Jeremy Clarkson suspended by BBC...

[Einion Yrth]

FiF said:

Olswang have also registered the trademarks Gear Knobs which would be a good name for the show and Speedbird, female Stig?
Source Buzzfeed.


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv...

That's BA's radio callsign; could get messy.

[Halb]

Reminds me of what Skinner says when Homer forms the Be Sharps.


There's a restrained PH post on that page.

[KTF]

Butter Face said:

Confirmed that Clarkson will host HIGNFY next month....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34294...

Freelancer in dong freelance work shock.

Won't stop the media getting out their stirring spoon tho.

[Oilchange]

Why's that?

Einion Yrth said:

That's BA's radio callsign; could get messy.

[jmorgan]

Sort of related. Looks like Amazon are clamping down on the opposition and banning sales of other makers tv
devices.

[Esseesse]

jmorgan said:

Sort of related. Looks like Amazon are clamping down on the opposition and banning sales of other makers tv
devices.

With that, increasing the minimum required for free shipping, and restricting nappies to Amazon Prime only, I've started buying stuff elsewhere.

[Tycho]

jmorgan said:

Sort of related. Looks like Amazon are clamping down on the opposition and banning sales of other makers tv
devices.

Really? I've just looked and Roku, Google etc are all still on there.

[Disastrous]

Oilchange said:

Why's that?

Einion Yrth said:

That's BA's radio callsign; could get messy.

Imagine if BA are trying to land one of their long-haul flights on the same runway that Amazon are trying to land a new popular motoring show. It could be absolute chaos in the air/on the ground, especially when you consider that a TV program isn't even an aircraft and frankly has no business trying to land at Heathrow anyway. I'm furious at their nerve and will be returning my Kindle in a bid to keep our runways clear.

[jmorgan]

Tycho said:

jmorgan said:

Sort of related. Looks like Amazon are clamping down on the opposition and banning sales of other makers tv
devices.

Really? I've just looked and Roku, Google etc are all still on there.

Picked up from another web site last night but here is the beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34421804

And another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/amazon-...

[KTF]

jmorgan said:

Picked up from another web site last night but here is the beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34421804

And another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/amazon-...

Oh well. No loss really.

[Funk]

KTF said:

jmorgan said:

Picked up from another web site last night but here is the beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34421804

And another.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/amazon-...

Oh well. No loss really.

Heh, cos that won't backfire at all....

[Gareth79]

Esseesse said:

With that, increasing the minimum required for free shipping, and restricting nappies to Amazon Prime only, I've started buying stuff elsewhere.

Also for a while now when you do meet the minimum and select free Super Saver delivery they just deliberately delay the dispatch for a few days, even though the eventual shipping takes 1-2 days.

[FourWheelDrift]

If they think they will sell more Amazon Fire sticks because people won't find Apple, Google, Roku and other options on their site they are wrong, consumers know what they want and if a store doesn't have it they go elsewhere.

[bodhi]

Does seem a strange move by Amazon, but, just to play Devil's Advocate, if you go onto iTunes or Google Play you won't find competitor's devices either, so I guess it just bring Amazon in line with their competitors.

Not saying it's a great idea, but I do see some sort of logic behind it. As long as they keep their app freely available on other devices (well, Sony devices mainly from a purely selfish point of view) I will be able to cope. I really don't want to be in a similar situation to my brother in law, who currently has 4 different streaming devices hooked up behind the telly - a bit of a mess frankly.

[Funk]

bodhi said:

Does seem a strange move by Amazon, but, just to play Devil's Advocate, if you go onto iTunes or Google Play you won't find competitor's devices either, so I guess it just bring Amazon in line with their competitors.

Not saying it's a great idea, but I do see some sort of logic behind it. As long as they keep their app freely available on other devices (well, Sony devices mainly from a purely selfish point of view) I will be able to cope. I really don't want to be in a similar situation to my brother in law, who currently has 4 different streaming devices hooked up behind the telly - a bit of a mess frankly.

All it means is that rather than visiting their site where they then have a chance to convert eyeballs into purchases, those eyeballs leave the site and buy elsewhere.

The answer isn't to make things more proprietary; it's to make them work on as many platforms as possible. As long as you're getting the ongoing subscription revenue, does it matter what 'one-off purchase' device it's played back on? By all means add extra features only available on your own hardware but the basic playback functionality should be universal.

What if YouTube only worked on Chrome? Or iPlayer only worked on a BBC-made device?

This deliberate nuking of interoperability is what makes piracy so appealing, even excluding the fact it's free. I've lost count of the times I've been infuriated having to watch unskippable crap on the front of DVDs including adverts and - oh the irony! - anti-piracy ads and warnings... All I need to do is get an .mkv file and it'll play on almost anything I own - and if it won't, there's a way to stream it.

Edited by Funk on Friday 2nd October 12:40

[jmorgan]

iPlayer by its nature is after as many people hence platforms as possible but my not so old Panasonic HD recorder is booted of the support list for youtube. I expect that they can "manage" equipment. e.g. IF Amazon bring out a nut busting bestest TV ever to be built but Apple would exclude that from its list of supported devices.

I fancy there is a lot that can be done to upset the opposition if they wanted to get dirty, a lot more than now. Wonder if this will be challenged in the courts?

Edit. Obviously done to bump up its figures which makes me wonder what the sales numbers are through Amazon, is why this is happening.

[Funk]

jmorgan said:

iPlayer by its nature is after as many people hence platforms as possible but my not so old Panasonic HD recorder is booted of the support list for youtube. I expect that they can "manage" equipment. e.g. IF Amazon bring out a nut busting bestest TV ever to be built but Apple would exclude that from its list of supported devices.

I fancy there is a lot that can be done to upset the opposition if they wanted to get dirty, a lot more than now. Wonder if this will be challenged in the courts?

Edit. Obviously done to bump up its figures which makes me wonder what the sales numbers are through Amazon, is why this is happening.

They're trying to ringfence users and content into their ecosystem like Apple do. The problem is you can't just be a 'content' company or a 'hardware' company any more - you have to join the dots. Apple perfected that with iTunes, locking users into purchasing from there and only usable on Apple devices, along with the lack of (simple) interoperability between Apple's world an non-Apple kit. If you buy into it, that's cool - it's not for me. But Amazon's forays into hardware have been a bit kack; other than the basic Kindle and Paperwhite which are good bits of kit, nothing they've made hardware-wise has even blipped on my radar (and almost certainly wouldn't for someone considering Apple).

They forked Android with the Kindle HD, stopped it working with Google Play Store as a result and it fizzled out. The problem with 'walled garden' technology is that there has to be enough of what you want in the garden to keep you happy. Without content, development and new features, any piece of hardware will fail quickly.

As I said above, the answer is to make your content subscribable across as many platforms as possible. I wouldn't buy a Fire stick but I would consider subscribing to their content on a non-Amazon device I was about to buy or already owned. Amazon need to be like NetFlix in that respect - any platform with as much content as possible. The Fire TV Stick is £35 - even if they're making £25 on them, several years of content subscription from non-Fire Stick users would offset that hundreds of times over.

[jmorgan]

New Apple TV not out yet. Later this month I believe.

[scenario8]

Goodness I mourn the death of normal telly. Pretty much all the nouns and many of the verbs in the recent posts above were gibberish to me. Broadcasting is so fragmented these days with so much so-called choice across disparate platforms and I'm not convinced it's all a Good Thing.

<shuffles off in his slippers>

[0000]

As an open(ing) market, it's very immature. I'd imagine we'll see the likes of the normal terrestrial lot fall away in time and eventually the market will find some new leaders.