The T-Zone

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The T-Zone
Number 335
Broadcast Date November 2, 2020
Episode Length 59:01
Hosts Brian Brushwood, Tom Merritt
Guests Andy Beach

Another Netflix price hike, T-Mobile unveils TV, and Sassy Justice delivers deepfake'd news. All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Andy Beach.

Guests

Intro Video

Primary Target

T-Mobile will launch its streaming TV service TVision for T-Mobile postpaid customers starting November 1. TVision comes in three tiers. For $40 a month you get the major networks both broadcast and cable. A $50 a month Plus tier adds more sports channels and for $60 a month you get NFL RedZone. These plans include 100 hours of cloud DVR and up to three concurrent streams. A $10 add-on called Vibe adds 30 channels from AMC, Discovery and Viacom, with two concurrent streams and DVR access for an extra $5. You can also add channels from Starz, Showtime and Epic for additional fees. TVision will be available on Android, iOS, Android TV/Google TV, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV as well as on T-Mobile's $50 TVision Hub Android TV streaming device.

How to Watch

Netflix has reorganized its content division and Daily Tech News Show talked with Merrill Barr to explain what it might mean and how it will effect us. The short version is that Netflix used to be organized by genre and subdivided by budget and territory. Barr writes, "One exec would handle high-budget dramas while another handled low-budget sci-fi/fantasy and another took charge of Canadian imports as another managed the Irish mysteries." Now the division will be more tradition with execs in charge of drama, comedy, unscripted etc., with all the territories and budgets mixed together. Barr suggests this might lead to Netflix making more traditional television rather than expensive "10-hour movies."
XDA Developers found code in the Android app for Netflix that includes messages, "Save your data by turning off the video and listening to your favorite shows." And “The video is off, but you can continue listening to your show while you are busy doing other things.” This seems to indicate a feature to listen to the audio of a show without the video playing saving bandwidth and battery life. The features are not live and may never be.
Netflix has raised prices for US users. The standard plan which includes 2 streams and HD goes up one dollar from $12.99 to $13.99 a month. The Premium plan which offers four streams and 4K goes up $2 from $15.99 to $17.99 a month. The basic plan which is a single non-HD stream stays at $8.99 a month. Netflix last raised prices in the US 22 months ago. Netflix says it is raising the prices to "continue to offer more variety of TV shows and films.” That's become costlier as more services compete not just for customers but for high quality shows as well. CEO Reed Hastings said in the last earnings call that Netflix wants to “have so many hits that you know when you come to Netflix you can just go from hit to hit to hit and never have to think about any of those other services.”
The Netflix blog has a detailed description on how it prioritizes service when system failure happens to try to keep the video you're watching streaming without interruption. System failures can mean all kinds of things from network outages beyond Netflix's control to software errors and more. The blog explains that Netflix lets certain things fail first to reduce load. The first to go are things like logs and background requests that you never notice. Next to go would be interface elements that affect your experience but not your video playback like stop and pause markers or language selection, viewing history etc.

What to Watch

A trailer for Peacock's Saved by the Bell is out showing Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Thiessen back as Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski. And you also get to see Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater call Elizabeth Berkeley Lauren's Jessie Spano “Mama." And yes he spins a chair around to sit in it backwards. The plot of the series is that Zack is now governor and has to consolidate schools for budget reasons. His son Mac and Jessie's son Jamie attend Bayside and Slater is the gym teacher. And new kids integrating into Bayside is the basic storyline.
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created a new live action comedy called Sassy Justice. The show is about a fictional investigative reporter in Cheyenne, Wyoming named Fred Sassy. Using deep fake tech Sassy takes on President Trump's face, a character who runs dialysis clinics has Mark Zuckerberg's face and other actors use the appearances of Al Gore, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. You can watch Sassy Justice on YouTube.
Y: The Last Man has shifted its cast around ahead of production beginning. Olivia Thirlby has replaced Imogen Poots as Hero Brown, while Ashley Romans takes over the role of Agent 355 from Lashana Lynch. And Paul Gross replaces Timothy Hutton as the President of the United States. It's expected to premiere through FX on Hulu next year.

