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Bad News for Cord-Cutters: ABC to Restrict Online and Mobile Replays

Jan 3, 2014  •  Post A Comment

ABC has some bad news for cord-cutters: The network is limiting the availability of episodes for next-morning online viewing to select cable customers, reports TheWrap.com.

Starting Monday, Jan. 6, only the subscribers to any of eight TV service providers will be able to access ABC episodes within one week of air, the story says. The services are Charter, Comcast XFINITY, Google Fiber, Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, Cablevision Optimum, Cox Communications and Midcontinent.

Subscribers will need to get a username and password from their provider, the piece adds.

“For those who don’t subscribe to one of its listed subscribers, streaming episodes will be available for free a week after they air at WatchABC.com and on the network’s Watch ABC mobile app,” the story reports.

The report also notes: "Additionally, the streaming episodes will be available the next day for purchase on iTunes, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video. And, of course, there’s always on-demand viewing from your cable or satellite company."

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3 Comments

  1. How is this bad news for cord cutters? ABC is a free, over-the-air network that anyone can get with indoor rabbit ears or an outside antenna.

  2. It also applies to all the other ABC networks including Disney, ESPN, Family, and several others. While the Network feed itself is free, all the other channels are not.

  3. As a cord cutter, it is bad news. Let’s say that I couldn’t watch something on ABC when it ran. I would just watch online. Now, I have to wait a week because ABC is pandering to a couple of cable networks? And not all of the cable networks, like Time Warner or one of satellite networks, are included in this deal, so their subscribers will have to wait too. This is discriminatory, and I feel like ABC is almost blackmailing me into getting a CERTAIN cable network, which is not going to happen. Comcast here is terrible.

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