Switching networks

I saw online that the NBC show Manifest is being picked up by Netflix for a fourth and final season. The show ended its first season in the top ten, with over 12 million viewers on average. Manifest has steadily dropped in the rating since then, finishing the most recent season in 54th place, averaging 5.34 million viewers. It was canceled by NBC in June 2021 after the conclusion of season three, but now it has new life.

This is simply the latest of a large number of TV shows that have switched networks over the years. The first one I remember doing this was Get Smart, which began on NBC, but switched to CBS for its fifth and what turned out to be final season.

I don't remember The Joey Bishop Show changing networks in the early 1960s, but it did. I never watched the show, so it didn't register. Leave it to Beaver had switched from CBS to ABC, but I only ever saw the CBS episodes first run. My Three Sons went from ABC to CBS when it went from black and white to color episodes. Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour -- many years before American Idol, America's Got Talent, and other shows like that -- jumped networks several times between 1948 and 1970, airing on Dumont, NBC, ABC, NBC (again), ABC (again), and finally CBS. Wagon Train ran on NBC from 1958-1962, when it jumped to ABC until it ended in 1965.

More recently, Matlock jumped from NBC to ABC over its time on the air. Mystery Science Theater 3000 switched from Comedy Central (formerly The Comedy Channel) to Sci-Fi (now SyFy), before being revived on Netflix. JAG began on NBC, then spent a decade on CBS. Taxi aired on ABC until its final season on NBC.

Many many other shows have switched networks over the years, some successfully, some not. Manifest is simply one of the latest. I watched and enjoyed the first season, but was extremely disappointed from the second season on. I don't know if the final season will be any good. I enjoyed the revival of MST3K, so moving to Netflix isn't a bad thing. Whether or not Manifest will be any good, I don't know.

I'm happy that fans of shows that are canceled have options. And, with streaming services such as Netflix now in the mix, more have that opportunity. Fans of Manifest will look forward to another season of the show in their Streaming Life. And that means possibilities for us all.

Fire TV Recast

credit: panbo.com

I've used a few different DVR systems over the years. I've used TiVo (cable and OTA), Simple.TV (cable), Tablo (OTA), and Air TV (OTA). I can now add Fire TV Recast to the list.

I've talked about all of these before, and my DVR of choice lately has been Tablo, followed by Air TV. But what about Fire TV Recast? Well, it's a good system, too. It has one drawback.

First, the cost of the Fire TV Recast system is not bad. It costs about the same as the high end Tablo or Air TV devices. And it's comparable to them.

Setup of Fire TV Recast is similar to that of Tablo or Air TV. You use the mobile app to set it up and scan your antenna channels, and then it just kinda works.

But here's where the limitation kicks in. Fire TV Recast is only for Fire TV devices. It won't work with Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, or any other smart TV system that isn't Fire TV. If you're all in with Amazon, and intend to stay that way, it works rather well. Otherwise, it's a waste of money, as there are other good options that work with the other platforms as well as with Fire TV, including Tablo and Air TV.

Let's say that Fire TV is your platform of choice. If so, once you set up Fire TV, the content just shows up on the main Fire TV page, under Live. There is the last channel you watch, displaying what's currently showing on that channel, as well as the Fire TV Recast program guide, called simply "Guide." Other live streaming channels you watched will show there too, but those two Fire TV Recast items will be in the mix, led by Guide.

The Guide itself is easy to use. It's a standard programming guide like all the DVRs and most cable systems have. You can see what's on, what's coming up, and record content if you wish. You can mange the channels, if you want to hide some.

Recording a show is easy, although I had to search to find the recordings. I found them under Library. That makes sense, but I would have liked to have seen a DVR listing under Live TV. However, since some apps and service include DVR functionality, I could see some people getting a crazy about their Sling TV or YouTube TV recordings not showing there. I won't argue with Amazon's decision to put the Fire TV Recast recordings under Library. Once I figured out where to find it, it wasn't really a problem.

