It seems like just yesterday that I had written five 2014 resolutions for the TV industry. But it’s already time to look ahead to 2015, which I did today for Quartz. (First, however, I took stock of how my 2014 resolutions turned out — not too shabby!)
This year, instead of making resolutions for the entire industry to follow, I created specific ones for the industry’s major players. For example, for Hulu:
Hulu: Don’t get left in the dust by Netflix and Amazon
In 2014, Hulu made some big moves to try and stay in the race with Netflix and Amazon, including an $80 million-plus deal acquiring the rights to all seasons of South Park and ordering three new series produced by the likes of J.J. Abrams, Jason Reitman and Amy Poehler. But those new shows, and South Park, need to deliver, and make Hulu a worthy streaming competitior. Oh, and Hulu, you know how you’ve been considering cutting back the number of ads running on Hulu Plus? Do that. Immediately.
I hope my 2015 resolutions fare as well as the 2014 ones did!
What Netflix, HBO, Amazon, Showtime and the rest of TV need to resolve to do in 2015
Hey Jason, I see you have a twitter account, do you tweet all your new posts?
Yes, all new posts are tweeted both via the site’s twitter account and my own account.
I was a netflix user for two years. Like most pepole I had great service at first, but eventually the rate at which I was getting movies slowed to a crawl. I was, perhaps, getting 3 movies a month. So I called them and complained. The first person I spoke to was extremely rude and defensive from the start. She demanded I provide proof that the service was actually slow. I explained I couldn’t provide proof other then the fact that I wasn’t getting movies soon enough ( I mean seriously . . . 3 a month?). She then lists all the movies I recieved and made excuses for each. By the end of this conversation I was even more pissed off then before I called. So I call again and demand to speak to a supervisor. Eventually I speak to someone else. Like Steve first they said the post office was the problem. I get first class mail all the time from my father (he sends letters the old way believe it or not). His letters travel from two states away and often I’ll get two or three letters before I ever see a new group of netflix movies. I pointed this out to them and this supervisor made some excuse about machines the post office uses being broken, that I should complain about this to the post office, and in order for netflix to look into the matter I’ll need to fill out some report and fax it to netflix. I told them I wasn’t going to do any such thing. I pay them money for a service which I don’t feel is worth the money. I’m complaining and they are asking me to fix it? The guy responds, We are looking for partners to fix this problem. I thought this whole thing was stupid, so I did nothing. The next day . . . the very next day . . . a new group of movies show up in the mail which I had been waiting 2 weeks for. I was given a month free . . . and guess how long it took for them to recieve and send the next group?It seems to me netflix is a business built on a model which can’t work considering the current economic conditions facing pepole. As long as netflix could work in the background of a person’s life, when a person isn’t paying attention to it, pepole thought the service was fine. $15 for movies through the mail? Why not. I mean even the ads on tv played up this in the background quality. Oh look netflix came in the mail! Like it’s some kind of gift you are not actually paying for. However as money got tight pepole started paying attention to the service more and look at what is happening? People who have spent years with this company are suddenly leaving. The customer service system they have in place is overwhelmed. They even offer cheap alternatives. Watching streaming video? Look if ABC can stream video without requiring me to download some program which I don’t want on my computer then way can’t netflix? Why would I want to sit in front of my computer to watch a movie anyway when I could sit in comfort in my living room? Netflix has done serious damage to themselves, or at least in my area. I don’t see many pepole using the service here anymore. A lot of pepole I meet who used the service now either buy cheap older films and/or watch on-demand video through their cable provider. Some pepole I know continue their service with netflix just to damage the disks and make everything more expensive for the company. Think about that . . . some pepole are so pissed off instead of ending the service they would rather destroy the service.