Bally Sports+ to launch today, sort of

Some sports fans have been excited about the upcoming launch of Bally Sports+ streaming service. For some, that happens today.

Bally announced a while back that it would launch a direct to consumer sports network that would offer content from Bally Sports Networks. No dates had been given, with "summer" or "fall" thrown around as launch targets. Until this week.

Earlier in the week, Bally Sports announced that Bally Sports+ would launch in five markets on June 23. Well, according to my calendar, that's today. However, according to my map, I'm not in Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, or Tampa, so I won't get it. At least, not today.

According to Sports Business Journal, it will be about three months before the full launch of the service.

Pay-TV subscribers already have access to streamed games through Sinclair's TV Everywhere apps that are treated as add-ons to pay-TV subscriptions.

Sinclair's executives expect their relationships with subscribers will change once they actually start paying for the streaming service.

"TV Everywhere wasn't a focus," Ripley said. "We didn't make a lot of money off that. Our whole mentality is going to change and say, when the user comes, what does he or she do first? Where do they go? Are they interacting with our gamification features?

"We're talking a three-month ramp from soft to full launch. But we thought it was a smart idea to get some reps under our belt before we go wider."

The service will cost $20/month or $190/year (over 20% discount). If you're in one of the five early launch cities, you will have the first look at the service. For the rest of us, we'll have to wait before we can test drive the service and determine if it's something we want in our Streaming Life.

Ad-supported streaming grows

A report from Comscore, a ratings service, says that more and more people in the U.S. are using ad-supported streaming services. To those I say, "Welcome."

I've long been an advocate of the free streaming services over the pay services for some time. And, of course, the free streaming services are by and large ad-supported services.

A little over a year ago, I viewed with some skepticism a report that free ad-supported services were on the rise, mainly because the study was commissioned by Tubi, a free ad-supported service. But, I said I wished it was true, and thought it could be true, but it seemed a little self-serving by Tubi.

Earlier this year, there were suggestions that free services could pass pay services for streamers. Not sure that will happen, but the trend is there. The report by Comscore says that the number of ad-supported services grew at a higher rate and pay subscription services.

...ad-supported streaming services (AVOD) are being adopted at a faster rate than subscription-based services (SVOD). AVOD services saw a 29% increase in 2022, compared to 2020. SVOD services saw a 21% increase in the same time period.

Is this bad news for pay services? Not at all, at least I don't think it is. Streaming overall is growing, and 21 percent increase is nothing to sneeze at. I think this means that more people are realizing just how much good free content is there. And free is cheaper than pay.

Pay services won't go away at all. There is content that is only available on pay services. I subscribe to several pay services, in fact. Only, I don't subscribe to them all at the same time. I'll subscribe to one this month, a different one next month, a still different one the next month, and so on. I'll binge and catch up during the month, then go to another the next month, and do this all year long. But I keep the ad-supported services year-round, of course.

There is a lot of good free content. If you are spending all your time on pay services, take a break and look around at the free content. Really look. You may find that you can save a lot of money, and use the pay services to fill in from time to time.

It's really a good way to spend your Streaming Life without spending a lot of money.

Developer Mode on Fire TV

According to AFTV News, there's an update being rolled out for Amazon Fire TV devices that seems to remove Developer Mode on the devices.

For most users, this isn't that big of a deal, but for some, this is a thing.

You see, some users like to extend the features of their Fire TV devices by loading content that isn't in the Amazon application store (sometimes called "side loading"). Many times, this is simply content that for one reason or another, hasn't been approved for the Amazon Store. Other times, it's an app that wasn't actually designed for Amazon's OS, but will work. And others are loading pirate TV content.

To be fair, some that are loading pirate TV apps don't realize the apps are pirate TV apps. That's mostly because they don't understand that such things can be illegal, and pirates take advantage of this.

There are other reason for Developer Mode besides side loading apps. But removing the feature would impact a large number of users, even if the percentage is small.

However, they didn't really remove Developer Mode. Rather, they hid it. And, AFTV News also reports that it's actually easy to locate and enable Developer Mode:

If you’re using a Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, or Fire TV Cube, go to: Settings > My Fire TV > About. If you’re using a Fire TV Smart TV, go to: Settings > Device & Software > About. Once there, repeatedly select the first menu item, until a countdown message appears near the bottom. After selecting the first item about 7 times, the message “No need, you are already a developer” will appear at the bottom to indicate you are done. Go back one menu to find the newly revealed “Developer Options” menu.

