Why Comcast is almost giving you what you want and driving out competition at the same time. And why Chromecast is winning the dongle war!
It’s Spoilerin’ Time: Episode 38 – Transparent, The Shield (306), Fargo (Ep. 4 and 5)
Transparent captivates us, The Shield gives a beat, Fargo blows us away.
01:05 – Transparent
12:05 – The Shield
18:33 – Fargo
Cordkillers Ep. 38 – Tony Stark in a Cubicle
Should the FCC allow Internet cable services? Did Amazon have its House of Cards moment? Is Roku sleazy?
CordKillers: Ep. 38 – Tony Stark in a Cubicle
Recorded: September 29, 2014
Guest: Roberto Villegas
Intro Video
Primary Target
- FCC Proposes Defining ‘Linear’ OVDs as MVPDs
- -Multichannel news has ‘multiple sources’ who say FCC
– Preparing NPRM define an online video provider that delivers a linear stream of programming as an –MVPD, similar to a cable or satellite operator.
– Would have access to programming through access rules but also negotiate retrans fees.
– The FCC tentatively concluded that an MVPD has to have control of both the content and the transmission path .
– That killed Sky Angel which suspended service when Discovery pulled out
– New rules would remove requirement for transmission path
– NCTA argues transmission path necessary. Argues this would be “regulation of the Internet”
Signal Intelligence
- Amazon’s Potential Breakout Series “Transparent” Premieres
- – Transparent – created by Jill Soloway (6 Feet Under, United States of Tara, Afternoon Delight film)
– 10 episodes up now. (Sep. 26)
Gear Up
- As Roku grows, it’s moving towards pay-to-play for successful channels
- – Roku has 1800 channels. Open to anybody through an API and a few rules
– Now calling popular channels and asking for revenue deals.
– Sources told GigaOm’s Janko Roetgerrs they were pretty aggressive
– Roku Stephen Shannon (Gm SVP content and services) says as revenue increases Roku has more sophisticated offerings which share revenue but increase promotion
– Roku considers themselves an “Internet Services Company”
– Margins on $50 boxes are not large
Front Lines
- Remember MoviePass the subscription service that gives you access to movies in theaters?
- -Well they’re still kicking and raised $2.2 million in new financing. These days the offering is about $30 a month to watch up to one movie a day. MoviePass is already accepted at 93% of movie theaters nationwide.
- Spike TV is developing a series based on Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy with Game of Thrones producer Vince Gerardis.
- -The series would be named after the first book, Red Mars with Robinson on board as a consultant.
- Real Genius will be rebooted as an NBC “modern-day workplace comedy focusing on the relationship of two incompatible co-workers.”
- -Written by David King (Parks and Rec) and Craig DiGregorio (Workaholics) Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, 3 Arts Entertainment and Sony TV are all onboard.
- Redbox Instant has not been able to sign up new customers, or allow existing customers to change payment information, for three months.
- -Rumors are swirling about whether Redbox will get out of the business, switch to just rentals, fold into Verizon’s OnCue or what.
- Apple TV got some new channels.
- -Sky’s Now TV service added entertainment and movies to the sports it already offered in its app. In the US you can now get the FX Now app which is supposed to get all the Simpson’s episodes at some point in October.
- Apple TV adds FX Now, still sans ‘The Simpsons’
Under Surveillance
- Vevo original shows are multiplying — and getting animated
- –Vevo has its biggest slate of original shows since it began originals 5 years ago.
– 100 episodes of original programming.
– “A.K.A,” in which artists like Iggy Azalea, Neon Trees and Avicii explain how they got their stage or band names. Animations illustrate the stories - Amazon flagship show ‘Alpha House’ returns for a binge Oct. 24
- Brian: Thor 2, Fargo. Transparent, Getting Doug with High (Jack Black), Legend of Korra season 3
- Tom: Jodorowsky’s Dune, Agents of SHIELD, Fargo, The Shield (306), Transparent, Once Upon a Time
- Roberto: Red vs Blue, RWBY Volume 2, Space Dandy,
Dispatches from the Front
Hey guys,
I’ve loved your show since the FR days.
