{"id":38057,"date":"2022-07-03T11:49:57","date_gmt":"2022-07-03T15:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=38057"},"modified":"2022-07-03T11:56:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-03T15:56:59","slug":"the-fabulous-flea-market-of-streaming-channels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/07\/03\/the-fabulous-flea-market-of-streaming-channels\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fabulous Flea Market of Streaming Channels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"38101\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/07\/03\/the-fabulous-flea-market-of-streaming-channels\/the-flea-market-of-television\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?fit=640%2C640&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"640,640\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The-Flea-Market-of-Television\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?fit=640%2C640&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-38101\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?resize=640%2C640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/The-Flea-Market-of-Television.jpg?resize=50%2C50&amp;ssl=1 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/>As I&#8217;ve said before, when I am sketching, I like to have noise in the background which is sometimes music but it&#8217;s usually the TV tuned to something that doesn&#8217;t require my strict attention. Trashy television shows and B movies tend to fit the bill, but on the ordinary streaming channels that usually means a lengthy and laborious search. Looking for something that is tolerable even on the streaming stations <em>I pay to use<\/em> can eat up a lot of time.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of ad supported streaming channels, but the commercials are frequent and annoying. It would be all right if the advertisements were just trying to convince customers to buy a product or service, but they seem to be desperately foisting their wares as a <em>lifestyle choice<\/em> sort of like a modern but hackneyed variation of <em>I&#8217;d like to buy the world a Coke. <\/em>Selling sugar water is not enough! They feel as if they are trying to build a consensus rather than trying to separate consumers from their cash. <em>This is the current normal. Don&#8217;t you want to be a part of this current normal?<\/em> Either that or it&#8217;s painfully unfunny comic actors selling insurance. It&#8217;s not at all what I wanted.<\/p>\n<p>Then I found what I wanted. <em>More<\/em> than what I wanted. With <em><a href=\"https:\/\/watchyour.tv\/channels.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WatchYour.TV<\/a>,<\/em> I&#8217;ve hit the <em>mother lode!<\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It is the flea market of streaming channels, and just like truly great flea markets, it&#8217;s full of unexpected treasures. It&#8217;s like cable television in that there are a bunch of channels beneath the umbrella of WatchYour.TV, but it&#8217;s a lunatic version of what used to be called pay television, and it&#8217;s free. It feels as if I am in the &#8217;80s with a huge, possibly illegal satellite dish capturing oddball UHF stations from all over the country. I&#8217;ve watched old TV shows, movies, bowling tournaments, ancient talk shows, 50 year old boxing matches complete with commercials and cartoons I forgot existed. <a href=\"https:\/\/watchyour.tv\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/image.roku.com\/developer_channels\/prod\/89499337a8a2b6dba7be1455fa93a0e0223b658277ad9a28fbe8c74502eb20fd.jpg?resize=640%2C360&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a>The graphics are terrible, but I can&#8217;t hold that against them. Being that flea markets, thrift shops and dollar stores are my speed, high quality graphics don&#8217;t really matter. I can&#8217;t tell what half of them are supposed to represent. I never know what I am getting. Clicking on one of these sub-channels is like a low stakes <em>Russian Roulette<\/em> with a happier ending. I click on the icon and see if what is playing is halfway interesting. Generally, it is.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52184220016_766edb88bc_n.jpg?resize=320%2C240&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"TVS Television Network\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>It is ad supported, but unlike a lot of the streaming channels, they don&#8217;t beat the viewer to death with them. I&#8217;ve only noticed ads at the beginning and end of shows and they are usually for prefabricated metal sheds, security systems or online college degrees. It&#8217;s pretty painless.<\/p>\n<p>There is an <a href=\"https:\/\/watchyour.tv\/tvexperience.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>online guide<\/em><\/a> that shows a grid of their programming. Check it out! You may see something that piques your interest. The channel is available for all of the various streaming boxes including the <em>Roku<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve said before, when I am sketching, I like to have noise in the background which is sometimes music but it&#8217;s usually the TV tuned to something that doesn&#8217;t require my strict attention. Trashy television shows and B movies &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/07\/03\/the-fabulous-flea-market-of-streaming-channels\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,3456,5084],"tags":[1877,5381,5378,3457,5382,5380,5379,185,4098,5377,771],"class_list":["post-38057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-joe-likes","category-weird-world-of-the-roku","category-whats-on-tv","tag-bonanza","tag-cannon","tag-clint-howard","tag-cord-cutter","tag-junk-culture-junkie","tag-mannix","tag-rocket-robin-hood","tag-roku","tag-streaming","tag-watchyour-tv","tag-weird"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-9TP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20940,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2016\/08\/04\/pluto-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":0},"title":"Pluto TV","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"August 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A post-Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, pre-Trog Joan Crawford in an episode of forgotten television series Route 66. I discovered this odd television guest appearance while surfing the channels on my Roku box. Yes, you can surf channels on the Roku just as you can on a cable TV subscription\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weird World of the Roku&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weird World of the Roku","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/weird-world-of-the-roku\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/plutotv.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/plutotv.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/plutotv.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4190,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2015\/03\/05\/wonderfully-weird-channels-roku\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":1},"title":"The Wonderfully Weird Channels of the Roku","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"March 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm starting a new category that could be considered for cord-cutters or folks looking to save some serious cash by giving cable TV the heave-ho. I could be considered a cord-cutter in a way although I never had a cord to cut in my current residence. Back when the city\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Stuff Joe Likes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Stuff Joe Likes","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/stuff-joe-likes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2023-08-18-at-12.20.52-PM.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":34028,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2020\/03\/11\/digital-sanctuary-no-more\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":2},"title":"Digital Sanctuary No More","author":"Joe","date":"March 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I got my first Roku streaming box almost ten years ago. I have written before of my stubborn resistance to a cable TV subscription and my struggle with rabbit ears and video shops. When I first heard of streaming boxes, I had my doubts, but the Roku HD was the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weird World of the Roku&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weird World of the Roku","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/weird-world-of-the-roku\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/political-crap.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/political-crap.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/political-crap.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1924,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2010\/11\/30\/i-want-my-roku-tv\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":3},"title":"I Want My Roku TV!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"November 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is Tina's birthday card to me for 2010. It's another one of her brilliant digital collages. Tina usually bases the card on whatever my current obsession may be (it seems there is never a shortage!) This year she's ribbing me over my fixation with the Roku which is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Drawer Cards&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Drawer Cards","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/drawer-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"TV Man - I Want My Roku TV!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5287\/5221078570_67d60fae3b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":42069,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2023\/11\/29\/christmas-disk\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":4},"title":"Christmas Disks","author":"Joe","date":"November 29, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I regret to report that streaming has metastasized into the thing it was meant to replace. It IS cable television only with a LOT more commercials!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Weird World of the Roku&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Weird World of the Roku","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/weird-world-of-the-roku\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Untitled","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53361369840_0b0fb6c68d_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53361369840_0b0fb6c68d_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53361369840_0b0fb6c68d_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":36227,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2021\/07\/10\/a-lady-cabbie-and-george-sanders-brother\/","url_meta":{"origin":38057,"position":5},"title":"A Lady Cabbie and George Sanders&#8217; Brother","author":"Joe","date":"July 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's another satisfying but forgotten mystery movie the likes of which used to play regularly at local movie houses when there were local movie houses. Eventually films like this would pad out the schedules of local UHF channels to be enjoyed by insomniacs as they were unspooled during the Late,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movie Matinee&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Movie Matinee","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/movie-matinee\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mystery Matinee","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Mystery_Matinee.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Mystery_Matinee.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Mystery_Matinee.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}