Streaming Showcase: HBO Now

Here's the thing you have to remember about HBO Now: It's really freakin' expensive. 15 bucks a month may not sound like much, especially if you are already used to paying your cable company for HBO, but that's 50% more than the highest-priced of the other streaming options. Even Showtime Anytime is available for 11 bucks a month or 9 as an add-on to Amazon Prime or Hulu.

So when we consider HBO's value, we have to consider it's charging a super premium. Yeah, yeah, it's not TV, it's HBO, right? Well, no kidding. I don't pay so much for regular ol' TV.

If you are into what HBO offers and don't want to pay for a digital cable subscription, digital box, etc., just to get "Game of Thrones," then I'm sure it's worth it, and you must be elated that HBO Now exists. For many, I suspect it's more of a month-to-month thing. Like any subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, it has to keep cranking out must-see programming to get people to keep re-upping...or just hope people are too lazy to cancel. That often works, too!

Content aside, HBO Now is a decent service. It has "resume watching." It's smooth, and other than the annoying feature of the HBO logo coming up each time before the actual selection begins, programming starts quickly. There is closed captioning for everything. When I had my free month, I experienced few if any technical difficulties, and overall the channel impressed me with its streaming quality and consistency.

There is a watchlist--a must for any paid streaming service--but it doesn't seem to work that well on Roku. I couldn't see more than 15 titles at any one time, but when I removed something from those 15, something else--presumably 16--moved in so I could see it. Obviously that makes it much less useful in practice. It would be nice to have more options as far as adding series to a watchlist, and that might free up titles for the actual queue they do provide, but this is probably my biggest quibble about the organization of HBO Now.

Content is king, and HBO doesn't give you everything it ever did--don't look for 1990s hits like "Dream On" and "Mr. Show," let alone stuff from the early days like "First and Ten" and "Not Necessarily the News"--but you do get complete runs of most of the notable shows HBO has produced in its modern era. In addition, you get a big back catalog of comedy specials and documentaries, along with a rotating array of movies.

The movies will be a big draw for those disillusioned with the steady drop-off of theatrical hits from Netflix. HBO still has deals with major studios like Warner, Fox, and Universal, and that gives its lineup a lot of juice. Basically, if it's on HBO, it'll be on HBO Now, and likely it'll be there quickly and will stay for a while. One great thing about HBO Now is that it provided expiration dates on its titles so you know exactly how long you have to watch something.  That kind of transparency is a great asset for the customer and a nice contrast to the mystery Netflix tries to preserve.

One thing you don't get with HBO Now is live HBO, so you will have to wait a day or two for live specials like the HBO Boxing events, but you  will be able to see them. Other than that, I don't see a huge disadvantage to not getting the live stream as long as everything is on demand.

So is HBO Now worth it? It does what it does very well--so well, in fact, that Netflix is currently copying it, undergoing a massive shift  from library content to original programming.  Netflix is still by far the better deal. It has so much material for so much less per month that it's easy to get value each month even if you aren't following all of its new shows.

However, there is a lot of great stuff on HBO. I know I would be tempted to get it for "Veep" and "Silicon Valley" alone, plus I'd love to do big "Sopranos" or "The Wire" rewatches someday. Right now. I don't think I have to tell you much about HBO programming, but if you love HBO programming, you will be satisfied by HBO Now. I don't have this channel, but it's only because I don't want to pay 15 bucks a month for it. This grade is based in large part on that high price.

Grade for HBO Now: B

Subtlety was not the hallmark of Gene-Dietch-era Tom and Jerry

From "Mouse into Space," 1962

Shameless Self-Promotion: TV Time at ClassicFlix

It's that time again--yes, TV Time! This installment covers some of the highest -rated TV episodes of all time. Check it out, and remember to tell   'em Cultureshark sent ya!

TV TIME: Top-Rated TV Episodes, Part 1
        | by Rick Brooks  
Wesley Hyatt's Television's Top 100: The Most Watched American Broadcasts 1960-2010 is an excellent book exploring television history through an unofficial ranking of sorts. It's no mere list, though, but an entertaining and informative read with write-ups on each of the 100 broadcasts. In this column and the next, we'll examine episodes included in the book belonging to the ClassicFlix era that are available on DVD.

5 Streaming Video on Demand Offerings I'd Like to See in 2016 #3: NFL Films

We all know one of the most powerful/evil entities on the planet is the National Football League. We also know that if  there's one thing the league loves, it's  making money (If it can stick it to a metropolitan region while doing so, all the better). Why, then, does the NFL seem uninterested in monetizing its cast library?

Last year, the NFL trotted out a half-assed Roku channel called NFL Now. It offered (very) limited free clips, and for a small fee per month, subscribers had access to SOME of the NFL Network programming like the "America's Game" and "A Football Life" documentaries. I don't think anyone even promoted it, and it died. I would say it predictably died, but it's always a surprise when the NFL fails at making money on something. Plus I made a New Year's resolution to cut down on adverbs.

