ABC And Warner Bros. Could Change How You Watch TV — Again

ABC and Warner Bros. wants you to watch more TV shows. At least, more of their TV shows. ABC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television Group announced, through a press release, about the unprecedented stacking rights deal for all Warner Bros.-produced shows that air on ABC for both the 2017-2017 and 2017-2018 seasons. It’s a deal that will change how the network offers the streaming of television series online.

Currently, if a viewer has a craving to binge-watch a favorite TV show on ABC, you can go to ABC.com, but you are limited by just five episodes. Under this new agreement, ABC has the right to post an entire season of episodes online and other video-on-demand devices. What that means for viewers is simple.

“Viewers now have previously unavailable full season catch-up flexibility to enjoy and binge on their favorite network series as well as to discover new series across a variety of platforms and devices,” says ABC.

Now you may be asking, “Why up to this point has ABC limited each series to just five episodes?” Initially, the thought was to better keep from losing live TV viewing.

“TV network executives hoped that limiting the number of episodes online would encourage viewers to return to watching TV the old fashioned way — during the prime-time hours,” says Yvonne Villarreal from the L.A. Times. “The agreement illustrates how networks and studios are grappling with on-demand delayed viewing platforms and ways to monetize them.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Warner Bros, will have end-of-season SVOD rights as well as early syndication rights and day-after EST and early DVD rights too.

“This is a real win for network television viewers,” said Jana Winograde, the executive vice president of Business Operations at ABC Entertainment. “Giving our audience even more opportunities to catch up on their favorite shows in their entirety, on demand, only enhances their loyalty to and engagement with ABC and our series.”

“Along with our partners at ABC, we’re pleased to offer viewers the convenience to discover and watch our shows on their own schedule and on the screen they choose,” said Craig Hunegs, the president of Business and Strategy at the Warner Bros. Television Group. “For our studio, the more people watch our shows, the more valuable they become for us over the long run.”

Warner Bros. has a couple of pilots hoping to land on ABC’s fall schedule: a Kevin Williamson drama called Time After Time and the comedy, Dream Team. If they are picked up, every episode of the first season would be made available to viewers. It would stand to reason that current shows The Middle and The Bachelor, both Warner Bros. shows, would be available as well.

Just a few years ago, nobody knew what the term “binge-watching” meant. That changed when retailers made full seasons of TV shows available to purchase. Then Netflix and others came on the scene and changed the way people watched television. Gone are the days when you would have to wait seven days to see how the cliffhanger would be resolved on Lost. More often than not, consumers are watching TV when — and where — they want.

A lot of questions still remain in the new world of TV viewing. How will ABC and other networks make money with these new changes? Add more commercials? Will this one change soon effect all networks? If so, how will it affect shows like Dancing With The Stars or America’s Got Talent, which are shown in real time? Will more live TV programming be made available to keep people watching traditional TV?

[Photo by Bethany Clarke]