I’m sure when you first read the title of this post, you were probably
wondering what this post would be about and who in particular I felt the need
to ‘give credit’ to. The answer: TVB!
Ok, before anyone has a conniption, let me explain why I felt the need
to give some rare praise to TVB….
Everyone knows that when it comes to TVB, I have no
problems dishing out the criticisms (they actually bring it on themselves to be
quite honest, though I’ll save that discussion for a different occasion). At the same time though, I consider myself a
fair person who also has no problems giving credit where it is deservedly due….so
when TVB has those rare moments where their management actually decide to pull
their heads out of their butts (keyword here is “rare”) and do something right
for a change, I feel it’s only fair to call it out.
One thing that TVB did recently that I’m actually happy
about is that they FINALLY came through on their promise to open up their
online TV series platform to overseas viewers (meaning viewers who reside
outside of HK). Before I explain
further, let me give a little bit of background:
When TVB established their GOTV site several years ago
(that was their TV series repository that housed all of their series ever
produced, from the 1970s to present), I was thrilled because it meant that
audiences would finally have access to TVB’s classic series from the old days
(most of which were/are 110% better than the crap TVB churns out
nowadays). But of course, typical TVB,
they decided to restrict GOTV to HK region only, which meant that overseas
audiences would not be able to watch (and to add insult to injury, they made it
subscription-based where you had to pay a monthly fee – and if that weren’t
enough, they restricted it further to only accepting credit cards from 2 very
region-specific banks). The worse thing
though was that they decided to limit to HK region, but did very little
promotion for GOTV (raise your hand if you heard of GOTV – whenever I would
bring it up in online discussion forums, people seemed to have no clue what I
was talking about). Needless to say, I
was pissed at TVB for essentially throwing away the chance to make themselves
relevant again (which they could’ve done by opening up their classic series to
a new generation of audiences who never even knew of their existence and
possibly recapturing some of that past glory from TVB’s golden years). From day one since GOTV launched, TVB had
been promising to extend the platform to overseas viewers – however 2 years passed
and still it was only restricted to a very limited number of HK viewers.
Earlier this year, when TVB decided to launch myTV Super,
which was basically a more robust version of their myTV online platform, with
the difference being that it would be OTT-based but still extend across
multiple platforms (i.e. mobile devices, internet, etc.), they announced at the
same time that they would be discontinuing GOTV and perhaps merge it with myTV
in the future. Of course I was pissed,
since I was waiting for them to open up GOTV to overseas viewers but instead
they decide to discontinue it (at that time, all indication was that myTV Super
would follow its predecessor myTV’s footsteps and continue to be restricted to
HK region only).
Well, it turns out that as part of TVB’s myTV Super
project, they also decided to put more focus on their ‘international’ arm,
which for us here in the U.S. would be their TVB USA division (which, to be
honest, has always been a way better division than TVB HK itself – I’ve
interacted with TVB USA numerous times and can say from personal experience
that their customer service is quite good).
Several months ago, TVB USA revamped their mobile viewing app (which was
kind of crappy if you ask me – I for one had difficulty getting their app to
work properly) and TVB as a whole launched the “TVB Anywhere” platform, which
in theory allows audiences to watch TVB programs ‘anywhere’ in the world (now
you guys know why TVB cracked down so hard on that illegal TVpad thingie, which
made headlines all over the place). Of
course, the ‘anywhere in the world’ hasn’t quite happened yet, but frankly, I’m
really not that concerned about the ‘world’ part as long as the U.S. part
works, since that’s where I reside, lol.
I had some time recently to check out “TVB Anywhere” and
was pleasantly surprised to find that, in addition to providing access to TVB’s
currently airing series (which I really don’t give a hoot about), TVB also
uploaded many of their ‘older’ series from the past 49 years on the site as
well! Of course, it’s not as
comprehensive as GOTV, since they only upload several dozen series at a time
and there is a mix of old and new (versus GOTV where it was ALL their series, conveniently
separated out by year and you could do various searches by pretty much any
category / theme / genre / artist, etc. that you wanted) – but hey, I’ll take
it! For the first time in TVB’s 49 year
history, they are actually allowing ALL audiences (basically anyone who has
access to Internet) to watch their series online, LEGALLY and FOR FREE! I
actually tested it out and it works like a charm – just go to the designated
website, click on the “TV series” tab, choose the series you want to watch, and
that’s it (I re-watched a few older dramas on there already – ones that I’ve
watched/re-watched so many times already that I practically have the dialogue
memorized -- and can tell you that they are the EXACT same versions as the old
videotape versions, which means that they didn’t cut out anything…yay!). I am currently re-watching Blood
of Good and Evil from back in 1990 (one of my all-time favorite TVB
series) for like the 50th time (I’ve seen that series so many times
over the years, I’ve lost count already) via TVB Anywhere and am enjoying EVERY
SINGLE MINUTE of it!!
Ok, now that I’ve given proper credit for a job well done
in one particular area, I have to say this:
For the record, this does NOT mean that I am changing course or anything
– I am and will continue to be highly critical of TVB and will continue to slam
their management for the horrible way they operate. So yes, consider this praise short-lived,
since I don’t have much confidence that TVB is going to do much else that is
praiseworthy (especially judging from their usual pattern of taking 10 steps
back for every 1 step forward).
Due to time constraints (obviously, since I’m posting
this at 1am in the morning), I’m not going to go into too much detail about how
to access TVB Anywhere right now.
However, if you would like more details, feel free to leave a comment
and I can walk you through it at the next available opportunity I have.
Talk to you all later!