This season, NFL Channel relaunched with an emphasis on access to condensed in-season games, the same short mobile-friendly clips tailored by team interest, and no original programming. I don't know how well it's doing, but it looks like an even more half-assed effort than last year's version, and I don't get the strategy.

Here's what I don't want to see on an NFL Roku channel: in-season games. Well, actually, I'd love that access, but the league has a service called NFL GameRewind that offers coaches film and everything, and it is supposed to be great, but I don't want to pay for that.

I would "settle" for a simple NFL channel that offers, at a minimum:

1) All current NFL Network original shows within 30 days of premiering on the network
2) All NFL Network original shows that have aired
3) Extensive material from the NFL Films library: NFL Films Presents, Football Follies, NFL's Greatest Games, etc.

I mean, we all love the work NFL Films does, right? Let's see all the archival stuff with John Facenda's narration. I want to see the Raiders and Steelers of the 1970s. I want to see Montana. I want to see Namath. Right now, some of it turns up occasionally on the Network or on ESPN, and there are some DVD collections, but there is a ton of content not available anywhere.

Now let's get ambitious. Let's get not just the NFL Films specials and documentaries, but old episodes of "This Week in Pro Football" with Tom Brookshier and Pat Summerall. That should be owned by the NFL. It might be a pipe dream to get old "ESPN NFL Primetime" episodes, but I'd love to see what for years was THE source for highlights.

And what I would really, really love to see: actual complete game broadcasts. Does the league have retransmission rights for these after all these years? I don't know, but I'll bet it does, and besides, what, is CBS going to complain that the NFL shows a 1982 Vikings/Bears game? Give them a piece of the pie. Make all of it available on demand, or at least launch with a bunch, then add games each week. How much fun would it be to see the old pregame shows, too? And throw up old "Monday Night Football" telecasts with Cosell, Meredith, and Gifford each Monday in the offseason.

Would you pay 5 bucks a month for this? I sure would, especially with any kind of presence of old (and I mean pre-2000s) *complete* games in original broadcast form. I'd even be willing to consider just a package centered around NFL Films programs and documentaries if it were affordable  and not limited in terms of selection.

Unfortunately, the fiasco that occurred last week when the NFL trumpeted a screening of Super Bowl I may indicate how the NFL feels about offering its archival material at an affordable price. It lowballed the owner of an actual videotape of the game, then put together something based on footage from other sources and ruined it by having people talk over it the whole time. 

I'm not optimistic about something like my vision becoming reality, but a guy can dream. I'm surprised the league isn't at least trying something with that goldmine of archival content.

Brooks on Books: Revising my review of the new Maltin Classic Movie Guide

I got a refund for the defective "Classic Movie Guide," then re-ordered it (I would have been happy to just get a replacement, but that's not the way it was meant to be), and I can report that THIS version of the book has all the pages...or at least, it seems to have all the pages. I haven't had time to look at them all yet.

Now that I have access  to pages 465 through 496, I can look at entries like "Murder Is My Business" (1946, Hugh Beaumont as Michael Shayne) and Northwest Stampede (1948, a "formulaic oater" starring Joan Leslie). The book is more complete. It's still not COMPLETE complete, and the fact that there are so many movies on streaming and TCM that aren't in here makes me give this "only" ***.5 out of ****, but I still love the hell out of it and just wish it were bigger.

On the radio" "End of the Line" by the Travelling Willburys

I caught this track, the second single off the debut Willburys album, on a local station while driving home the other night. It's nice to get that quick radio thrill every now and then--the excitement of, "Hey, haven't heard THIS in a while!" It's also nice to know I still get it. I write about this every now and then, and this moment triggered another post.

If I have access to YouTube, I can listen to just about any song I can think of in a matter of moments (depending on the length of the ad I have to sit through), which has changed the way I interact with and feel about music. For example, right now if I want to TOTALLY ROCK OUT, I can crank up some vintage Christopher Cross while I write this, Who knows what it's like for these millennials (that's still the term, right?) who grew up in an on-demand world and never had to listen to the radio hoping to hear a certain tune. Do they yearn for Christopher Cross? Or have they heard his stuff so many times they just feel jaded?

Maybe the on-demand scene hasn't totally eradicated the feeling of--not even discovery, but of REdiscovery, of catching up with a song you forgot you loved. After all, the station I was listening to when "End of the Line" played was in the middle of a syndicated all-request show. So presumably someone picked up the phone and asked for the show to play the song on the radio, then waited to hear it, as opposed to just Googling it and hearing it on a phone.

The end result: I got to hear a cool one I hadn't enjoyed in quite some time. If I want to hear it again, I don't even have to dig into my CD collection. I can just type and click. But is that as satisfying or as fun as stumbling upon it while driving home? I think not.

Eh, maybe I'm just old.