Blog Post #2

Last week HBO announced that in 2015 they will be launching a streaming video service. While the concept of instant streaming is nothing new for consumers, the fact that this service will not require a cable or satellite subscription could have lasting effects for television culture and the commodities surrounding it.

HBO has been one of the top premium cable channels for years thanks to programming like "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective," yet the price for this content has always been a point of contention. According to Miller "the price paid for subscribing to cable or satellite access takes over from the programs being watched," (Miller p.7). With the cable subscription you were essentially forced to pay for all of HBO's content, but with the streaming service we pay for what we want to watch (it is important to note that during the announcement HBO failed to mention pricing). By creating a streaming service HBO sets to pit its commodities, in this case the programming, directly against other streaming services. Currently, HBO has a subscription base of 30 million within the United States. Netflix has 37 million.

It is clear the future of television lies online. This is due to the technological shifts in television programming. With the advent of the Internet, programming now has a way of reaching wider audiences faster making the television itself obsolete; or as Miller puts it "each one of these new technologies became increasingly empty commodities," (Miller p.15). As technology progresses we have seen the emptying of the television as a commodity and now are witnessing the death of cable or satellite connections.

However having quicker access does not necessarily make the service better (if that were the case wouldn't DVDs be the best solution?), it is the ability to customize the experience so it best suites the individual. Not only does streaming services allow for quicker access to content, but they also allow for the access of the content to be personalized. If you only care about one HBO program, then stream only that content, or search for content similar to your preference. "With the growing importance and increasing power of computational media, this framework has tended to be seen not only as a flow of information but specifically as computational processes," (Hayles p. 150). This falls in line with the idea of cybernetics, in which the consumer is able to personalize their viewing experience through the customization of the viewing framework. It becomes their experience that no one can replicate because they themselves have become apart of the viewing experience.

They're still a lot of unanswered questions regarding the HBO streaming service, but there is no doubt about why they have decided to make the transition. The power of streaming services is currently a unchallenged commodity thanks to the consumer-friendly framework. Like all technologies, eventually something will come up and challenge streaming, but at the moment, it is safe to say we will be seeing more cable subscription channels launching streaming services in the near future.

Sources:
Miller, Toby. “Introduction.” Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism, and Television in a Neoliberal Age. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2007. 1-26.
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Cybernetics.” Critical Terms for Media Studies. 145-156.