A Cable Company Doing it Right? Comcast On-Demand
By Jonathan Berohn
Attention choir members, while this is usually the portion of the sermon with which we bash Comcast unmercifully, I must incredulously announce a change in the program. Yes, that’s right. Comcast actually pulled off a success. What is this great miracle you ask? On-Demand cable.
Choices, Choices, Choices
So you missed your favorite cable series this week? Need to put on a show to amuse the kids for a while? No problem. With On-Demand you get to watch what you want when you want it. On-Demand offers a full slate of cable TV choices from sports to kids programming free of charge 24 hours a day. (For some more details on how this works see my review of the NFL Network)
Pay-Per-View Nirvana
As good as the complementary options are, pay-per-view and premium service is really where On-Demand comes into its own. For example, if you have HBO, you can watch anything that HBO is showing in the current week whenever you want. If that isn’t enough, you can watch all the current (or previous) season’s episodes from your favorite HBO series. All of this is free for subscribers to HBO. If you need even more choices—including the latest movies available to rent, the pay-per-view options are enough to make me want to sell my Blockbuster stock (if I had any, that is). Not only can you watch any new release you can rent, you can also watch in widescreen mode—an option long overdue on pay-per-view. More importantly, though, you can watch your choices whenever you want, as many times as you want for 24 hours, and—as your cable box actually downloads the film—you can actually pause, fast forward and rewind.
New releases are only a small part of what you can buy. Each month Comcast offers a special selection of movies (scary movies were the selection for October, of course). Comcast also offers a large selection of genre movies such as action, comedy, romance, and children’s fare to choose from each month. All in all, On-Demand has made me reexamine my premise that Comcast is incompetent.
