A hard rain
Next year, the mouse will roar when Disney launches its streaming service, Disney+. Will TV life ever be the same again? And will this rain ever stop?
The rst drops fell on Tuesday: big, blobby and portentous. at was a week ago. It hasn’t stopped raining since. Not that we noticed, glued as we were to the poverty box. “Who says there’s nothing on TV?” says the better half, xing me with a challenging look. I pointed at the cat. But Zorro, not interested, was staring blankly (I think) at Made in Chelsea and probably wondering where reality ended and ham acting began. Again, I might be projecting.
“We’re living the stream,” I said to no one in particular. It was true. For the past week, as it teemed down outside, we streamed inside, working our way through John Ford’s Monument Valley in the strumming company of the Coen Brothers ( e Ballad of Buster Scruggs), marvelled at dodgy cops, politicians and moustaches in 1980s Guadalajara ( Narcos Mexico) and got taken in by Taken Down, a gangster tale of two cities in modern Dublin, on the RTÉ Player. It was also the week that the House of Mouse gave us a name for its new streaming service.
Disney+ is coming in 2019 and already they are calling it the “Net ix killer”. is SVoD (that’s Streaming Video on Demand to you and me) gorilla with a blockbuster back-catalogue that includes the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, has big plans to invest in original content, including spin-o Star Wars series. And with its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Disney is also intent on a major expansion of Hulu – it’s not so big here yet, but just wait. en there are other major SVoD players including Amazon Prime, Apple and A&T’s Warner Media, none of which can a ord to stand still. It will be the end of the golden era of streaming services, some argue, citing monthly fees coming from all angles. Or maybe it’s just the beginning. Right now, the clouds have silver linings, with umpteen high-quality TV shows and original lms tipped for release over the next 12 months and beyond as Hollywood stars (Julia Roberts, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, etc.) follow the money and go straight-to-video. Norma Desmond got it all wrong. ey are still BIG: it’s just that the pictures got small (unless you’re getting a ginormous 4K TV screen for Christmas).
So we sit here, rainy day TV 24/7, with our eyes growing square and our brains like melted cheese, unable to see the join between reality and whatever the other thing is. “Who needs the cinema?” asks my wife. “Boo cinema!” mimes Zorro. “I hope this rain never stops,” I say. Beside me my wife had turned into a cat. Or maybe it was a hat. In mid-stream it’s sometimes hard to see the good for the cheese.