With so many streaming services available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Often, companies with larger budgets and bigger offerings will take up the spotlight, which can mean that we forget about some of the smaller options which could actually fit our needs better.
One such company is Philo, which has Facebook co-founder Andrew McCollum at the helm. Recently, McCollum spoke with Michael Timmermann on his Michael Saves YouTube page about the future of streaming.
He told Timmermann about the rationale behind launching the streaming service that offers over 60 channels of live TV, with a focus on entertainment, lifestyle and knowledge-focused content. It doesn’t offer sports, news, or broadcast networks. McCollum explained why these types of channels were left out — getting them incurs a higher price. Without them, Philo can remain low-cost — good value for anyone who doesn’t want to access sports channels.
During the interview, he gave an example — it costs $15 or more for the channel ESPN alone, so if you don’t watch ESPN, you could be paying $180 a year for a channel you never make use of.
McCollum also explained how cord-cutters are facing complexity with streaming services. It can be a hassle to get signed up with providers and to choose which hardware you’ll stream on. With Philo to get started all you need to provide is a phone number.
Timmermann also brought up how the Philo homepage is no longer a list of networks, but the promotion for the content offering has been broken down according to genres, with popular shows for each network given. McCollum explained the reasoning behind the change, saying that the team hand-picked the best of each network so everyone would easily be able to find something they want to watch. ‘I have a hard time figuring it out [as someone in the streaming industry], so the average consumer will probably be completely lost!’ he said.
McCollum also explained how a huge branch of content was potentially being overlooked by consumers — because they perhaps don’t know it exists. "People don’t realize the breadth of content that’s on Philo. If you’re only watching the linear networks, maybe you don’t realize we have over 40,000 shows you can watch on-demand on Philo. There’s a really broad array of content there."
How to view on-demand shows on Philo
There are multiple ways to view on-demand content.
One option is to go to the Guide in the main menu once you’re logged in, then click on one of the shows. Once you get to the show preview, click on "More on [the channel/category]." For example, if you loaded up Parking Wars from the Guide, an option would be to click on "More on A&E".
Once you click "More", a screen will load up showing all of the shows associated with the channel. Choose one of the shows you want to watch and all the available on-demand seasons will show for you to binge-watch.
Alternatively, if you click on the "Top Playable" option from the main menu, then click on a show, you can browse all of the available on-demand seasons for that show.
