 This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. What are we watching and where? From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics, on your favorite podcast catcher, or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. There's a whole lot going on in the world of how you get your television. The major players have their streaming solutions in place. Broadcast TV is about to be dragged through another digital conversion, and consumer habits are rapidly changing. Let's break it down. Netflix, despite their massive spending on programming, $17 billion in 2020, may soon be eclipsed in terms of subscribers by Disney Plus, assuming the latter's momentum holds. The latest figures show 86 million subscribers for the mouse. Actually, a new number just came out of 94 million. Wow. A figure they didn't expect to see until 2024. Meanwhile, HBO Max has reached almost 38 million, helped by the critically derided Wonder Woman 84 film. They're now betting on the Justice League Snyder cut coming in March to bump them up into the big leagues. Despite the name, much of the content is from WB. Amazon Prime Video continues to ride the coattails of two-day free delivery while plowing $7 billion into programming last year. This means the 150 million subscriber base is questionable. CBS All Access is rebranding to Paramount Plus to bring in content from the recent CBS Viacom merger. Once normal production gets back up and running, they apparently intend to have a constant stream of new Star Trek content to keep you coming back. Peacock is finally up and running. It was essentially in beta for Comcast customers since the summer. They are at 33 million customers so far, but we don't know how many are in the only free tier. Hulu is quickly becoming the hub for Disney Fox programming to adult for Disney Plus. The mouse will take total ownership of Hulu soon and operationally already has. Surprisingly, they only have 36 million subscribers despite having such a huge lead time over the new guys. So all but one of the major studios now has a matching streaming service. Only Sony has been left out unless you count the failing Crackle service. This is why Netflix has been throwing real barrels of money into original content. They know a reckoning is coming as existing contracts with studio content run out. Of course, there's the big question. Will people be willing to pay for seven services on an ongoing basis, $70 monthly, assuming you go the no commercial plans, with more smaller players like Discovery Plus coming? People are grumbling that we're reaching the absurd cost of cable TV. It's still lower, plus you get to watch a show whenever you want. There's already been some attrition, high and by, quibby. Would studios be willing to tear down the walls they just finished building to do a Hulu-like arrangement with multiple studios content at one site? It seems unlikely. In terms of the major players, here's what we've been watching lately. So I check the currently watching strip on each service for each of us. On Netflix, I'm watching Grey's Anatomy again. For me, nothing. There's nothing currently on there. Not a good sign. We did watch Schitt's Creek there, though. Yes. On Hulu, I've been watching... Well, I'm not really watching a lot of these, but some of them I am. Body of Proof is on that list because it keeps auto-playing after other shows that I watch, like The Rookie, which we could watch on the network. You know, you could get it over the air. Sure. But sometimes it's just easier to watch it on Hulu. Yeah. We both watch Call Your Mother. Well, except that we watch it over the air. Right, right. And a million little things I used to watch, but I don't anymore. And I was watching Call Me Cat. But again, another show you can pick up over the air. Yes. Although I have to say on Hulu, I also watch the new episodes of Grey's Anatomy, but it's not on my currently watching because there haven't been any new episodes lately. Gotcha. All right. On Amazon Prime, from my stuff, Dr. Thorne, which I watch like one episode of, and Sandatons, the same thing. Yeah. And I watched them. And for me, nothing again for Amazon Video. On Disney Plus, I've been rewatching Marvel movies. Yeah. And then I watched the movie Godmother, which was bad. They're both watching WandaVision, which is just the problem I think WandaVision has is they are setting the bar so high for the Marvel TV shows. I just don't see how the Winter Soldier and Falcon are going to do. But I do have to say, if you haven't watched it yet, watch WandaVision and watch Forky asks a question. There haven't been new episodes yet. But there's several episodes. And it's a short show. So you can blow through pretty fast. On HBO Max, I don't know why Search Party is on it. I don't even know what that is. Oh. That was on your... I have no idea. One of those autoplay things. And the Flight Attendant, which we both watch. Yeah. And then for me, Harley Quinn and Doom Patrol. And we would probably watch other DC stuff that was on there. Yeah. CBS, All Access Paramount. On my list is Blue Bloods, which again is one of those autoplay things. I don't watch that. NCIS and Bull. And then for me, Star Trek Discovery. It was the last thing that was on there. Peacock doesn't have separate accounts. So