Add each show's streaming service to it's Fanfare page?
February 10, 2024 11:49 AM - Subscribe
Would it be possible to add a note somewhere prominent on each show's Fanfare page saying which network or streaming service is airing it? I'd find it helpful to know immediately whether or not it's a show my existing streaming subscriptions allow me to watch. If not, then why waste my time reading about it?
I realise that's a complication, but I think something useful could still be done. I'd go with the show's original when-launched streaming service in North America.
Ninety per cent of Metafilter is angled towards America anyway, and those of us outside the US get used to automatically adjusting for that. If I saw a US show was on HBO, for example, I'd know there was a good chance Sky Atlantic had in here in the UK. On your second point, it's not unreasonable for someone coming to a thread a year or more late to understand some details may be outdated.
Another approach might be simply list which network or streaming service made the show. That alone can be a pretty good indicator of its likely quality and whether it'll match your own taste.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:47 PM on February 12
Ninety per cent of Metafilter is angled towards America anyway, and those of us outside the US get used to automatically adjusting for that. If I saw a US show was on HBO, for example, I'd know there was a good chance Sky Atlantic had in here in the UK. On your second point, it's not unreasonable for someone coming to a thread a year or more late to understand some details may be outdated.
Another approach might be simply list which network or streaming service made the show. That alone can be a pretty good indicator of its likely quality and whether it'll match your own taste.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:47 PM on February 12
A nice site feature would be to automatically generate a search link to JustWatch so readers can click on the link and see what JustWatch has to say at that time. (The JW website seems to be localized to my non-US location; I haven't checked to see if it's actually listing availability in my location too or just US availability.) No need for API queries.
That would be a small incremental improvement that maybe isn't the ideal solution but is cheap to implement and can always be improved later. I'd vote for that over the classic "let's take months to perfect a complicated design and then several years to implement" approach.
Anyway, barring that posters can always manually add a JustWatch link for readers to click.
posted by trig at 11:46 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]
That would be a small incremental improvement that maybe isn't the ideal solution but is cheap to implement and can always be improved later. I'd vote for that over the classic "let's take months to perfect a complicated design and then several years to implement" approach.
Anyway, barring that posters can always manually add a JustWatch link for readers to click.
posted by trig at 11:46 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]
JustWatch can be set to show availability in any country.
That's why I use it as my default. It's not perfect, but it's about 98.5% right.
It'd still be very cool if we could get it to the point where a FF post used a script to autolink, because then if/when JW dies/enshittifies, we can rewrite the script to autolink a different service.
I do not see a ton of value in linking to the current US service, because over a long enough timeline, that changes often and sometimes in surprising ways.
Band of Brothers for instance would have gone: HBO -> HBO Go -> HBO Max -> Max -> Netflix, and may yet get sold to Tubi or something after. And that's just US. In the UK, I believe it was on BBC or iTV and is now on Sky.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:52 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]
That's why I use it as my default. It's not perfect, but it's about 98.5% right.
It'd still be very cool if we could get it to the point where a FF post used a script to autolink, because then if/when JW dies/enshittifies, we can rewrite the script to autolink a different service.
I do not see a ton of value in linking to the current US service, because over a long enough timeline, that changes often and sometimes in surprising ways.
Band of Brothers for instance would have gone: HBO -> HBO Go -> HBO Max -> Max -> Netflix, and may yet get sold to Tubi or something after. And that's just US. In the UK, I believe it was on BBC or iTV and is now on Sky.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:52 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]
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JustWatch seems to be maybe trying to make those connections, but I haven't looked to see if they have an API that MeFi could query like how they link to IMDB.
posted by Kyol at 10:26 AM on February 12