There's some good news for fans of Fox television shows: the network will soon begin live-streaming all of its primetime programming.
There's just one catch, though: live-streaming is only available to those viewers who already have a cable or satellite subscription.
"From the start of the on-demand and over-the-top viewing revolution, Fox has been at the forefront of providing greater access to our buzz-defining shows, like Empire, Lucifer, Scream and Family Guy," Fox TV Group CEOs and chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman said in a statement, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. "Adding nationwide primetime live streams is just another great example of how the Fox Digital Consumer Group, under Brian Sullivan's leadership, is innovating to give viewers the convenience and flexibility to watch our programming whenever and wherever they want."
This isn't good news for cable cutters, though, who don't have a cable or satellite subscription, which is required for logging in to the Fox app or website.
However, for those viewers with valid paid TV subscriptions, they can now watch their favorite shows, including Gotham and Wayward Pines, on their mobile devices, computers, set-top boxes, Rokus, Apple TVs, Google Chromecasts, Kindle Fires and smartphones.
It seems that Fox plans on missing the opportunity to reach out to cord cutters and would rather stay in bed with the cable and satellite companies. Cord cutters want to have options, too, but for now, most Fox primetime TV shows are still available on Hulu.
For live-streaming, though, Fox will require users to log in and verify their cable and satellite subscriptions, so unless a user has that, they're out of luck and must still rely on watching shows 24 hours after they initially air.
Fox will also live-stream sports programming, but again, that doesn't do much for cord cutters, many of whom subscribe to cable occasionally during certain sports seasons because that content is not easily available online without cable and satellite subscriptions.
Live-streaming begins next week with So You Think You Can Dance, so viewers who are not in front of their television screens at the time can still tune in and watch the show live as it airs.
Other networks will likely follow suit, although CBS does things a little differently: it offers its own standalone subscription service, All Access, which allows viewers to watch its network programming without a cable or satellite subscription. The network also puts up episodes on its website 24 hours after they air and makes them available to anyone, including cord cutters.