I don't know. Modern Family is something that's on there. I don't really rewatch it very often. But if I accidentally start Peacock... It's a strange show to be on Peacock. Because it was produced by Fox. And it was broadcast on ABC. But it's on the NBC-centric Peacock. I don't get it. Meanwhile, remember about a dozen years ago when we all had to buy new TVs in order to watch our favorite broadcast shows and all the confusion that caused? Well, get ready to go through it all over again. When the big digital conversion happened, we went from the National Television Standards Council, NTSC, spec, that had existed since the 1950s to what was called Advanced Television Standards Council, ATSC, specs. That gave us high-def screens and digital transmission. This resulted in tens of millions of TV sets being sold all at once. The alternative was a converter box or staying on analog cable, which soon ceased to exist. Shareholders of TV hardware firms were thrilled and then expected similar numbers going forward every year. This kicked off a litany of gimmicks, 3D, 4K, 8K, QLED, HDR, curved screens, quantum dots, none of which were actually taken advantage of by your TV signal. After an aborted ATSC 2.0, it took so long to be ratified that the business blew past it, we now have a 3.0 spec. It allows for 4K and even 8K because it's not tied to an underlining format. It also allows for HDR, high dynamic range of colors, a Dolby standard that goes all the way up to 71.4 channel audio for all of those who want to install 71 speakers around their TV, I guess, and the ability to send broadcast video to mobile and cars. Oh, and it allows for geotargeting, meaning it can know where you're watching TV. They are pushing this to allow for targeting emergency messages, but you know they will use it to target ads. On-demand and premium content, a.k.a. pay-per-view, is also in the mix. Guess what? Do you want to get all these extras, either have to buy new TVs or converters again? You might think this is not a big issue, I just stream everything. However, there's a lot of people, with more every day, cutting the cord on cable, relying on broadcasts for at least some of their TV. For those people, including us, we may have to do some upgrading down the line. This is going to take some time, as local stations will need to invest in the tech. Also, studios will need to upgrade to shoot in 4K. Plus, there's very little in the way of ATSC 3.0 hardware on the market yet, so I wouldn't worry about it for now. What you can worry about, however, is how your local station may use the new spec as a cover to swap around where you find a show. For those with antennas, you're probably aware of Diginets. Secondary channels running alongside your local station, most of which include TV show libraries or internet stuff. They are listed as Channel 4.2, for example. Subchannels like Mi TV, Stadium, and Comet have proliferated in the last 10 years. Many of these channels are owned by big conglomerates, who also own local stations. So, they want to emphasize the Diginets they own, in some cases to the detriment of the main station. We just learned that our local Fox affiliate is being demoted to a subchannel, and not even its own. Sinclair owns the ABC, Fox, and CW affiliates here. Thanks, FCC, for concentrating on naughty words over, you know, managing the public broadcast space. Sinclair just moved the Fox affiliate to one of the ABC subchannels. Why? So they can better publicize TBD, a Diginet they also own, and which appears to be just a bunch of YouTube videos scraped together. This will give TBD a prime spot on both broadcast and cable, who generally shove Diginets into the thousand channel stratosphere if they carry them at all. Sinclair has already done this in four markets, with more to come. Their cover? We're testing ATSC 3.0 and need the space. The upside to all this for antenna users, keep re-scanning your channels on a regular basis if you don't want to lose anything. Now, we talk quite a bit about the major streaming services and what we're watching on them. However, what we are watching far more of is our personal streaming service, a Plex server. This is a way to take all the content you have sitting around on your computers or physical media and putting it in an organized interface accessible anywhere. We won't go into details on this, maybe that's another episode. But one of my major pandemic projects has been to convert my large DVD library into digital files, lining them up in Plex for our personal use. Now, you enjoy Law & Order as background video while you're doing other things. Way too much. And I watch MST3K while noodling around on my phone. If you have the time and the patience, and right now we know you have the time, the question is where you have the patience, it's something you should look into. I love the Plex. You'll find me using it often. Yeah, and it also holds music and photos, TV shows, movies. It's very nice, but it requires a lot of upkeep. Yes. But you could download our audio podcast How I Got My Wife to Read Comics onto your Plex server and listen to it all the time. Yeah. Or you can access it with your favorite podcast catcher on our website sfpodcast.org.com. From the Pop Culture Bunker, I'm Mindy. I'm Mark. Thanks for watching.