Thoughts on Filmstruck

So it was announced at the end of last week that Filmstruck, the streaming service run in a partnership between TCM and the Criterion Collection, is shutting down at the end of November. I've been thinking about it, but don't really have anything expert to say since I don't do streaming video what with my lack of bandwidth and data.

Still, in many ways I'm not surprised. There have been a lot of streaming services to come and go and we are in many ways still in the early days of streaming all our TV instead of the traditional ways to watch. I've always argued that a la carte cable channel purchasing would be terrible for channels with a less general audience, and can't help but think the same is true for services like Filmstruck. I also happen to be a fan of niche sports (at least niche in the US) and know from talking to other fans that trying to get all of those sports that you want adds up quickly. Along the same lines, BeIN, a Qatari-owned sports channel that tried to break into the US market with non-UK soccer, motorcycle racing, and women's tennis, is probably on the verge of folding because they're getting bumped off most cable providers. Even NBC Sports, which has the most lucrative soccer league in the English Premier League, is moving more of those games to the pay streaming service, much to the chagrin of people who are fans of non-name teams.

With that in mind, it doesn't surprise me that a service that's specializing in foreign films and other stuff with an already lower interest is going to have trouble too. At the same time, however, I wonder exactly how much the service costs the providers to set up. I would assume that the rights are the biggest issue. With streaming being a new thing, I can imagine that the content holders in sports are just negotiating rates with the various sports channels that already hold the rights. I have no idea how it works for movies. It seems as though it should be a simple enough matter to put up (as an example) all of the movies in the old library that Ted Turner acquired back in the 80s, with the caveat that some of the movies probably still have to be converted to a digital format suitable for streaming. But how many people would pay to watch that, rather than pay one lump sum to a company like Amazon and then get a smaller selection of movies from various sources bundled with the membership.

The other problem I've always had with streaming is that apparently, in most cases you don't actually own a copy of the movie that you buy. Instead, you own a license to watch it whenever you want. At least, until the people you bought it from lose the right to feed it to you, as happened earlier this year with either Apple or Google's streaming service. People were understandably quite miffed about that one.

The one other thing that strikes me is the sense of entitlement that some of the TCM fans seemed to have. I've always gotten a sense that some people think a movie channel should just have the ability to pick this movie and that, and voila it's going to show up on the channel.And when their favorite channel doesn't do that, they raise holy hell. In the case of Filmstruck, it's all the fault of the big nameless corporation (well, it does have a name in AT&T) and it's somehow obvious but unstated that a product like Filmstruck should be raking in money hand over fist.

Ultimately, I wonder whether we'll ever get a good streaming service with a big selection, mostly because of the copyright issue. Disney pushed hard to get copyrights extended 20 years back when Steamboat Willie was nearing the end of its copyright, and they're probably going to try the same thing when the current term nears its end (which without looking it up is I think in 2048). As long as the stuff stays under copyright, there's the rights fees issues, which I'd think would lead to a relatively fragmented market. Especially for things like foreign films where there are even more rights holders involved.