While already popular in 2014, streaming TV will be everywhere in 2015. Netflix and Amazon Prime will pick up the pace and produce even more quality original content, and battle it out for Golden Globe and Emmy awards. Look for new challengers to step to the forefront, including Yahoo, which may start to become a factor in the original-content category, spurred by the boost it will likely receive from the new season of the cult-hit sitcom “Community.” YouTube will become more of a factor as well, thanks to publicity from “The Interview,” which exposed many more viewers to the site’s movie-rental platform.
Cord-cutting will become an even more appealing alternative to cable with the rollout this spring of standalone streaming apps from HBO Go and CBS, the No. 1 broadcast network. To keep up, 2015 may be the year cable companies finally have to cave in to viewers’ demands and offer “a la carte” programming packages, though they’ll be more expensive than consumers are probably expecting.
And where will we be watching all this streaming content? On our tablets. Tablet-viewing will get a boost from Qualcomm’s new Broadcast LTE chip, which will deliver broadcast TV signals to tablets without the need for a separate app, such as Slingbox. Equipped with that chip, and bolstered with a variety of standalone streaming apps (such as Netflix, HBO Go and Hulu) that many of us already have, a tablet will become, in effect, a personal mobile TV.
(By the way, the long-rumored Apple television set could very well revolutionize TV viewing the way iTunes did to music-listening, but even we aren’t crazy enough to predict that product hitting shelves in 2015.)
At top: (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
