I saw an ad for DirecTV today. The ad is selling the ability to stream DirecTV content via the internet.
You can see what I’m talking about at directv.com
Their big selling point is that you don’t have to have a dish on your roof. Uh… big deal! Their little dish is the least of the problems with them.
First and foremost in my mind is that I’d still be locked into one of their bullshit programming packages that forces me to pay for channels that I will never be interested in or watch. BET? Uh Nope! Zero Interest! I think I flipped through once a decade ago and needed subtitles to understand the language being used.
All I could think of, was the scene from Airplane where Barbara Billingsly says, “Excuse me stewardess, I speak Jive.”
I looked at their cheapest package which ends up being around 85.00 a month because you have to rent their box and the channel lineup was for shit! Oh they include SyFy, but SyFy doesn’t show Science Fiction anymore. It’s all reality shows and honestly stupid shit.
I can stream local channels without DirecTV. Heck I can and have been streaming local TV channels from places that I think I’d like to live. It’s great to listen to their news and see what’s happening. The human interest stories tell me about the communities. The crime reporting (or lack thereof) give me information about the safety of the area. There’s also a fair amount of information to be gleaned from the political reporting on their local level and how they report on national news.
So why do I need DirecTV? Oh, right I need to rent their box, plug it into my internet, and then buy a nearly $200 package per month to “Experience” all they have to offer. But wait… I already pay $80 a month for internet… So NOW you’re talking $280. For that, I get all their channels, a fair number of which I am not ever going to tune into.
I don’t speak Spanish, so I’ll never use the Spanish channels. I don’t speak Ebonic, so I’ll never watch the BET offerings. I’m not a Catholic and honestly have never enjoyed televangelists. If I’m gonna go to church, I’m going to get up, get dressed, and actually go to a church. So all the church channels are off the plate.
If you start talking about the “Premium” channels… HBO, Showtime, Max, Disney, and all those channels aren’t gong to do much for me because generally speaking they all play the same thing at different times of the day. I can also order those channels through the internet directly, and once again I don’t have to have DirecTV’s box. I’d have to do the math, but I think I can have them on a subscription basis for less as well.
CNN is included on all the packages and MTV is apparently still around. CNN I will not watch, and MTV? Haven’t even thought about that channel for at least 20 years.
I might be interested if I could pick and choose my channel lineup. Let me construct my own package of channels in blocks of 10. Charge a fair price and have a Premium Block where the HBO, Showtime, etc live.
Make it easy for the consumer to change the selections, make it web based, or better yet ON the DEVICE the user has to rent, so no-one has to listen to crappy English from a call center 1/2 way around the world who will inevitably screw things up worse each time the consumer calls about their service.
10 Channels cost X.
20 Channels cost Y
30 Channels costs Z
Premium block of 5 or 10 costs some higher price
Make the cost per block predictable and easy to select.
Then DirecTV streaming service might have a chance in hell of surviving.
I could see myself easily with the 4 or 5 local channels, the local PBS stations, WGN, and TCM and that would about fill out my first block of 10.
The point is, suddenly the viewers via their selection of channels implement a merit based system. Neilson would know which channels and what shows work instantly. Hollywood could then create entertainment that actually entertained instead of throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks.
It will never happen.
What’s sad is DirecTV just trying to reboot the same tired old paradigm of the cable days and thinking that’s innovation.
I have to ask why they’re doing this now? I can only imagine that their current satellites are running out of fuel and will soon be unable to maintain orbit, or their relative positions in orbit, both critically necessary to maintain coverage.
The cost to launch new satellites is prohibitive and If memory serves, they’ve lost a few on launch recently. Some of the oldest units have probably become non functional or DirecTV has been forced to de-orbit them prior to failure, to burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the ocean so they don’t crash down on populated areas.
Eventually, the constellation of DirecTV satellites will become too thin to provide coverage. I think this is a “Hail Mary” move. DirecTV is trying to do a sort of “Bait & Switch” on consumers. They’ll get everyone who is already using their services to switch to their “Faster more reliable” service.
“New!!! Improved! Now with zero downtime due to weather conditions or blockage of the dish.”
Because so few people understand how so much of our technology actually works they’ll keep writing the check instead of thinking it through and looking for alternatives.
There’s very few channels that can’t be streamed. Most newer smart TV’s have the applications built in. Or An Apple TV, Roku, Xbox, FireStick, or PlayStation can be loaded with the appropriate applications to access the streams.
Why do I need DirecTV again?
Don’t fall for it, Don’t subsidize shitty programming that you’ll never watch because of a crappy bundling scheme on the part of Cable or Satellite providers.
Show them you’ve got a brain!