So you have been talking about spoilers recently, and I have a question for Tom. You mentioned on It’s Spoilerin Time that Brian’s spoilers for the season finale of The Leftovers did not affect your enjoyment of the episode. Then later you discussed Mum, one of the most pivotal episodes of The Shield (amazing show!), and I’m curious if you would have enjoyed that as much if you knew what was going to happen. It sounds like you experienced the gut-punch from this episode that Brian felt when he watched The Leftovers finale. Of course enjoying an episode and having that “Holy s–t!” feeling don’t have to be the same, but I think there are certain scenes that have such an impact, it’s better not to know what’s coming. [And there’s another scene that you will eventually experience with The Shield that will make this one seem tame.]
Oh, and fun fact for Brian: the writer, or at least co-writer of Mum was Kurt Sutter, the creator of Sons of Anarchy (another great show).
Thanks guys. You rock.
Daryl
Hey guys, it’s your boss. Though it is my first time contacting you, I have been a listener since the days of a show that I think was called “RameFrate”
Literally days away from breaking down and signing up for the service, I decided, on a whim, to connect a coax cable to an empty outlet behind my TV to see if any channels were able to be received. When I did a channel-scan, however, I was shocked to find that I am receiving almost 80 channels for free. Granted most of these are music, shopping, and crappy old movie channels, but I am getting all of the broadcast stations based in Memphis, Sundance, AMC, SEC network, NFL network, and Fox Sports 2, most in HD. When I researched this, I found that many cable providers send a few unscrambled QAM channels out over any active line. Apparently, as long as I continue receiving internet service, these channels are both legal and free. The only drawbacks that I have found are a lack of a channel guide and channels sometimes moving around. All that I really wanted was the local broadcast stations in order to watch local sports programming, so this has saved me from signing up for TV service. I hope that this will be helpful to some of your listeners in the same way that it was to me. Thanks for a great show!
Jared
Links
It’s Spoilerin’ Time: Episode 37 – Fargo (Ep. 2 and 3) The Leftovers (Redux), The Shield (305)
Why Brian almost gave up on Fargo, Tom’s spoiled Leftovers experience, and Tom finally hits that moment with The Shield.
00:35 – Edge of Tomorrow
04:38 – Fargo
13:45 – The Leftovers
19:12 – The Shield
Cordkillers Ep. 37 – Crozakistan
Netflix comes to everywhere including Linux and Luxembourg. Plus YouTube is losing its stars!
It’s Spoilerin’ Time: Episode 36 – The Leftovers (Eps. 9 and 10), The Shield (304)
The saddest episode of Leftovers and Brian spoils the finale for Tom, The Shield goes nude.
Cordkillers Ep. 36 – Rise of the Chaos Monkeys
We may actually have Internet-delivered TV by mid-2015 but we get a little more excited by Netflix’s chaos monkeys.
CordKillers: Ep. 36 – Rise of the Chaos Monkeys
Recorded: September 15, 2014
Guest: Andrew Zarian
Intro Video
Primary Target
- Verizon CEO says OnCue will launch by mid-2015
- Verizon’s internet TV service coming in mid-2015, may let you pick only channels you want
- – Verizon CEO Lowell MCAdam: Launch by Mid-2015. Big 4 broadcasters, “custom channels” like AwesomenessTV (Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference) “Everyone understands it will go to a la carte,” “Over the last six months to a year that dialogue has changed dramatically.”
- Sony online TV service to carry 22 Viacom channels
- Dish’s internet TV service likely to be called Nutv
- – Dish filing trademarks for “NuTV” (The Android app for DishWorld, the company’s existing online video subscription service for international and foreign-language TV networks, already uses Nutv as its app ID on Google’s Play store.)
Signal Intelligence
- Netflix Gets Instant Search on the Web
- -Netflix Instasearch on Web. Instant matches with cover art.
- Netflix officially says ‘enchanté’ to France
- – Netflix launched in France today. (No House of Cards, that’s on Canal+). Based in Luxembourg to get around 40% rule. Still can’t put movies on newer than 3 years old.
- Netflix “Chaos Commander” hiring “Chaos Engineers” to attack network
Gear Up
- SlingTV review: Convenient TV place-shifting, with an underwhelming new interface
- -$150 M1 WiFi
-SlingTV ($300) replaces Slingbox 500
– Retooled UI coming to 500 as well
– Gallery feature, which is an overlay on your actual TV, showing you what’s on in a more visual manner
– Browse current sports scores—and see them ranked by recommended viewer interest via sports website Thuuz
– Rotten Tomatoes scores and icons in the movie listings
Front Lines
- Jeff Bewkes at Goldman Sachs conference said: “The broadband-only opportunity up until now wasn’t at the point where it would be smart to move the focus from one to the other.
