Several websites are advertising themselves as online television networks, and several television networks have made much of their content available on their websites. Let's take a look at a site that's trying most straightforwardly to bring the home cable experience to the internet: TidalTV.
What sets TidalTV apart is just how badly they want to be the on-your-monitor version of regular TV. The most notable feature upon entering the site is the digital-cable-like channel guide, complete with programming schedules for every channel.
In truth, the channel guide is superfluous, since everything is available on demand. Although you can certainly just tune into a channel and let it play like TV, you can also move forward or backward at any time, or even go to shows that aren't on the current schedule, by clicking any of the category tabs at the top of the screen.
Since TidalTV is all about professional, branded content, their depth and variety are entirely dependent on their partnerships with official content providers. TidalTV is relatively new, just in open beta at the moment, but it has partnerships with 57 of these providers. Unlike many sites, several of Tidal's partnerships are news sources like CNBC and the Wall Street Journal, or even the Weather Channel - another aspect of TidalTV bringing it closer to regular TV.
And like most sites, yes, TidalTV does have short, marked commercial breaks during each show.
TidalTV aims to keep loading times very low, to allow for quick channel-flipping and to keep the experience more TV-like. As a result, the video isn't premium quality. It's just supposed to be easy, uncomplicated, and user-friendly: no need to download any extra software, no social network profiles or recommendations or ratings. You just go to the site and it starts playing. You change the channel, and maybe you look for on-demand content. That's all there is to TidalTV.
There's usually a big market for user-friendliness and simplicity, if it's done right. Whether TidalTV can pull it off in a market with many competitors, time will tell.
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