciate it!

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[Certaindeaf]

My mom mainly watches YouTube and started paying $10/mo for no ads.. it's pretty sweet.

 

[Longwalkhome]

Good question. I dropped tv cable because it got too expensive to pay for stations I never watched. I stream Hulu, Netflix, HBO and Prime video and never see a commercial. I get to choose what I watch.

 

[galvweld]

I use free ROKU. Biggest problem is repetition of commercials. I mute them as you cannot fast forward. With good internet free is good.

 

[Alexx1401]

We use a few streaming services. One of them offers a DVR. Anymore I refuse to watch commercials. So if something is on that does not offer streaming without commercials I set it to record. A LOT of stuff is streamed commercial free so they have got to be paying the network who owns the show. Different services offer different stuff with no commercials. Right now our main service is Hulu. LOT of stuff commercial free. We used Googles for a while. Same deal, DVR and such and different stuff Commercial free.

 

[Devneck]

Google tells me basically "it depends"

Each tv network negotiates a different contact with the broadcast company based on value. Reads to me like, the more valuable the content, the less the tv network pays/ more the tv receives.

HBO surely does not pay, they would just be losing buckets of cash since they have no real advertising infrastructure. They also provide content that helps to boost the revenue of the cable company, right?

On the other hand, HSN also doesn't really have any sort of advertising in the way of commercials but also doesn't really add a lot of upside to the cable company. So I would expect that HSN probably has some sort of percentage kickback based on sales going to the cable company. That incentivises the cable company to provide the channel at the low tier subscription prices (broader access) and to get traffic there.

Also consider if you were a tv network and you had to pay just like everybody else ... but then your channel is gated behind the highest subscription cost, giving you the least amount of reach.

Both companies have an interest in viewership.

My 2 cents, but I'm not really sure.

 

[ilikegunspdx]

Haven't had cable or paid for tv since about 1996. Free Roku (except for cost of device $35ish) allows hundreds of channels and some of those channels such as Pluto have hundreds of channels in them. I rarely ever watch any of those either actually. I did see on Pluto a local guy I know had a car show though on the cars channel, that was kinda cool.

 

[Flopsweat]

We use a few streaming services. One of them offers a DVR. Anymore I refuse to watch commercials. So if something is on that does not offer streaming without commercials I set it to record. A LOT of stuff is streamed commercial free so they have got to be paying the network who owns the show. Different services offer different stuff with no commercials. Right now our main service is Hulu. LOT of stuff commercial free. We used Googles for a while. Same deal, DVR and such and different stuff Commercial free.

I ditched Netflix when they went all political. Hulu kind of skates the edge but they're way better. And I hardly see any ads at all, other than that darn home screen auto-playing previews every time I switch the Roku to Hulu. At least they're muted. Given what YT has done to several of my favorite channels, I wouldn't consider sending them a dime, so I use Invidious to filter out the adds.

Cable went away a long time ago because I was paying for 100 channels and watching 3, plus some ads. Not worth it. Same with satellite, plus the neighbor's tree started blocking the antenna, which made the decision easier. I have a tablet hooked up to the TV, so I can watch essentially anything in surround sound on a big screen if I want.

 

[albin25]

Two more FREE steaming channels on ROKU with lots of content are
TUBI and FREEVEE. Both do have commercials but in very limited amounts. If you need to stop watching and turn off the tv in mid-show, FREEVEE will hold your place until you return. Both will save "favorites".
ROKU also integrates with my over the air antennae, has a dedicated icon on you home-screen and will allow pausing of live antennae programming if you plug a usb drive into the tv. My $25 indoor flat antennae picks up 36 channels and lists them on a schedule screen.

 

[Alexx1401]

I ditched Netflix when they went all political. Hulu kind of skates the edge but they're way better. And I hardly see any ads at all, other than that darn home screen auto-playing previews every time I switch the Roku to Hulu. At least they're muted. Given what YT has done to several of my favorite channels, I wouldn't consider sending them a dime, so I use Invidious to filter out the adds.

Cable went away a long time ago because I was paying for 100 channels and watching 3, plus some ads. Not worth it. Same with satellite, plus the neighbor's tree started blocking the antenna, which made the decision easier. I have a tablet hooked up to the TV, so I can watch essentially anything in surround sound on a big screen if I want.

The damn pile of channels I never watched is what finally got me to talk the Wife into letting me ditch cable. When Hulu first came out with what they call Hulu Live it was the first one I tried since I already had Hulu. Tried Google (youtube) for a while when they hit with trying to compete and were offering very cheap trial. They soon of course jacked up their rate to match Hulu as I expected. Can't remember what it was they did not offer that other half wanted but we still had Hulu so it was easy to just go back to the full boat and drop google again. Don't like what either of them do but my damn provider is concast which is worse than both so I try to ignore it. Until someone comes up with something to match them we are stuck here. Get Paramount free from Wal-Mart but I tried and could not take the damn commercials. So if they have some show I want I will watch a little to make sure then just buy it. Tried Yellowstone on them, looked good so I started buying it one season at a time from Amazon just to avoid the endless commercials. For those who don't mind the damn commercials you can still get a hell of a lot of stuff for very little money with a decent net connection. We use a Roku just for ease of keeping all in one place and it does seem to offer a hell of a lot of free stuff. Which of course being free means a lot of ad's. For me since I normally only watch a couple nights a week I pay to watch what I want no commercials. I do LOVE the choices now though. Everyone can pick and choose to get what they want.

 

[jackrv]

TV stations such as AMC

I can remember when AMC was commercial free then someone else, don't know who, aquired them and started running commercials and non classic movies/shows. I haven't watched that channel since

Jack

 

[ilostmypswrd]

Yeah we dumped comm-cast this month, what a headach, took nearly 2 hours on the phone with `MIKE` from Cleveland, lololol, use a pretty good HD antenna and Samsung plus on our smart tv, its all i need, I do miss fox sports but hey im saving nearly 120 a month..