Disney+ is reportedly tuning into the 1930s for its next new feature
TV is back, and worse.
Remember No? Well, it seems like Disney+ is reinventing them anyway, as it apparently looks set to introduce 24/7 scheduled content.
A lot of you younger readers will likely be a lot more familiar with streaming services as opposed to traditional, cable television, meaning you won't be so familiar with the idea that TV didn't used to be as on-demand as it is now. You'd have to "channel hop" looking around different stations for the show you wanted to watch, and there wasn't a guarantee that something good was on. Streaming has pretty much gotten rid of that entirely, but it seems like cable is coming back, as a recent report from The Information claims that Disney+ is looking to introduce 24/7 channels, complete with commercial breaks.
This would obviously follow a time-honoured tradition of regularly broadcasted on-the-air TV that started way back in 1936 with the BBC, the world's first regular television service. There aren't really many details on what Disney's plans are exactly for such a feature, but apparently it will be genre-based, or you can choose channels based on whether you want to watch something like the National Geographic, or just one animated Disney film after the other. It doesn't sound like you'll be able to use this feature without a subscription, though, which means you'd essentially be paying to watch content you can otherwise watch ad-free, but with ads spliced throughout what you're watching.
This feature seems to be a growing one amongst streaming services, as the horror streaming service has a similar 24/7 channel letting you watch all sorts of films, and the Criterion Channel recently announced the same kind of feature too. Essentially, it seems like people do want that TV-channel style experience - I personally miss being able to just tune into something part way through, and be able to take mandated, scheduled breaks, even if it is thanks to ads.
There's no word on when Disney+ might introduced this feature, so for now you'll just have to do your usual thing of struggling to pick something to watch before settling on watching Scrubs for the millionth time.