cord cutters
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Amazon's new Fire TV voice remote with app shortcuts will ship April 14th
This $30 remote for your Fire TV adds four buttons linking directly to apps like Netflix and Disney+.
Amazon offers $100 off Fire TV Recast and certain TVs for Prime members
Today for Prime members, Amazon is offering the Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR starting at $130, or $100 off the regular price. You can also get several Fire TV Edition TVs for $100 off, including a 43-inch Toshiba 1080p model for $180 and Insignia 50-inch 4K set for $250.
YouTube TV adds NFL Network to its core lineup
With football season right around the corner, YouTube TV is making some significant changes to its NFL and general sports coverage.
HDHomeRun's TV service for cord-cutters is shutting down
It's only been a few months since HDHomeRun launched its $35 per month Premium TV service, but now the company has emailed customers to announce it's shutting down. Cord Cutters News posted the email, which informed subscribers that it would work until the end of their plan date, but could not be renewed. The email doesn't get into why the offering is so suddenly going away, but the fact is that major Hollywood studios have sued its provider, Omniverse TV, claiming the company doesn't have the rights to distribute their programming. Still, HDHomeRun owners can expect to see their devices continue to work as they always have, just without the streaming subscription TV package. Users can record TV and stream it to TVs, set-top boxes and mobile devices, just like always. The question now is what other innovations it can make to attract cord-cutters when even the cable companies have taken notice of this market.
Comcast's Xfinity app will be available on Sony smart TVs in 2018
It's a strange time in the world of cable television, with more people cutting the cord these days and an ever-increasing amount of internet-enabled devices (like Apple TV and Roku) and smart TVs. Venerable cable companies like Viacom have to to find ways to get their content out to where the viewers actually are. Comcast is in the same boat, which is why it makes sense that the cable business is partnering with Sony to get its Xfinity app on the television-maker's Android-based sets.
How cable networks speed up shows to squeeze in more ads
If you're still watching cable, it turns out that channels like TBS and TNT are now speeding up syndicated programs, classics films and other shows by as much as 7 percent. We hadn't noticed it much ourselves, but the trend was spotted by Snopes and others thanks to a YouTube user who compared the same programs aired now and several years ago. A Seinfeld episode that originally ran 25 minutes was nearly 22 after the process, letting the broadcaster fit in about six extra spots. As the WSJ pointed out, ads now run an average of 15.8 minutes per hour on cable, and one unnamed cable exec said that "it's a way to keep the revenue from going down as much as the ratings."
1 in 8 say they will cut back on cable bills -- but probably won't
You remember that story about the boy who cried wolf, right? Well the claim that people are going to cut the cord is starting to get like just it. Year after year we read the results of surveys that say people are going to cut the cord, like this one from the Yankee Group, but then when the official numbers come in we learn that earnings from cable and satellite subscriptions are at an all time high. Sure this could be the year things change, the year when price increases prove too much when there are so many other options. Sure, anything could happen, but honestly we just don't see it. Not only will people say just about anything in a survey, but without the questions posed to respondents, it is really impossible to know how realistic these results are.