All in all, it's a good DVR. The only issue I have is that it only works with Fire TV. To me, that's a killer insofar as it being my DVR of choice. But, if you are all in with Fire TV, it's a good option that integrates well with that system. It won't be the go-to DVR in my Streaming Life, but if you decide to make it yours, it's a good choice.

The Roku Channel

I've seen many sing the praises of The Roku Channel since the service first launched in 2017. I've not really bought into it, because nothing stood out to cause me to want to give it a try. Well, recently, I decided I would give it a try.

Well, I've given it a try. And I'll use it some, certainly more than I did, but I won't use it a lot.

The Roku Channel offers live streaming TV, which I can get from other sources. It also offers on-demand movies and TV shows for free (ad supported), which I can get from other sources. It also allows me to subscribe to premium services, which I do directly, because I hate Roku Pay. So, the three big features are all features I can get elsewhere.

Is that a reason to not use the service? No, actually. There are many different apps and services that offer similar content and features as other apps and services. Bringing nothing new to the table isn't a disqualifier in and of itself.  No, what does it for me is how it works; that is, the user experience.

I have a problem with autoplay content. The Roku Channel doesn't do it to the degree that Peacock TV does, but if there is a TV series, it automatically plays the next episode unless I manually intervene. There's no way to turn off Autoplay, or Play Next. I never want Play Next or Autoplay turn on. Never. So, forcing it on me is not a user friendly experience. And if the experience is not user friendly, I won't subject myself to it.

As I said, it's not as bad as other apps/services, such as Peacock TV. But, it does the Play Next thing, and that's a deal breaker for me.

If it offered the capability to turn that off, I would use the app/service more. Really. There is some good content on The Roku Channel, and I will use it on occasion, but not for TV shows. Live streaming? Sure. On-demand movies? Sure. TV Shows? No way, because I don't want Play Next.

Do I recommend The Roku Channel? Well, no I'm not going to recommend something that I don't like. But, I will say that if Play Next doesn't bother you, then there's no downside to The Roku Channel. It won't be a large part of my Streaming Life, but it will be a small part. So there's that.

College football season underway

The 2021 college football season starts this afternoon. I've already planned my streaming service to use for the teams I follow, but not everyone follows the same teams I follow. And, I may decide I want to watch other games. Saving money was the primary reason I dropped cable and started streaming, but I've also come to appreciate the flexibility I get from streaming. So, if I decide I want to watch something else, I want to be able to do that.

My teams aren't playing this weekend, but maybe your team is. Or maybe you just want to watch a game that's interesting. So, what do you do?

Looking at the schedule for today's games, there are a few things that I'd need to do if I wanted to watch everything -- or be able to watch everything.

There are four major divisions of college football: FBS (Division 1-A), FCS (Division 1-AA), Division II, Division III.

Division II/III

Let's get Division II and Division III out of the way first. This weekend, no games are scheduled for broadcast in those division. There are no Division III games, and only one Division II game, and it's not being broadcast.

FCS/1-AA

To watch all the FCS/1-AA games, you'll need ESPN, ESPN+, and CBS Sports Network.

ESPN+ is a $7 standalone service. Some people still think it includes the ESPN service. It does not. ESPN+ is an service that is best used as a supplement to ESPN, but you do not need to subscribe to ESPN in order to subscribe to ESPN+. It's totally separate. But, again, ESPN+ does not include standard ESPN service.

FBS/1-A

If you want to watch FBS/1-A games this weekend, you'll need ESPN, CBS Sports Network, and Fox. Some streaming services include Fox, but not all. If you have an antenna, you can subscribe to one of the cheaper services.

