Channels & viewing

[nielsencl]

The ads on the ROKU channel are not too bad most of the time, but on the FreeVee channel there are times when I just want to stop watching. When I see "1 of 6" it makes me think about is there a better way to spend my time. This feeling gets worse as I see the same ad over 30 or 40+ times.

ROKU should encourage their channel partners to use moderation and not waste their advertisers marketing budget and soil the ROKU device reputation at the same time.

And the channels should consider running some PSA ads and not just running their own self-promotion because really, it looks pathetic. Or at least have ads for more of their offerings that might actually be of some interest and keep me watching.

[andyross]

Roku can't really tell services what they can do, beyond basic copyright and similar. Freevee is part of Amazon, and is actually planned to be shut down and folded into Amazon Prime. You can already watch Freevee content on Amazon Prime, no subscription required.

[nielsencl]

I understand ROKU may not be able to tell others what to do, but they can show them comments and make suggestions if they agree it's better for users. If ROKU doesn't care then comments about ads are pointless.

I noticed that FreeVee had a LOT of Amazon Prime mentions but did not know it was actually part of Amazon. I will miss it if they take it down. FreeVee is the first channel that has taken a lot of my time away from the ROKU channel mostly because I wasn't seeing much new on Roku.

Because I grew up with broadcast TV I don't mind some ads and prefer not to pay for entertainment if I don't have to. I would have to compare Prime with Netflix and other options before I choose one to pay for.

[JWS9518]

@nielsencl Amazon is difficult to deal with when trying to connect to support to return something, let alone anything else. Do you actually think they would pay attention to a rival company's feedback?

[Strega2]

It looks like Freevee is already partially folded into Prime, because people on the prime forum keep complaining about getting ads and people inform them that that's because they made the mistake of selecting a FreeVee show within Prime. 😀

Anyway the customer for commercial TV is the advertiser. Of course the content company needs to have enough product (viewers) to sell to them, so it matters if people actually leave, but comments alone don't mean much.

Commercial TV is analogous to commercial fishing. On Deadliest Catch, if they don't catch any crabs, then they make changes. But when they do catch crabs, you rarely see them asking the crabs for their opinions. As long as they have the crabs, they don't care about crab feelings about bait quality or user-friendliness of the trap.  As long as the product keeps coming, it's all good.

[nielsencl]

Roku is not a competitor but a service provider that Amazon advertises on.

I doubt Amazon customer support has anything to do with content shown on the FreeVee channel that Amanzon seems to manage.

So yes, I think if Roku agreed that what FreeVee is doing makes them less enjoyable for views that they might want to at least listen to the feedback.