Cordkillers 365 - You'll Buy The Whole Stream, But You'll Only Need The Gauge
A new bill to make cancelling your service easier. Plus, Nielsen has new numbers, Rick & Morty is back, and that weird HBO Max email sent out. All that and more on Cordkillers!
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Loki (102), Rick & Morty (501), Hannibal (303-304)
Next week: Loki (103), Rick & Morty (502), Hannibal (305-306)
CordKillers: 365 - You'll Buy The Whole Stream, But You'll Only Need The Gauge
Recorded: June 21 2021
Guest: None
Intro Video
Trailer for Netflix's Cat People
Primary Target
Schatz, Thune, Warnock, Kennedy Introduce New Legislation To Stop Deceptive Subscription Business Practices
- A bipartisan group of US Senators Brian Schatz, John Thune, Raphael Warnock, and John Kennedy proposed a bill Wednesday called the Unsubscribe Act. Companies would be required to make terms and conditions more transparent when offering a free trial. It would also require a clear and easy way to cancel a trial subscription, including requiring a customer to be able to unsubscribe in the same way they subscribed. Many trials let you easily subscribe online but require a phone call to cancel. This bill would prohibit that practice. It would also require clear notice when the trial is ending, before charging the customer. And it would disallow automatic transfer to a contract longer than one month. In other words, if you signed up for a monthly subscription they can't suddenly switch it to a year and charge you. Companion legislation is also being introduced into the US House.
New bill wants to make it easier to cancel your subscription once the free trial is up
How to Watch
UK Government Calls On Netflix & Amazon To Disclose Viewing Data For Shows Like ‘Peaky Blinders’ & ‘Fleabag’
- Everybody wants to know how many people are watching what. Some have a business reason, others are just curious and some want to know who's "winning." The UK government has said it deserves to know how well shows originated by its public service broadcasters are doing, even if streamers like Netflix only share it with them and not the public. But it's not like TV ratings before streaming were reported by the networks. They were reported by an independent body, for most of TV history that's been Nielsen. The company is making strides in delivering ratings for streaming services and they have a new one.
Nielsen Now Knows When You Are Streaming
- Nielsen announced a new metric called The Gauge that can show a direct percentage comparison how consumers are watching streaming services versus cable and broadcast television.
- It measures TV viewing, not laptop or mobile, using a device connected to the router in 14,000 US households that looks at what is actually being streamed. Nielsen's previous method used audio recognition software which was not as accurate.
- Netflix has been skeptical about these ratings in the past, but Reed Hastings seems to like the new methodology telling the New York Times “They’re in a good place to referee or score-keep how streaming is changing the U.S. television landscape.”
- In May 2021, US viewers spent 64% of viewing time on network and cable TV, 26% of time on streaming services, up from 14% in 2019 and 20% last year. Nielsen estimates that will rise to 33% by the end of 2021.
- Netflix and YouTube get about 6% of TV time followed by Hulu with 3%, Amazon with 2 and Disney+ with 1.
Roku Originals Draw More Viewing In 2 Weeks Than Quibi Did In Its Lifetime
- And by the way, Roku announced that between May 20 and June 3rd, more people streamed its lineup of former Quibi shows than had streamed Quibi shows in Quibi's entire existence.
What to Watch
Rick and Morty season 5 premiere is free to watch on YouTube now
- Rick and Morty Season 5 premiered on Adult Swim Sunday and if you don't get Adult Swim or HBO Max, you can still watch the episode for free. Adult Swim posted the episode called Mort Dinner Rick Andre on its YouTube channel.
The latest teaser for Star Trek: Picard season 2 is noticeably missing some robots
- Paramount Plus released a teaser for season 2 of Picard featuring the return of John deLancie as Q. The immortal being of pure energy kindly appears older, most likely to accommodate Picard's older appearance as well. Also apparently Time has been broken.
Los Angeles Lakers Front Office Comedy Series Set at Netflix From Mindy Kaling, Elaine Ko
- Netflix has ordered a series set in the front office of the LA Lakers basketball team, written by Modern Family producer Elaine Ko and produced by Mindy Kaling. Actual LA Lakers president Jeanie Buss will also get an EP title. The show ads about a fictional president of the Lakers named Eliza reed and her best friend and sounds a little Ted Lasso-y maybe?
