Local NBC coming to Peacock TV ... for a price

Peacock TV has been a good service for the cost. The NBCUniversal catalog is really big, and the free tier offers 1/2 to 2/3 of the catalog (depending on how you count it). The Premium service, which contains the entire catalog, plus lots of live streaming offerings, particularly sports programming, is a good deal at $5/month (free for Xfinity Internet customers).

Peacock even has an ad-free tier, which is another $5/month, totally $10/month for everything and no ads for on-demand content (actually, there are ads on a very limited number of items; of course, all live streams have ads).

The pricing of the service is similar to that of Paramount+ (no free tier for Paramount, by the way). But Paramount+ has one advantage. Well, had, since that's won't matter soon. Paramount+ $10/month tier includes local CBS affiliate streams.

Peacock TV will soon be adding local NBC affiliate streams to the service. According to reports, it's already rolling out in some areas:

Once the new feature is available in your market — some are going live as early as today, and everyone will have live TV by November 30th -- you'll see a new channel on the Peacock homepage that matches your local broadcast network.

The 24/7 live stream means you'll be able to watch local news and sports, plus NBC's primetime hits like Law & Order: SVU, Young Rock, Chicago Fire, and Dateline NBC. And we can't forget about mainstays like The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.

I'm checking out Peacock Premium Plus this month, and the local NBC affiliate out of Savannah isn't available. Once it does roll out, I'll see just how well it works.

I have a feeling it will work well, just like Paramount+ and local CBS. Whether or not it's worth it is something each streamer will have to decide. I likely won't keep it year-round as part of my Streaming Life, but I do see using it from time to time.

Netflix with ads

Netflix recently launched its new ad-supported tier. It's $7/month, and is the same as the $10/month plan, except you can't download content for off-line viewing, and there are ads.

Being someone who doesn't do Netflix, I wasn't sure what it would be like. I dropped Netflix several years ago. I realized several years back that I didn't need to subscribe to everything all year long. Netflix was the first major service I dropped, and it was years before I ever used it again.

I only subscribed to Netflix when they brought back Mystery Science Theater 3000, and only kept it until I watched all the episodes. Then canceled it again. They brought the show back for one more season, so I subscribed again, then dropped it again.

Recently, I logged in (I only canceled service; I didn't delete the account) and picked the Basic with Ads tier to give it a try.

So, how did it go?

Well, so far, I've only watched a couple of things.

First, I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There was a 30-second ad break to start, then about a half-hour in, there was a 75-second ad break, and one every 15 minutes (thereabouts) afterwards. It wasn't directly on the minute, and the breaks came at reasonable times within the film. If you are familiar with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know it's a bunch of skits thrown together within a King Arthur narrative. What I'm saying is the ad breaks came at reasonable spots, and not in the middle of a sentence, like you'll see on some free ad-supported services. They put some work into it to make it less of an intrusion.

The next movie I watched was The Dirty Dozen. No ad breaks within the entire film. Just the one before the film, but once the actual film started, there were no breaks for ads.

Now, whether or not this was an error, I don't know. Perhaps it was a fluke. But, when I watched two movies on the same day, one had ads at convenient places, and one had no in-movie ads at all.

Of course, these are both older films. But then, I wanted to ensure if I watched something, it was something I enjoyed. I could just put it on while doing something else and check to see when ad breaks happen. Maybe I'll do that.

But, my first impression is a good one. You see, I don't really mind ads. I just don't like them interrupting the flow of a scene. To the credit of Netflix, the experience was good.

The downside is that the Basic with Ads tier, as well as the Basic tier, are only 720p. So, that was not quite as good as the $16/month or $20/month plans, which are 1080p and UHD/4K respectively.

But, as I won't keep Netflix beyond the time of the subscription, and was only interested in seeing how the ad experience was, that's not that big of a deal. I knew going in what to expect. What I didn't expect was that ad experience would be so much better than most services.