The article also gives step by step instructions, with pictures, and videos.

If you're an Amazon Fire TV users, and were worried about losing Developer Mode from your Streaming Life, you need fear no more.

Streaming the Stanley Cup finals

One of the drawbacks of not following some sports closely (or barely at all) is that when a particular sport's big event, or events, happen, they slide right under the radar. That happened to me this week with ice hockey.

The NHL championship, the Stanley Cup, began Wednesday, and I totally missed it. There have been two games played, and Colorado leads Tampa Bay 3 games to none. Game three is tonight and will be broadcast on ABC and ESPN+.

If you're a streamer, you have options to watch the remaining games in the best-of-seven series. Let's start with a streaming only way, then other ways streamers could watch the series.

ESPN+

The Stanley Cup finals are being broadcast on ESPN+. That's a $7/month package that includes lots of sports. To be sure, this is not the same as ESPN. If you have or plan to cut the cord, realize that you cannot get standard ESPN content for $7/month. But, you can get a lot of content, including the NHL championship series.

ABC

You have several options at different price points if you want to watch ABC.

• Antenna (free)
• Vidgo ($60)
• YouTube TV ($65)
• Fubo ($70)
• Hulu+Live TV ($70)
• DirecTV Stream ($70)

Professional ice hockey's biggest event of the year can be part of your Streaming Life without much fuss, or much cost.

Writing about My Streaming Life on Linux

I said last weekend that I had a desktop computer set up running Linux, and that I intended to use it for writing the content here. I also mentioned that I hadn't done that part very well.

That has changed, and I've used the Linux computer more. Every new post I wrote in the past week has been on the Linux computer. To be fair, some of the posts last week about streaming services were written the week prior and held until last week. In fact, the one that appeared Friday, on Frndly TV, was one of the first I wrote. But, I didn't publish them in the order I wrote them.

Some of those posts were written on the Linux computer, but some were written on Windows, and maybe one on the Mac. However, I am focusing on writing solely on Linux for the foreseeable future. I want to get used to it, and this is a good way to accomplish that.

I realize the focus of this Website is streaming. And I realize that my writing about writing on Linux really has nothing to do with streaming. But, maybe I'll be able to tie it all in. So, if you are following this Website, do pay attention to how much trouble, or ease, I'm having with Linux. There will be a payoff. Not a big one, but a payoff nonetheless.

I mentioned that I have been writing on both Mac and Windows. So why is Linux different? Well, for one thing, the browser is different. I have used the Google Chrome browser on both Windows and Mac for some time. It's one of the browsers that runs on both platforms. In fact, there's a version for Linux, but I'm not using that.

So, why not use Chrome for Linux? Well, GNU/Linux is an open source operating system. Yes, it's actually GNU/Linux, but most everyone calls it simply "Linux" and so will I.

Being open source, and free, Linux is a different approach to computers. And Linux lends itself to more customization than you are used to. Or want, to be honest. I could spend all day -- heck, all week, month, or year -- talking about that, but I won't. Let's just say that I decided that, at first at least, I want to be open source with both my OS and with my apps. And Google Chrome is not open source.

There is a browser called Chromium on which Chrome is based, and Chromium is open source. But, it has some quirks I don't like. Maybe I'll switch to it later. For now, though, I'm using Firefox.

I've used Firefox before, and was my browser of choice until it ran into some issues I didn't like a while back, and I switch fully to Chrome on Mac and Windows. But, so far, I'm having a good experience with Firefox. Well, mostly. I ran into a hiccup trying to make one specific online purchase, but it turned out the service's Website was the problem, not Firefox. So, with Firefox, so far so good.

But, Firefox is different from Chrome. And it has taken some getting used to. Chrome has some features I like that Firefox is missing, but I'm able to work around them with little issue.

For now, I'll continue to write on my Linux computer using Firefox browser. And yes I will be able to work all this into my Streaming Life when this great experiment is done. I'm just not sure how.