{"id":17348,"date":"2015-03-16T23:59:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T13:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17348"},"modified":"2015-03-20T00:04:37","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T14:04:37","slug":"the-revolution-will-not-be-televised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17348","title":{"rendered":"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"netflixaus\"<\/a><\/p>\n

T<\/span>here’s something really weird that’s been happening lately in Australia. \u00a0Foxtel – the country’s dominant cable provider who I have had a subscription with for eight years – is suddenly being nice to me. \u00a0It started in October when they just dropped me a letter to say they were giving me ten extra channels for free. \u00a0No reason. \u00a0Just being nice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Then they came up with some new plans. \u00a0Cheaper plans. \u00a0Like, thirty dollars a month cheaper. \u00a0Oh, and that thing where I only want to subscribe to Foxtel for the sports channels but they force me to pay for a bundled package with about fifty channels I don’t want? \u00a0They’re finally coming up with a stand alone sports package<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0How about that!<\/p>\n

It’s a jarring experience because as long as I can remember, Foxtel have behaved no differently to the cable companies from that one episode of South Park<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0They seemed to pride themselves on outrageously shitty business practises and lousy service. \u00a0For the longest time, if you wanted the sports package you had to subscribe to a basic package and then pay extra for sport. \u00a0What’s that? \u00a0You want your football in HD? \u00a0Well, that’s a premium. \u00a0An extra $20 on top again. \u00a0Basically, for the longest time, if you wanted to watch HD sports in Australia, you had to pay Foxtel roughly $80 bucks a month because fuck you, that’s why. \u00a0You get to call the shots when you’re the only game in town.<\/p>\n

\"cablecompanies\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Free to air television is no better. \u00a0It is a cultural wasteland in Australia that is losing viewers<\/strong><\/a> in droves. \u00a0Nothing seems more antiquated in 2015 than sitting down and watching FTA channels that literally talk to the viewer as though they were emotionally stunted simpletons. \u00a0All the ads are about gambling and alcohol. \u00a0The teasers for the latest reality shows always lead in with footage of contestants crying with the same tired promise of cliff-hanger endings and shock revelations. \u00a0Trashy current affair programs still drone on\u00a0about dodgy tradesmen, fad diets and celebrity gossip. \u00a0All of this coverage is presented with the same nuance as a penis enlargement spam email. \u00a0Five minutes of FTA television is usually more than enough to make me reach for the remote. \u00a0It’s programming thats scarily similar to\u00a0Idiocracy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So people download shows instead. \u00a0They do it in Australia by the hundreds of thousands. \u00a0Our country is the number one illegal downloader of\u00a0Game of Thrones<\/em>\u00a0in the world because it isn’t legally possible to watch it for less than $30 a season. \u00a0And just like illegal music services paved the way for legal enterprises like Spotify, television is finally getting the streaming video-on-demand services that people have been crying out for in Australia for years. \u00a0Netflix finally arrives in Australia on March 31st.<\/p>\n

Of course, many people in Australia have already been using Netflix for years thanks to GeoBlocking. \u00a0And they’ll tell you that Netflix is clearly the way of the future. \u00a0It might not always be the same company that dominates the VOD landscape but Netflix’s template has set the foundation for others to build upon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It goes without saying that the primary appeal of a video on demand service is watching shows on your time, not someone elses. \u00a0But there are so many other benefits to Netflix which makes their paltry $9.99 monthly subscription fee worth while. \u00a0The service has zero ads. \u00a0Zero. \u00a0There’s no banner ads. \u00a0No sneaky commercial in between shows. \u00a0It has zero.<\/p>\n

The breadth of films and shows they have is terrific. \u00a0Their algorithms for suggesting new shows you might like is generally on the money. \u00a0And in Australia, it actually provides a reasonable alternative to the plethora of shitty programming we get on tv here. \u00a0Netflix has a lot of content but they still exercise impressive quality control. \u00a0Just look at some of those recommendation categories: \u00a0‘Critically acclaimed films’, ‘Top Rated British Crime Dramas’, ‘Mind-Bending Foreign Movies’. \u00a0That’s what I’m talking about. \u00a0I have no doubt that Rupert Murdoch’s media team will eventually create their own VOD service and I imagine the categories will probably be ‘Weight loss shows’, ‘Weeping Reality Show Contestants’ and ‘The Truth About Obama’. \u00a0I don’t think Netflix gets nearly enough praise for not peddling garbage on their network.<\/p>\n

So what happens next? \u00a0When Netflix arrives and even more people cancel Foxtel and tune out from FTA what will happen to the likes of News Corp and Nine Entertainment? \u00a0Will they be forced to up their game and provide better content delivered in ways that are convenient and considerate to the customer?<\/p>\n

Not likely. \u00a0My guess is that they’ll do what they did in the States – where the major media networks purposefully throttled the Internet speeds for people accessing Netflix<\/strong><\/a>, which ultimately lead to Netflix capitulating and having to pay out millions so their customers could access their service unhindered.<\/p>\n

I expect you’ll see me post a ranting blog article about something similar happening in Australia. \u00a0I give it 12 months.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the arrival of Netflix this month, the television revolution finally arrives in Australia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2207,2206,472],"class_list":["post-17348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-foxtel","tag-netflix","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17348"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17381,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17348\/revisions\/17381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}