Netflix did ads right. If you want Netflix in your Streaming Life, and the 720p resolution works for you, then consider saving another $3/month and go with the Basic with Ads tier. Next time I need to subscribe to Netflix, it's the way I'll do it.

Watching election results

It's election day. Now, yes, I know, many people vote early. I won't go into the argument about early voting. Rather, I'm going to focus on how you can watch the election results.

If you're streaming, and want to watch the results, there are plenty of free options. There are also paid options.

Let's cover the free options first, okay. And, keep in mind, these aren't all of the free options, but these are the most popular. You may already know of these, but if not, and if you want to watch the election results, here are a few.

• NBC News NOW
• ABC News Live
• LiveNOW from FOX
• Newsy
• Reuters
  

Most streaming devices have apps for these. And some live streaming services may have channels for these.

I'm not sure if I'll actually watch the election results. Yes, there are some races in which I have great interest, and will have cast my ballot by end of day today, I'll probably simply have my laptop on an election results Website or have my phone next to me while I watch something entertaining on my TV.

After all, I wanted more entertainment options as part of my Streaming Life, and haven't missed the yelling talking heads on the TV at night. But, if you want to watch election results life, these are some good options.

Hulu raises price on live streaming service

list of live streaming services that are raising their prices continues. This time, it's Hulu. Only I'm not sure you can blame this increase on the same reason as the recent Sling TV increase.

Recently, Sling TV increased its prices by $5/month because of the settlement of a carriage dispute with Disney. Because of the increased fees Disney charges for their services, Sling TV has now gone up in price.

This increase for Hulu+Live TV isn't because of a carriage dispute, however. Disney owns Hulu, so Disney is paying itself for the service. But, the fact that other services have gone up recently -- YouTube TV, Fubo TV, and Vidgo all saw increases ahead of Sling TV -- means that Hulu+Live TV now goes up as well, and it gets lost in the mix.

Well, it's not lost on everyone.

Disney caused the price increases in the other services, then the day after the last service they gouged announced an increase, Disney's own service (Hulu+Live TV is owned by Disney) went up too.

I see what you did there, House of Mouse.

Disney first sent notices to subscribers last week, before streaming news outlets picked up on it. The first one I saw was the story on Cord Cutters News:

The price of Hulu (No Ads) + Live TV, Disney+ (No Ads), and ESPN+ (With Ads) will increase from $75.99/month to $82.00/month beginning 12/08/22.

The price adjustment will be reflected in your first billing cycle on or after December 8. Your payment method on file will be charged the new price unless you cancel before the start of your first billing cycle on or after December 8.

While Cord Cutters News has been running on a skeleton staff -- or so it appears -- for several months, they did get the jump on others with this, so good on them.

Bad for us, though, as this price increase is simply another in the long line of things that have cost a lot more in the lasts two years. It's getting harder to keep the price down on your Streaming Life. But it's like that with everything, it seems.

Still running with my non-privacy phone

I've been testing a privacy phone for a few months now, and have decided on the phone to go with. I'm using the Google Pixel 4a running Lineage OS.

While the phone is a Google brand, it doesn't have Google Services running. That means some apps won't work, but most of the apps work just fine, or I have found alternate apps that work fine.

However, not everything is fine. And that's the problem. There are still some things that are very difficult to do with my Lineage OS phone. And, it related directly to apps.

This week, for instance, I'm out of the office at a conference, and the conference is using an app for keeping up with events and such. The app runs on iOS and Android, but it won't run on Lineage OS. At least, it won't show up in the Aurora Store, not the F-Droid Store. Maybe I should try to download from Google Play, but I'm trying to keep everything Google away from the phone. I don't want a Google back door.

So, I'm still running an iPhone with the app I need. I'm running it as secure as I can, but it still connects to Apple all the time, so that's not ideal.

For this conference, using the Whova (that's the app the conference is using) Website won't do, as it's not mobile friendly.

This continues to be a sore spot for those that want to run a secure, privacy focused phone. It's certainly a sore spot for me.