Smart TVs unveiled at CES this year boasted of apps for popular streaming services embedded in their OS right out of the box. Eeven if consumers have never bought a Roku or a Chromecast, they’ll still be able to access big-time streaming apps from the minute they buy a new 4K TV.
Some naysayers will point out that if you subscribe to Sling TV, HBO, Showtime, Netflix and Hulu, you’ll end up paying as much, if not more, than you did with your cable bundle. While that’s true, it also completely misses the point: You now have a choice of whether to get all these channels or whether to pick and choose the ones you want. This is, in other words, the closest thing to straight-up a la carte programming American TV viewers have ever seen.
And this market for online streaming services is only just getting started, the prices and packages being offered right now are just content providers dipping their toes in the water to see whether consumers will bite. As time goes on, I imagine we’ll see even more competitive deals and creative package offerings that will be more finely attuned to individual consumers’ needs.