Why are soap fans so averse to online streaming?

[BoldRestless]

 

Classic ones or new ones? I have seen streams of the new (I assume the Canadian version) episodes on there.... which I wasn't even looking for, but they pop up on my feed sometimes because I look at Y&R stuff. 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Looks new but it took me by surprise, I didn't know that those existed.  Also I was viewing a classic Guiding Light episode.  When I have viewed classic As The World Turns episodes, I don't remember that happening. 

[DramatistDreamer]

Interesting that though this article posits that there is room for both Netflix and Hulu and Netflix if far and away the leader, Hulu's $6 per month ad-supported service  may be more aligned with the future of streaming, according to this article.

I still say P&G are absolute fools for not at least trying an ad-supported service to stream episodes from some of their classic daytime dramas.

 

[KMan101]

I always thought one of the benefits of streaming was NO ADS, yet that's the future

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 I get it, but I've yet to be encouraged to buy or click on an ad I see play. It often makes me not even want that product ... 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Who says?

Streaming is getting to be where TV has been for over fifty years.  YouTube, one of the earliest streamers, has never been about having no ads.  PBS' streaming service even has a subtly placed ad or two.  The idea of cable networks like HBO was always to avoid ads.  Netflix, which began as a DVD by mail service, has evolved into the subscription-based service it is today.  Hulu has always had ads.  Crackle has ads.  ESPN's streaming service even has ads (as far as I know, I'm not sure about their recent ESPN+ service).

 

I have never gotten the sense that anything online is set in stone, it has always been ever evolving.  I don't think that anyone knows what things will evolve into.  That's the Internet, in a nutshell. 

If you had asked the inventors of the World Wide Web (and people have asked people like Tim Berners Lee), they would admit that they had no idea the concept that they invented for computers to communicate with one another would turn into what it is today.

Edited April 18, 2019 by DramatistDreamer

[KMan101]

One of the benefits was always "no ads or limited ads". At least IMO. So, I says

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 Disney+ won't at least initially and it's one of the lowest priced offerings. But of course most realize ad-free isn't sustainable.

Edited April 18, 2019 by KMan101

[DramatistDreamer]

In the Cobra Kai thread in the Primetime section, I posted an article about how the show has a brand marketing deal with Enterprise car rentals.  Even though the show streams on YouTube premium, it is product placement, which is essentially marketing, which is an ad.

Ads are still relevant, even in premium streaming, whether people want to acknowledge this or not. Having ad dollars come in adds an extra layer of protection for a show/channel's bottom line. 

 

The ads are not so obvious with product placement (unless you remember those clunky product placements in the last years of P&G soaps like ATWT) but it's still there.  And it's more prominent than you think.

[Khan]

You know, I used to laugh about product placements on soaps.  (Remember when DAYS' Caroline Brady was espousing the wonders of some heat-and-eat Asian "cuisine" to Sami and another character at Brady's Pub?)  Then, I watched how the Hallmark Channel handled product placements for several of their goopy Christmas movies.  Lord, have mercy, lol.

Edited April 19, 2019 by Khan

[DramatistDreamer]

 

When done seamlessly, product placement can truly be effective.  The problem is that, most times, it's tossed in as an afterthought and is not really organic to the scene(s) where the product is placed.

 

You would think that a company such as P&G, there would be special attention to how products are placed creatively (no running water, I guess, meant no product placement for dishwashing soap) but the product placement that ATWT attempted to do in it's final years was so clunky and bad, it was laughable. 

With the coterie of household products that P&G sells and all those storylines and scenes that took place inside the home and office, you'd of thought it would've been a slam dunk but it wasn't.  I just don't understand how you get that wrong, but they managed to get it wrong.

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Piggybacking on this ongoing discussion of streamers, I read this blog post and now I understand why there are some holdouts in the public library system in regards to Kanopy.  The cost may be prohibitive to quite a number of library systems.

 

[Faulkner]

I hadn’t looked into the economics of Kanopy, and yikes. NYCPL users get 10 streams a month, which is great, but that’s from the biggest public library system in the country.

[Faulkner]

Annnnnd the New York and Brooklyn public libraries will end Kanopy access on July 1.

[dragonflies]

wrong thread lol

Edited June 24, 2019 by dragonflies

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Expense has to be the reason.  If it's going off the NYPL system then other public libraries can kiss this platform bye-bye.

[DramatistDreamer]

Since this thread has kind of morphed into a general discussion on streaming, I thought that this was as good as anywhere to post this.

AppleTV and the raft of other upcoming streamers must find this news a bit unsettling.