In the early days of cord cutting TV everywhere apps were the way many started their cord cutting journey. These apps—for networks like ABC, Nickelodeon, Disney, and others—gave you the ability to stream some programs from major TV networks for free online. If you had a pay-TV login, you could login and get even more content streaming online.
In the early days of cord cutting, this was the only way for many to get access to a lot of content from major cable TV networks. Apps we have now like Peacock, Paramount+, and Max didn’t exist. We had Hulu, but not all the content from these networks ended up there as it mainly focused on the major broadcast TV networks ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.
Now Paramount, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery have all shut down their TV everywhere apps or announced plans to do so in the next month.
This comes as cable TV networks are rethinking their strategy to streaming and that is resulting in putting all their efforts into streaming. Now the hope is to focus on network subscription streaming services with Peacock, Paramount+, and Disney+ to name a few instead of building options for cable TV customers to get access to their content.
One of the main reasons these apps are shutting down is to cut costs. Streaming, for most major companies, is still not profitable. Shutting down these apps not only helps push people to their subscription services but also helps cut costs of programmers, hosting, and so much more.
For cord cutters this means one less way to get free access to some content from network apps. Long gone are the days of getting free episodes of popular shows to try out before you decide to pay for a show or not.