The best television is now online

 

I am talking of video content here. Movies,comedies, thrillers, even documentaries and mini-series. While the quality of television programming on traditional channels is steadily decreasing, some of the best video programming is now moving online. It used to be just youtube, but now with netflix, amazon prime , chrome cast and all those other paid subscription services, the online viewer has more options to choose from. Who would have thought. As always, I have been a late adopter, I have been using Primevideo for the past three months now on a yearly subscription of 500 rupees. That amount is nothing, the real cost comes from the internet bills, but thanks to competition in the telecom industry, that too has become cheap. These new subsciption programmes only make sense if you can get on an unlimited broadband internet service for cheap. I have been watching lot of original prime programmes, along with movies not only from hollywood, but across languages and countries as well. And you know whats the best part ? Because they rely on paid subscriptions, there are no ads. Ever.

This is definitely the future.

Can’t believe youtube has been around for more than 10 years now. But the amount of junk on the site is increasing. So many people are just reposting other’s videos, and opening up channels to rant (and review) about things. I think this trend is popular in India, people can only have so many ideas. But the content on paid services is , at least for the moment, curated and created by the sites themselves.

Just finished watching ‘The Night Manager’ on prime. There could not have be a more boring title for a  more exciting and thrilling televsion program. It came out a few years ago, but I despise the term ‘Manager’ so much, I ignored it. Turns out, its actually a very exciting ride, full of tall, beautiful people, talking in rich, British accents, even when they are cursing. And the locations, Cairo, Switzerland and Morocco ! But the real winners are the cast and direction.

Then there are other Amazon originals, like Mrs Maisely. It was not that funny, but they could not have done this on TV. My favourite charachter ? Abe.

Surprisingly, they have also made available some of the newest movie releases in regional languages. No malayalam movies so far. The most educated state is still staying away from the next generation of viewers. But the latest flicks in Tamil and Telugu are there.

The only reason Prime is so successful in India is the pricing. They have made their services affordable to the average Indian, whereas Netflix still thinks Indians can pay in dollars.By the way, did you know that Netflix is now worth 100 Billion dollars ? But in the long term, the charges should come down further, as increasing number of people go online for the better quality and the freedom to watch in their own time.