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LiveFromNewYork95 t1_ixs0e51 wrote

I like the parade for nostalgic reasons and to me, "waking up and watching the parade", is a symbol of the relaxation of Thanksgiving.

But honestly, I'll root for any trivial live event to get big numbers on streaming to move us back to appointment viewing as the norm. The shared experience of watching a show premiere is what TV is all about. I really liked House of the Dragon and Andor but the experience of 9:00 PM on Sunday night when my social media was filled with "HotD time!" and running commentary is 1000 times better than Andor releasing in the middle of the night and either waking up at 5:00 am to watch it before work or looking at memes of the episode all day until I can finally watch it.

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HortonHearsTheWho t1_ixs0o45 wrote

Fully agree. The shared experience is at the core of sports fandom too.

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spyson t1_ixspz9s wrote

It's so stupid to release these big shows at midnight PST. The only audience where it releases at prime time is Australia.

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kickit t1_ixsjbwb wrote

> I really liked House of the Dragon and Andor but the experience of 9:00 PM on Sunday night when my social media was filled with "HotD time!" and running commentary is 1000 times better than Andor releasing in the middle of the night and either waking up at 5:00 am to watch it before work or looking at memes of the episode all day until I can finally watch it.

this is the part I don't get. if you're going to do a weekly release schedule, (and I for one am in favor) what's the point of dropping episodes in the middle of the night when you could drop em anytime between like, 5pm and 9pm EST?

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forever87 t1_ixutp46 wrote

hotd still runs on cable tv release. as soon as the episode premieres live, the series unlocks on hboMAX as well as global streaming services for purchase. streaming exclusives are like the old days of movie theatre premieres. for some time, threatres would actually hold a general release midnight premiere ("Thursday night but 'midnight Friday' premiere" - race for people to see the movie "first"). but then the decision was made that they this could air them a little earlier on Thursday and maximize showings for premiere date as well as maximize profit.

so for Disney+, let's say a show "premieres" on Wednesday. so somebody made the decision to globally premiere the episode at midnight pst which means 3 est and so on for the rest of the world. this premiere happens after Tuesday night and early into Wednesday morning (depending on your timezone). it's messy. and as OP pointed out, you can watch it at premiere or run the risk of seeing spoiler memes until you watch.

entertainment is being watched globally, so things had/have to be adjusted for everybody. you can see it in the evolution of online comments. there was a time "first" would be the comment to make on YouTube videos. now the thing is to devour content as soon as it's released and make that early comment on the official discussion thread. it'll keep evolving along with everything else. but yeah i do like the hotd 9pm est release, but yeah

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GlotzbachsToast t1_ixs5ult wrote

Yes! Fully agreed on the shared experience. This is..totally the opposite but I remember last New Years Eve we were home watching the Miley Cyrus special and she started to have a wardrobe malfunction at one point and we were like “is her top falling off?” And it was just fun to get on Twitter (the only time Twitter is actually useful) and see others thinking/reacting to the same thing. Reminded me of the good old days!

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Bedbouncer t1_ixsr8ns wrote

My wife made me watch the Anderson Cooper special that year.

I even said to her "Statistically Miley Cyrus is far more likely to have a wardrobe malfunction than Anderson Cooper, we could see history being made!", but no, and then the next day I'm like "Dammit, I told you!"

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Rosebunse t1_ixskd0g wrote

I still have a theory that some of this is Disney+ not being able to handle a ton of viewers at once. When I watched the Ashoka episode of Mando it was at the premier time and the buffering was awful. The same thing with the Bad Batch premier.

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LiveFromNewYork95 t1_ixstzdb wrote

I think that's been proven time and time again with these streaming services, HBO (back in the HBOGo days) had tons of problems when people tried to stream live premieres of Game of Thrones (especially big episodes), Amazon Prime was in no way ready to handle Thursday Night Football this year, Peacock has been terrible with live streaming WWE PPV's.

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Rosebunse t1_ixsxd11 wrote

I expected it for Mando but I had no idea even The Bad Batch would have that problem. If even a show like The Bad Batch does this, can you imagine the buffering problems The Mandalorian would have if it premiered at, like, 10pm on a Sunday or Wednesday?

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fundropppp8242 t1_ixsfjjp wrote

Same. I can remember as a kid waking up thanksgiving morning and watching the parade as me and my brother would look through all the ads in the newspaper and work on our Christmas lists.

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throwaway957280 t1_ixsdfs8 wrote

Yeah on-demand streaming has overcorrected from the issues of cable a little bit. There's now a lot more live content on streaming services and I would like to see that continue, and not just for sports.

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down_up__left_right t1_ixtfze1 wrote

I was hoping HOTD would make these services realize that the hype around appointment tv is a thing but they just ignored it and went on releasing stuff at midnight west coast time. Basically making sure the release was prime time for as little people as possible.

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flygirl083 t1_ixt7asy wrote

I know it’s supposed to be a prime spot but I haaaaate when weekly episodes come out at 9pm on a Sunday. I have to get up stupid early for work and I need to be in bed lol. And then I get to spend the whole next day dodging spoilers until I can get home and watch it. Why can’t we do something reasonable like 8pm?

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rhllor t1_ixtxjtf wrote

Shows that air after 9pm are scheduled in that timeslot because they got tits and gore up the wazoo. Karens would go apoplectic. Not that they don't already, but moreso if those shows started airing at 20:59:59.

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MrMysteryBox t1_iy5azqh wrote

There's also a bit of a psychological aspect too it. New episodes of HOTD premiere as the last thing you'd do that day. You watch it, go to sleep, and it's on your mind for tomorrow morning.

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Birdhawk t1_ixsycew wrote

Agreed. I feel like my last experience of me and everyone I know and worked with all having the same experiences every week with the same episode of a show was Westworld season 1. It was a lot of fun being excited to talk with everyone about each episode

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