In a bold move to combat the increasing amount of COVID infections that have showed no signs of slowing down, Maine Senator Angus King has written a letter to all six of the largest streaming services asking them to make their platforms free over the holidays. King believes that if people have complimentary access to Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV Plus, they’ll be encouraged to stay home and binge TV shows and movies. Via News Center Maine:
“At this time, we must find ways to incentivize people to follow guidance from the CDC, their employer, local public health officials, or school leaders. Unfortunately, some Americans are likely to choose to ignore public health advice and carry on their typical holiday traditions instead of remaining safely at home. While your platforms would likely experience greater traffic as a consequence of extending service, we encourage you to provide temporary service at no cost to non-subscribers as a way to encourage people to make responsible choices and safely navigate this holiday season.”
As of this writing, King has yet to receive a response. He also might be facing a hard sell with at least one of the streaming platforms. HBO Max is currently set to stream Wonder Woman 1984 on Christmas Day and has stopped offering free trials ahead of its release. Its parent company, WarnerMediam is also hoping to help ease lost revenue from the pandemic by shifting its entire 2021 film slate to HBO Max. In short, the studio is gambling big on Wonder Woman drumming up paying subscribers that will stick around for the upcoming Warner Bros. movies.
Then again, as 2020 has repeatedly shown us, anything can happen, so it’ll be interesting to see which streaming platforms, if any, will heed King’s call.
(Via News Center Maine)