The Streaming Services

To watch games this weekend, you'll need some of these:

• ESPN
  • Sling Orange ($35)
  • Vidgo ($55)
  • Hulu+Live TV ($65)
  • YouTube TV ($65)
  • Fubo ($65)
  • DirecTV Stream, formerly AT&T TV ($76)
• ESPN+
  • Standalone subscription ($7)
• CBS Sports
  • Hulu+Live TV ($65)
  • YouTube TV ($65)
  • Fubo ($65)
  • DirecTV Stream, formerly AT&T TV ($76)
• Fox
  • Antenna (free)
  • Hulu+Live TV ($65)
  • YouTube TV ($65)
  • Fubo ($65)
  • DirecTV Stream, formerly AT&T TV ($76)

So, depending on what you want to watch, those are ways to watch college football this weekend. I'm ready for my games. Are you ready for yours? If not, get to planning, so your Streaming Life isn't missing the games you want to watch.

Getting ready for some football

As a fan of college football, every year at this time I'm excited about the upcoming season. Now, I've not had my team win a national championship in several years. Either team. Yes, I've got a couple of teams I follow.

About an hour away is a Division 1-A/FBS school that used to be a Division 1-AA/FCS powerhouse, winning six national championships. They made the jump to FBS/1-A several years ago, but I've remained a follower of the team. Then, of course, there's the other team that I follow that has been a 1-A/FBS power for many many years, but while they've won their conference several times, they haven't won a national championship but once in my lifetime.

So, despite the odds that I won't be one of those strutting around bragging about how "my team" -- either one of them -- won the national championship, I'm still excited to watch the teams play. And that's something that was hard to do in the early days of cord cutting.

Sling TV launched in 2015, the first live streaming service for cord cutters. That was a welcome service, as the 2011-2014 seasons were pretty much unavailable to me as a cord cutter, apart from what I could watch via antenna.

As the season approaches, I'm ready to subscribe to Sling TV in order to watch college football. Sling isn't the only option I have, but its the best priced option for me. You may choose another service, depending on what you want to watch.

I'm interested in SEC and Sun Belt football. That means I'm wanting ESPN and SEC Network, with some ESPN+ thrown in some time during the season. With Sling TV, the SEC Network is part of an $11 add-on service. I'll subscribe to that when I'm ready to watch something on SEC Network. If I go the season without it, great. But I'll probably want it somewhere along the way.

Same thing with ESPN+. If there's something airing there that I want to watch, I'll subscribe. Otherwise, I won't.

Since I have an antenna, I'll be able to watch some of the major games, include the Georgia-Clemson game that features two highly ranked teams on September 4, without a subscription.

What about you? What service do you need?

Well, that's an involved topic, and there are a lot of variables. We'll talk about that another time. Right now, I've decided what works best for me, and that is Sling TV. You might want something different. After all, my Streaming Life isn't the same as your Streaming Life.

Cell phone service

Okay, what does cell phone service have to do with cutting the cord? Well, maybe nothing. Unless it relates to why you cut (or are thinking about cutting) the cord. If it's to save money, why stop at dropping cable and moving to streaming? Why not save money in other ways, too?

Here's my answer: I do.

I've tried a few different cell phone services and am paying less than I used to pay for cell phone service. My cell phone bill got way up there for a while. Of course, it included financing new cell phones, which will run up a bill, but even without that, the service was pretty expensive.

I have used T-Mobile and Verizon as my primary services. Actually, I think I used what's now AT&T, but it wasn't back then. It was Cingular, I think. Now, sure, that was a long time ago, so maybe my experience with that company isn't the same as it would be today. I don't know, but it really doesn't matter. The service was fine then, and I know lots of people that use AT&T today, and they like the service just fine. So, I have nothing against AT&T. However, things can get expensive. But that's true for AT&T, Verizon, and other services.

Today, I'm using Verizon prepaid, because they ran a special and I got a great plan at a great price, and I keep a pre-paid balance on the account, so everything is good. It's not unlimited, but I come nowhere close to using the 16 GB monthly allotment, so it may as well be unlimited. If it was unlimited, I'd pay more and still not get any better service, so I'm going to keep the 16 GB plan and pay $35/month and be happy.

There are cheaper plans, and I've used some different plans. Some were recommended by friends or family members, and some I just tried to see what would happen. The end result of what happened is that I still have my Verizon prepaid plan, because I've not found enough incentive to move to a different plan or service.

