The Future Is Now: TNT, NBC and TBS Put Full Length TV Shows in iOS Apps

Posted by Rob LeFebvre on September 13th, 2011

Last week, NBC announced that their NBC app for the iPad now offers full episodes to, in effect, mirror the functionality of the NBC.com website. In addition, new features such as watching video clips, playing games and scrolling through photos were added to their companion iOS application, NBC Live. The company hopes to bring the social viewing experience to its fans through, obviously, a company branded app.

"We are thrilled to offer our fans full episodes via our NBC.com app. Now the app truly reflects the deep fan experience that we have created online at NBC.com," said Vivi Zigler, President, NBCUniversal Digital Entertainment. "And our fans are going to love the latest update to the NBC Live app which now offers them more content, better access and a unique social television experience."

The NBC app and NBC Live app are available for free from the App Store.

Not to be outdone, both TNT and TBS have also added support for full episodes, though they still are tied to app users needing to authenticate as cable subscribers. The apps, for both iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch, offer

- Full Episodes of TBS/TNT Series (after authenticating)
- Series Episode Guides
- Clips and Behind-the-Scenes Video
- Show Schedules with Reminders
- GetGlue, Facebook and Twitter Integration


While this may not be as earth shattering as the news from NBC, you can bet that we are witnessing a new paradigm in television viewing. Apparently, being able to create and control their own portal to their own television content has these companies, and no doubt others to soon follow suit, creating the cable-cord-free future we have all wanted from the outset. While the TNT and TBS offerings still require at least a financial link to cable television companies, the NBC announcement leaves no doubt that TV as we know it is changing forever.

[Source: MacRumors]

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