[ad_1]
Telstra is ditching Telstra TV and Roku and replacing them with a supposedly better gadget, Fetch – but where does that leave the poor old TV viewer? Photo: francescosgura.
Don’t you hate it when big dogs fight?
In this case, the dumping ground is streaming TV, and the victims are some of our biggest telecoms operators – Telstra and TPG.
Customers of major carrier Telstra can stream TV on a supplied ‘Roku’ box (a small cube that plugs into your TV and lets you watch Netflix, Apple TV, Binge, Prime, etc.).
TPG is a stray dog who wants to eat Telstra’s lunch. He also has a naughty mutt in his pack, Foxtel (aka old dog Rupert Murdoch, 93 in dog years), to help chain us to another new music box, “Hubbl”.
The race to stay in the game is now on, and in October Telstra will be getting rid of Telstra TV and Roku – which work fine, just need a little tap now and then if they crash – and replacing them with a supposedly better gadget, Fetch (not a pun, just another TV box).
So the situation is tense, and even though Telstra owns a significant stake in Foxtel, it will not allow Foxtel’s Binge TV service to integrate with the Fetch app.
Most of us aren’t friends with the Murdoch gang, but for many, binge-watching is the only way to see really good shows. Game of Thrones, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Euphoria, Colin de Comptes among them.
But in October, those stuck in this fray with just a salvage box will lose it.
It is also worrying that some innocent dogs are also excluded, including the wonderful Kanopy, a university-run streaming service that includes weird and wonderful documentaries and old movies, and is free to most users of municipal libraries, including Wollongong City Council.
Some young pups point out that you can get around all this with other gadgets, such as Chromecast media players, but many of us are simply too old to learn these new tricks.
With free TV trailing behind in viewership, Australians are now turning to streaming TV and companies are eager to take on us.
But with so many providers to choose from, we’re not afraid to ditch the ones that charge too much, are mediocre, or are hard to find.
Last year, Telstra TV had about 800,000 customers; Binge had about 1.5 million.
That’s a huge potential overlap and a lot of viewers to lose to the latter.
So tails aren’t wagging in our yard (or, I guess, Binge’s).