- -Now the broadband opportunity is quite a bit bigger.” Bewkes said the company is “seriously considering what is the best way to deal with online distribution.” HBO GO also was added to older European set-top boxes in 14 regions by using cloud virtualization from ActiveVideo.
- HBO is bringing HBO Go to legacy set-top boxes in Europe
- Amazon Prime Instant video finally available on Android Phones phones in US, UK and Germany through the Amazon app.
- –All you have to do is install the Amazon shopping app, then use the in-app tools to download and install the Amazon Instant Video player app from the Amazon app store. Of course that means you need to enable the sitting that allows you to install apps from unknown sources.
- ESPN’s John Skipper at Code/Media New York said the network is considering selling some sports programming over the Web directly to consumers, just like Netflix does.
- The Wall Street Journal says Facebook is approaching some of YouTube’s top stars to convince them to distribute video on Facebook.
- -Facebook now allows users to upload videos directly to its site. This enables the site to sell ads with the videos, the report said.
- A June study by Frank N. Magid Associates found that just 2.9 percent of US pay-TV consumers are “very likely” to cancel their service in the year ahead.
- -But that’s up from 2.7 percent last year and 2.2 percent two years earlier.
- MUBI has a team of experts who pick one new movie a day which will only be available for 30 days.
- -That means MUBI only ever has 30 movies. It costs $5 a month or $35 a year. IN addition to the PS3 you can access MUBI on iOS, Android tablets, Sony Bravia TVs and the Web.
Under surveillance
- Netflix’s 3D printing documentary, Print the Legend, streams September 26th.
- -MakerBot, Formlabs, Stratasys and 3D Systems are all included, as is Cody Wilson, who released plans for printing guns last year.
- Chef’s Table is scheduled as a six-part series headed up by David Gelb.
- -If that name doesn’t sound familiar, perhaps one of his most prominent works does: Jiro Dreams of Sushi. The show, Netflix says, debuts next year and will focus on half-a-dozen international chefs
- Maze Runner, Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem
- Brian: The Leftovers, also intro’d Penny to the marvel cinematic universe: watched Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers all in a row (3 as amazon rentals, 1 on netflix), Edge of Tomorrow
- Tom: The Shield (Ep. 304) Doctor Who, Lots of things in Italian
- Andrew: Trailer Park Boys
Dispatches from the Front
First of all wanted to say that I LOVE THE SHOW and that i finally started watching Breaking Bad, I’m on season 3 and even though i heard almost all the spoiler zone episodes related to the show i dont feel it has ruined my experience.
I also wanted to share with you the fact that i got 416th place in the Summer Movie Draft and I’m really proud of that cause last year I was in the 500 range. Pertaining to the draft is there any way to find the results of previous drafts I kind of want to see my progress through the past years.
Keep up the great work.
Alejandro Guadalajara Mexico.
Now that Bezos owns the Washington Post, how long until a live anchored, online WashPo news service appears on TWITCH to compete with the cable news networks?
Also, the Tivo Roamio may be cheap hardware, but they still want $15 a month for the guide. That’s $230 for the first year, $180 thereafter. For that money I’d buy the ChannelMaster OTA DVR and pay no monthly fee.
StrikitRich
One of your bosses here who just upped his pledge. Just wondering if you guys would put a Donate section on the website so people could donate via PayPal or Bitcoin. I like Patreon and all but sometimes I just feel a need to donate money to stuff that I like. And Cordkillers definitely falls into that category. I see Daily Tech News Show now has a donations page and I plan to use it. Just want Cordkillers to jump on board too.
Cheers guys. Love the show.
Anthony
Another summer has come and gone. And while fewer and fewer of us are enjoying these warm months (or cold if you live in the southern hemisphere) at the movies, I walk away from this season with a question. How in the hell did a flying turd on a stick like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” end up being the number one movie in the draft? Sure you can explain the math to me all day long, but there is no reason that Michael Bay’s passively racist abomination should be the draft leader. Not only should a just and loving God have denied such an occurrence, but the way the movie draft is set up needs to be drastically changed.