Eyes On

Front Lines

Amanda Caudel sued Amazon on behalf of California residents for unfair competition and false advertising. She claims the company "secretly reserves the right" to end your access to digital movies and TV shows you buy from Amazon Prime Video. Amazon filed Monday to dismiss the complaint arguing she has not been injured. Amazon wrote, "The complaint points vaguely to online commentary about this alleged potential harm but does not identify any Prime Video purchase unavailable to Plaintiff herself. In fact, all of the Prime Video content that Plaintiff has ever purchased remains available."
Amazon also contends this isn't a secret thing since the terms of service "expressly state that purchasers obtain only a limited license to view video content and that purchased content may become unavailable due to provider license restriction or other reasons."
So if you ever wondered if you owned your content from Amazon, no you do not. You have limited license to it.
Sign-ups for Peacock passed all NBC's internal metrics for success reaching 22 million. It did not say how many of those were paying and how many were getting it free through their cable subscription or through the free ad-supported tier. NBC also said the number of active monthly users and engagement have exceeded their initial forecasts but did not give details. Yellowstone and Mr. Mercedes were cited as acquisitions doing well on Peacock. Comcast also said there are one million active users of Flex, the streaming TV set top box bundled with Comcast cable internet.
CNBC reported last week that experts estimate 25 million households will cut the cord over the next five years. Nielsen estimates 25% of TV viewing is now streaming but Samsung says that number is 50% on its smart TVs. Protocol's Janko Roettgers pulls together quotes from multiple executives who believe that subscription services are over invested and not all of them will survive. That ad-supported video has a bad rap but that might change. And low-rated cable channels are either already winding down or will soon. It all seems to point toward the decline of channels on cable TV, a shakeout in streaming services and an opportunity in ad-supported video.
Nikkei Asia's sources say Sony is in the final round of negotiations to buy Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll, owned by AT&T has 70 million free members and 3 million subscribers. Sony acquired anime streamer Funimation in 2017.
The Apple TV app will arrive on Xbox One, Xbox Series S and Series X November 10. The same date the new Series X and S launch. The new Xbox's will also have Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Spotify, YouTube, HBO Max, Peacock, YouTube TV, Vudu and Twitch.
AMC Networks estimates it will have 5.5 million streaming subscribers by the end of the year across AMC+, Acorn TV, Shudder, Sundance Now, UMC and IFC Films Unlimited.

Dispatches From The Front

I just wanted to let you know that I took your suggestion and watched the first episode of “Ted Lasso” on Sunday evening. (After reactivating my Apple TV account.) 10 episodes later, it is now 2 am and it was all time well spent. I’ll just reinforce the rhetoric that Ted Lasso is worth the time and money.

Thanks for the suggestion.
- Daniel

Hi Brian and Tom,
I am a patreon supporter and love your show since the FrameRate days.
Apparently there’s going to be a big boxing fight on Saturday and my friend asked me to help set up, because it is no longer being offered from his cable service (Spectrum in Los Angeles)
You have to download, install and purchase the pay-per-view package from the Showtime app on your smart TV. My friend has a smart TV but it has only been used with the cable subscription, and the TV is not even connected to the Internet.

This is interesting and I am curious why this is done. My guess is that Showtime gets a higher percentage of revenue because they don’t have to split it with the cable provider, as this is an over the top service.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on this because it seems to be another example of over-the-top services bypassing the cable subscription model.

I suppose at this point just about everybody has a smart TV, or a streaming device and they’re not losing too many people, especially those who are willing and able to pay $70 for the pay-per-view event.

- David


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Preceded by:
"Qui-Bye-Bye" 		The T-Zone
 Followed by:
"Shy Wal-Mart Lovers"
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