The Braley Blog

“Pete’s Daily Connection”

Frustrations With “Streaming”

Does anyone else have a problem with this whole “streaming” thing? I know, I can hear my kids saying, “Here we go! Old people problems!”

I’ve lost count as to how many streaming services there are. We currently use about six of them and, truth be told, we share just about all of them with the children. I supposed I shouldn’t have just published that…. but I did.

Now I have to admit, sometimes it gets confusing. My wife, Priscilla, and I are watching “Big Bang Theory” from the beginning and the other night I sat down and went to the streaming page and for the life of me I could not remember which one it was on. We’ve watched 20 or more episodes but I just zoned out. I finally remembered it was on Max and I pulled it up. Don’t tell my kids but I may have to create a cheat sheet.

Back in my day we had three television stations! And we LIKED it!”

I grew up with Channels 6, 10 and 12. Remember when the Bruins were on UHF? Channel 38 came in “snowy” and you could barely see the hockey puck. We had a regular antenna up in the attic but if my brother and I wanted to watch the Bruins on TV38 we had to use a special UHF antenna and since I was the younger brother, I had to hold it this-way-and-that-way to try to get a better picture. And once I found it, my brother Jeff would say, “There! Now don’t move!” 

We still subscribe to Comcast at my house. Priscilla wants to cancel it every month when the bill comes but I always point out that we need it for NESN so we can watch the Red Sox. However, the way that team is going I may reconsider. NESN offers a streaming channel but the last time I checked, NESN 360 was something like $30 a month! Ummmm…no thanks, not happening. I like the Sox and I like the Bruins but not for $30 a month. True, I would get total access to “Charlie Moore Outdoors” but I’m really not into fishing.

Two of my children have “cut the cord.” One just does streaming and the other gets by with YouTubeTV and a couple of streaming services.

It’s all so confusing!

I have a friend who recently wanted to watch the movie “Finestkind” about a New Bedford fishing family. Very good movie I might add. The problem was it was on Paramount+ and she didn’t have Paramount+. I think she ordered the free 7-day trial, watched the movie and then canceled. I’ve heard of people doing that and I guess it’s a good idea even though I can’t believe the company lets us get away with that. Maybe they’re banking on a number of us forgetting to cancel. It could be that’s how they make money on that.

My son Doug has an interesting theory about all this. He notes how things always come around and he predicts there will come a time when someone says, “It would be great if we had a way to lump all our favorite streaming packages together in one place.” His answer would be, “We had that. It’s called Cable TV.”

I think we’ll be seeing more and more football games on streaming only. There were many fans upset a few weeks ago when a playoff game was on Peacock only. Fortunately, that’s one of the ones we already have but I could understand fans being upset. However, I understand NBC paid $110 Million dollars for that game so I doubt the NFL will change their mind soon. I’m pretty sure they’ll put up with some bad publicity for $110 million.

So I guess my advice is to enjoy what you can afford. They say the only constant in life is change. I’m sure there will be a whole new delivery system we haven’t even thought of in the not too distant future.


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5 responses to “Frustrations With “Streaming””

  1. Tim P Avatar
    Tim P

    I have an antenna that I put up on my roof. I get all the old school channels plus many more. All great reception. I run that into a Tablo which allows me to record any of my broadcast shows. That stands too all the TV’s in my house through my Roku. It also allows me to pause live TV. Can’t help you with NESN but it’s never cut cable just to pay for YouTube TV or Hulu Live TV.

  2. Peg Britton Avatar
    Peg Britton

    I guess I am one of the few who still likes cable although the prices are awful especially for the boxes …ridiculous ..We dont have smart TVs yet since ours are only about 5 years old when they had the regular HD ones for sale . I can always stream on my phone and a Tablet and I do use my phone for watching stuff on Xfinity …I really like the DVR … Many around here always complain they lose the internet but we hardly ever lose our Cable … I have a DSL line with my phone company for internet along with a landline but my price is locked in for life with that as long as no changes .
    I guess we will stay old school and stay with the X1 box …no cutting the cord ! ;>)

  3. Gloria Baker Avatar
    Gloria Baker

    I’m actually paying way too much for cable & internet & then internet stinks ! . They give us up to maybe 250 channels. I’m sure I don’t know what half of them are. In order to get the 1st 60 or so & the sports channels I have to get 250. Why ??? It’s so frustrating. I don’t know which way to go. Why can’t we just make up a plan with what we watch & pay accordingly. But oh no ! Can’t do that way. Got to cut the cord soon . UGH

  4. Katrina Masse Avatar
    Katrina Masse

    If you don’t have it already get the IMDB app. You look up the show or the movie and check watch options and it’ll let you know what streaming service you can find it on. You can also look the movie up by the actors. I find that very useful. I just finished watching Young Sheldon all six available seasons. One thing I don’t like is they do the first five seasons on one platform and then if you want to watch season six you need another, really not fair. Have a great day!

  5. DOROTHY Koczera Avatar
    DOROTHY Koczera

    Get à Firestick much better !

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