Made $137,224,768 more than the winning host team,
Kingpinatron
Links
It’s Spoilerin’ Time: Episode 35 – The Shield (303), Bojack Horseman
Why Tom had a hard time with this episode of The Shield and we get our first impressions of Bojack Horseman.
Cordkillers Ep. 35 – SPOOOOON!
Why Amazon bought Twitch, and excitement for the return of The Tick!
CordKillers: Ep. 35 – SPOOOOON!
Recorded: August 31, 2014
Guest: Fraser Cain
Intro Video
- None
Primary Target
- Amazon buys Twitch
- Why Amazon Really Bought Twitch
- Prime-time Twitch is bigger than CNN, MSNBC, and MTV
- – Amazon buying Twitch ($97- million in cash, total of $1.1 billion)
– one hour and 45 minutes on the site per day
– 1.35 percent of all downstream traffic in the U.S. during peak times
– Emmett Shear: “ We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.”
Signal Intelligence
- Samsung bets on 4K Amazon and Netflix streaming to make UHD TV more tempting
- Amazon’s original shows will stream in 4K starting this October
- -4K Amazon and 4K Netflix (Wuaki.tv, Chili and Maxdome) to Europe on Samsung TVs
– Comes in October
– Netflix has been in US TVs since April
– Samsung began UHD broadcasts in April with Korean cable provider CJ Hello Vision.
Gear Up
- TiVo’s first box just for cord cutters is the Roamio OTA DVR
- TiVo beats estimates on strong subscriber growth
- – Roamio OTA $49
– 4 tuners, 500 GB storage, TiVo Stream, WiFi
– No cable card slot so $150 cheaper (and no TiVo Mini support)
– Available in Limited Edition at Best Buy
– Better than expected profits — strong growth in subscribers through cable TV partners such as Virgin Media in the UK, ONO in Spain and Com Hem AB in Sweden.
– TiVo’s subscriptions rose by a third to 4.8 million in the second quarter ended July 31.
Under surveillance
- Amazon is resurrecting ‘The Tick’ with Patrick Warburton for new pilot
- –Patrick Warburton made a deal with Sony Television to shoot a pilot for The Tick to try on Amazon.
– Jeffrey Tambor’s “Transparent,” which will drop its entire 10-episode first season on Friday, Sept. 26. - Amazon greenlights yet another batch of original kids TV pilots
- -Five more kids pilots
-Three animated
– “The Stinky & Dirty Show” about a backhoe and a garbage truck that are best friends
– “Buddy: Tech Detective” aimed at preschoolers
– “Niko and the Sword of Light” about a young adventurer.
-Two live action
– “Table 58” about a motley lunch table of outcast kids
– “Just Add Magic” about friends who find an old cookbook with magical recipes.
-Previously announced Sara Solves It which makes 6 kids shows in this pilot season
-Current children’s shows in the coming months: “Tumble Leaf” on September 5, “Creative Galaxy” on October 3, and “Annedroids” on October 30.
Front Lines
- Netflix dropped $2 million to get access to the first season of The Blacklist which will show up for US users 9/7.
- YouTube now can queue videos to Chromecast from its Webpage. Not only that but you can now cast whole playlists.
- Netflix will launch an original series in French late next year. “Marseille”
- -Follows Mayor Robert Taro, who has been in office 25 years and is facing off against an ambitious young politician. Netflix calls it a“tale of power, corruption and redemption.”
- Canada’s cable giants, Roger and Shaw are launching shomi a subscription-based service available ONLY to its Internet or TV subscribers for $9 a month starting in November.
- Netflix didn’t win any Emmys during the primetime ceremony.
- -Out of 31 nominations they took home 7 of the Emmys given away in the Creative Arts Ceremony the week before. Last year David Fincher won a primetime Emmy for best directing.
On Screen
- Brian: been very busy vacationing
- Tom: Fargo, The Leftovers, Bojack Horseman, Continuum, The Shield (303)
- Fraser: Death Note, Sword Art Online,
Dispatches from the Front
- Questions from the live audience
Links
It’s Spoilerin’ Time: Episode 34 – The Shield (302), The Leftovers Ep. 8, Doctor Who
Why Jeff thinks The Shield is the best show on TV, the leftovers balances between Twin Peaks and Hemlock Grove, and Doctor Who regenerates.
01:09 – The Shield
11:10 – The Leftovers
22:30 – Doctor Who