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners, Netflix Forge Film Deal in Sign of Changing Hollywood
- Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners signed a deal with Netflix to make multiple movies a year. Spielberg spoke strongly about the need to have Oscars go to movies that were actually seen in theaters leading some to assume he didn't much care for Netflix. Amblin will keep its offices and its deal with Universal Pictures as well.
It's official: Disney+ will premiere Peter Jackon's 6-hour Beatle's documentary in November
- Disney Plus will air a three-part documentary about the music group the Beatles by Peter Jackson over the Thanksgiving Weekend in the US in late November. As with most Beatles documentaries it promises to include many hours of never-before-seen footage, in this case provided by Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.
Ant Man 3 has started filming in London. Paul Rudd made mention of that in a. Video for Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Anthony Hines, one of the writers on Borat is working on a comedy movie called Robots, which just cast Shailene Woodley ion the lead role.
Jennifer Lopez will star in a Netflix SciFi movie called Rampage, directed by Bard Peyton.
Former Top Gear and current The World Tour star Richard Hammond will host a series for Discover+ about restoring classic cars.
While Dune will be coming to HBO Max the same day as it hits theaters on October 1st, it will make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, September 3rd.
Eyes On
Brian: Camp Camp
Tom: The Bad Batch
On the Lookout: Start-Up on Netflix
Front Lines
TikTok TV: ByteDance makes its move for the living room
- Protocol notes TikTok has been experimenting with smart TV platforms. The first app was "More on TikTok" for Fire TVs, launched a year ago with just curated popular videos. In December, TikTok launched an app for Samsung Smart TVs, followed by an Android TV app in February. These apps, available in select European countries, still have the curated collections but also let you log in and watch your personal feeds.
Disney+ Shifts Original Series Release Schedule; Shows To Launch On Wednesdays
- Disney+ announced that going forward, its new series will premiere on Wednesdays. Loki made a last-minute switch from Friday premieres to premiere on Wednesdays and that will apparently continue. Disney+ movies will continue to premiere on Fridays.
‘F9’ Closing In On $300M Overseas Ahead Of Domestic Bow; ‘Quiet Place 2’ Hits $222M WW – International Box Office
- F9, the new Fast and Furious movie, is headed to a domestic release on the strength of racking up $300 million overseas. And those markets don't include the UK, Mexico or Brazil yet. A Quiet Place 2 reached $222 million worldwide. A great time for Pacific Theaters, owner of Arclight to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That's' the one where you liquidate your assets and go out of business. Word is AMC will buy the Grove and American locations and Regal is buying the Sherman Oaks one.
Pacific Theatres Files For Chapter 7 Bankruptcy
Intern Blamed for HBO Max Email Snafu Receives Outpouring of Support Online
- Many HBO max subscribers received an email Thursday with the title "Integration test Email #1" with the message “This template is used by integration tests only.” Thursday, HBO Max announced. “We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it.” Several people on Twitter weighed in with their own stories of mistakes they made. And let's be honest it's one of the least disruptive mistakes HBO Max has made lately.
The Nvidia Shield’s Android TV interface is getting a Google TV-inspired revamp
- The Nvidia Shield got the new Android TV interface which includes a new Discover tab and an Apps section that is full-screen. Customers in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, and Australia will get the new UI and Discover tab, while those in Italy and Spain will only get the new UI.
Univision Takes Aim At Netflix, Setting 2022 Launch Of Streaming Service With Subscription Tier
- Univsion plans to launch a streaming service in the US and Latin America next year with more originals in Spanish than any other streaming service. It will pull together existing services PrendeTV, Vix and Univision Now. There will be an ad-supported ad-free tier.
Apple TV Plus free trial period drops from one year to three months
Dispatches from the Front
Hi Team – I wanted to share my usual theatre watching experiences and wanted to get your views on it. Even before the pandemic I used to go to the theatre only for the big blockbusters and would catch the others on streaming or Redbox. I personally could not justify to myself the value of watching certain movies on the big screen. For example Parasite, the big screen doesn’t add to the experience of the movie and the smaller screen is more than enough. Again this is just my personal choice.
My wife doesn’t like theatres as she gets migraines from the loud noises and also since we are non native English speakers she prefers watching on TV with closed captions. My kids have grown without the large screen and are picky as to what they want to watch. For this year they want to watch the next Hotel Transylvania movie and nothing more. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way and would love to hear your thoughts.
The cost of a family movie night at the theatre is also not an enticing factor with a 4 member trip easily totaling more than $150
Thanks,
- Josh
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