It has been a couple of months since Netflix launched in the region, to great fanfare. More specialised competitors – such as Starzplay and OSN Play – have had a little longer to convince local viewers of the benefits of watching their favourite TV shows online. I’m still waiting to pass judgement on the new model. But then it could be said that I have always been a bit slow to accept change when it comes to my preferred forms of consuming entertainment.
I struggled on with listening to my favourite music on vinyl until it simply became impossible to continue. It was around 2000 before I finally gave in to the inevitable and bought a CD player – ironically just as CDs began to be replaced by MP3, and vinyl began to enjoy something of a resurgence.
Likewise, I valiantly stuck with my movies on VHS until I was shocked to find that it was no longer possible to replace the heads on my ageing VCR – or indeed buy a new one. It was an emotional day, putting hundreds of tapes of much-loved movies in a bin bag which, to this day, sits in my mother’s loft awaiting the inevitable resurgence of the format (we can but dream).
And so it has been with watching TV. It is not only resistance to change that has kept me watching in old-style broadcast form for so long. I quite like the notion of not having to think about what I want to watch before I watch it. There’s something comforting about bringing up the TV guide and scrolling through the channels until something that appeals pops up. Or until you end up watching the worst film you have ever seen because nothing appealing does pop up – I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of the worst horror films ever made on this basis.
Of course, you can do something similar online – but the knowledge that there is freedom to watch absolutely anything means I feel obliged to decide in advance what I want to watch. That’s fine when the search is successful – but when the dreaded “no matches found” message pops up, it is soul destroying, and you wonder if you have the strangest taste in movies on the planet.
Then there is binge-watching. It’s a great idea – but if I get hooked on a show, I’m really hooked. If someone puts 13 episodes in front of me, I’ll be watching all 13 right now, thank you very much. This would be fine if there weren’t little inconveniences – such as sleep, work, friends and eating – to rain on my parade. I’ve tried to counter this pitfall by hiding my laptop charger, so that at least I can only be transfixed until the battery runs out.
I will have to try to adjust to this change a little quicker than I did to CDs I suppose, especially as some great exclusive original content is being made by the streaming providers, and it’s certainly true that by “cutting the cord” you can save a fortune.
It's still sad to think, though, that with so much quality content online, I may never again stumble across the likes of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies in my electronic programme guide.
To the best of my searching, it’s not on any of the region’s streaming sites.
cnewbould@thenational.ae
