Tesco's free Clubcard TV service has some right old tosh

Tesco's new Clubcard TV gives members of its loyalty card scheme a Netflix-style streaming TV service for absolutely free. Unfortunately, instead of the sexy, cerebral delights of House of Cards, you'll be watching ancient repeats ofTwo Pints of Lager and Alistair McGowan's Big Impression.

Tesco Value Clubcard TV boasts "hours of BBC Worldwide content" -- hours! -- such as the one-joke Goodness Gracious Me, grim children's borefests Stig of the Dump and The Secret Garden, and a bunch of cooking shows featuring angry middle-aged men.

It's not all worthless 90s bilge -- there are some movies, such as Shawshank Redemption,Ocean's Eleven and, er, that's it. Brilliantly, on the signup page it advertises "plenty of choice". Plenty. Not "endless" or "staggering" or "mind-blowing". Just sufficient choice. Not too much.

While it is completely free, you do have to sit through ads. In one episode of Cornish medical snoozer Doc Martin, I had two ads at the beginning and two breaks with three ads each. They're not skippable, and like a lot of online services you see the same ads over and over again. In Ocean's Eleven there were four breaks of three ads each. The same three ads.

The service is currently in beta, although that doesn't seem to mean anything -- anyone can sign up, as long as you have a free Tesco Clubcard. Maybe it just means "we might stop doing this if no one uses it".

Clubcard TV launched for lucky Tesco employees in February and is now open to all. It's run by online rental service Blinkbox, which in turn is owned by Tesco. Blinkbox already provides free online versions of DVDs and Blu-rays you buy in the supermarket, and this meagre offering seems to be another incremental step in Tesco's masterplan of everyone, everywhere buying everything from it. For ever.

Alternatives include Lovefilm at £5 per month, Netflix at £6 per month and the BBC iPlayer for absolutely nothing, not even a licence fee.

[Source: CNET]

Tesco Clubcard TV has free on-demand telly, sign-in wobbles

The fun of shopping at Tesco no longer has to end when you leave the supermarket -- now you can immerse yourself in Tesco all through the evening, with the company's new streaming service, Clubcard TV.

The service is free for anyone who possesses a Tesco Clubcard (if you don't have one, it's free to sign up), and puts a slew of movies and TV shows at your on-demand disposal, at the impressive price of precisely zero pounds. Batman, Goodness Gracious Me and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps are among the available programmes, the Telegraph reports.

The service is very similar to rivals such as Netflix or Lovefilm Instant, except for the lack of a monthly subscription fee, and the promise of more horse meat. You select what you want to watch, and the programme or film is streamed via your broadband connection.

At the moment the service seems limited to in-browser streaming, though as Tesco's promo video cheerily informs us, you can hook your computer up to your telly using an HDMI cable.

Teething woes

Signing up for the service appears to be borked at present, with three Clubcard-clutching CNET members unable to proceed past the Clubcard number entry page, which sees the site demanding a 'Privilege Card number'.

Privilege Cards are something given to staff once they've worked with the company for six months, so perhaps the service has been tested internally, and the supermarket forgot to turn off the Privilege Card number requirement.

Rival £6-per-month service Netflix recently launched its homemade House of Cards series, starring Kevin Spacey. Sainsburys, meanwhile, already has its own video-streaming service.

[Source: CNET]