I'm not going to urge you to run out and get Verizon prepaid, even though that's what I have. What I will urge you to do is to see what prepaid plans there might be that you can use, and what all the little details are.

Here's my deal. I have an 8 GB plan for $50/month. That's all well and good, except that doesn't match what I said I'm getting. There are multiple reasons. One is that Verizon ran a special where I could get double the data. So, my 8 GB plan actually gets me 16 GB/month.

They also had an online special running where I could get $5/month off by signing up with some code or something. That changed 8 GB for $50 to 16 GB for $45.

Then, by going paperless billing and having autopay set up, I could get another $10/month off. All those together turned the 8 GB/$50 into 16 GB/$35.

Oh, and there's one more thing. I can use a particular credit card to get 5% cash back, and that includes buying Verizon prepaid cards. Meaning my plan works out to 16 GB/$33.25. And I'm good with that.

So, if you do want to save money in addition to cutting the cord, look at your cell phone plan. Shop around. You may find some deals, or a series of deals you can combine, and save some real money.

While cell phone savings isn't actually a part of my Streaming Life, it's a part of my real life, and that's real savings.

Peacock TV

From time to time I go over my viewing habits and look at what apps I actually use. Part of the reason for that is that on my  Roku device, I have 47 apps installed. I don't use 47 apps with any regularity at all. I doubt there are a dozen that I use more than once a week. Heck, once a month, if that often.

Why do I have these apps installed? Just in case. Costs nothing to have them, and many of them cost nothing to use. I like free.

But, looking over my apps, I see that I have Peacock TV near the top of my Roku menu. I'm not really sure why it's so high on the list, since I don't use it that much.

So, why don't I use Peacock TV? Is it that I don't like the service? No, that's not it. I think the service is a good bargain at $5. But, I still don't use it.

I'm not paying for Peacock TV, so I'm not losing any money by having the app or the subscription. I'm an Xfinity Internet customer, and have an Xfinity Flex box (in the box) which give me access to Peacock TV. Only, as I said, I don't really watch Peacock TV. But why not?

Peacock TV has live TV channels, as well as lots of on-demand content from Universal. And Universal has a long history of making popular movies, so why am I not watching them?

Well, let's look at the first 10 "Featured Films" that showed up recently in the Peacock TV app.

• Field of Dreams
• The Lincoln Lawyer
• Brokeback Mountain
• Harry Potter Collection
• Fries! The Movie
• The Boss Baby: Family Business
• The Croods
• The Goonies
• Apollo 13
• Marshall

I've seen three of these movies. I own two of those three, and can watch either any time I want. So, the other seven? Only one is of any interest. The rest? Meh. Don't care.

Now, maybe I would enjoy some of those other six movies -- actually more, since I've not seen nor care to see the Harry Potter films -- but right now, I've no intention of watching a movie I'm not interested in watching.

The "Latest Episodes" of the TV Shows section showed a bunch of late night TV (no interest), game shows (no interest), soap operas (no interest), and a couple of things I've never heard of (no idea).

I did watch Debris, but I watched it on Hulu. I watched War of the Worlds on Peacock, since I've liked that story for some time. I liked the book, the 1938 radio drama, the 1953 film, and some of the 1988 TV series. So, I decided to watch the 2019 British three-part series on Peacock. I didn't like the experience.

Here's what I didn't like. When I highlight a TV show and am considering watching it, Peacock starts a bit of autoplay. I hate autoplay, and there is no way to turn it off. So, the bad user experience.

Then, after an episode plays, it autoplays the next episode. I don't want that, either, and there's no way to disable it. Again, a bad user experience.

When I go to watch TV, I don't want a bad user experience. And Peacock TV gives me that. So, I don't watch Peacock TV. And, I probably want, unless it's something I really really really want to watch and there's no other way to watch it.

Peacock TV won't become a regular part of my Streaming Life as long as they present me with an experience I don't like.