Whither TV?

Recently Disney debuted its Disney+ streaming service, which launched a plethora of stories in the press about "streaming wars," like this one.

As someone who has always hated the way Comcast operates (lousy service and constantly jacking up prices), I'm glad to see these new options.

Streaming services are either supposed to sound the death knell for cable and broadcast TV, or start a bloody massacre among streamers like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Now, Apple TV and Amazon as they spend billions of dollars on new programming to attract customers.

Many are afraid that quirkier cable channels like AMC (home to hit shows like Madmen, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, etc.) and BBC America (home to Orphan Black and Killing Eve) will go away when people cut the cord.

But I'm not so sure that's the case.  Streaming services like YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and Sling Orange + Blue offer those same channels and most live local channels for much less than Comcast. These streaming services also provide video on-demand (VOD) for shows previously broadcast on these channels. VOD doesn't allow skipping commercials, which should make advertisers happy.

There's a lot of hand-wringing that streaming services will force people to choose which shows they watch because they can't afford to subscribe to all the streaming services. Some people are even saying that this new paradigm will cost people more than the Comcast model did, because they'll have to pay for five or six or ten different services, at $7 to $15 bucks a pop.

But that's hard to believe: Comcast bundles are usually more than $100 a month. With services like YouTube TV, HBO Now, Disney+ and Netflix, you can get significantly more TV for less money.

And if you're concerned about cash flow, remember that you don't need to subscribe to streaming services on an ongoing basis. You can pick them up and drop them as new content appears and you finish watching it.

Want to see the new Watchmen or His Dark Materials but don't feel $15 a month is worth it? Subscribe when there's a month left in the season, binge the previous episodes and everything else you like in the catalog, watch the final few episodes in real time, and then let the sub lapse. Or use the free trial (usually a week) to binge-watch the whole season at once. These services are always eager for subscribers, and will frequently offer you another free week within a few months.

Yes, it's true, if you want to be one of the cool kids and be up on every show, it will cost you a lot of money (and time!). These big companies count on laziness, impatience and peer pressure to fill their coffers.

Will there be a streaming service massacre? Maybe. Will there be further consolidation, along the lines of the Disney/ABC/Marvel/Fox mergers? Probably. But the market for these entertainments is world-wide, and even if people only subscribe a few months out of the year, we're still talking hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

I see a place for all these streaming services, the cable channels, local TV channels, and content providers who actually make the shows we want to watch. What I don't see is a place for giant corporations like Comcast who use their monopoly power to overcharge customers physically tied to their cables.

And as long as Disney+ doesn't try to become the next Comcast, more power to them.