Roku UK Channel Store - Weekly RoundUp #64

Hi, everyone !!



Not much in terms of Roku-related news to bring you this time around although, as with last week, there have been plenty of new channels added to the channel store which should keep you going between now and next weekend when (hopefully) we will have some snippets of information worth sharing with you. Meanwhile... for those of you who missed my tweet on the subject, during the past seven days, via the companion Twitter Feed to this blog: @ukrokuchannels - the Roku Streaming Stick (HDMI Version) [Model: 3500EU] is NOW AVAILABLE via Amazon UK and you will find all the product information VIA THIS LINK. In their usual (un)timely fashion, Roku have not yet seen fit to update the "Where to Buy" information on the "Official" Roku UK website to reflect this, so I thought I'd mention it here for the benefit of all visitors to this blog who may be considering a purchase. You'll also find  some good deals on other UK Roku models, at this time, including the original flagship UK player: Roku 2 XS which you can (currently) snap-up for HALF-PRICE at only £49.98 and can be found HERE if you're interested. As far as I'm concerned, you're better of buying the Roku 2 XS at that price than the newer 'Roku 1', because of all the additional features (ethernet, USB, MicroSD, motion control, etc) that it offers. So hurry up and GET 'EM WHILE YOU STILL CAN !!!!

Anyway, let's now press on with the details for the current 'Weekly RoundUp' of NEW ADDITIONS to the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store. This time, there are TWENTY-FOUR NEW CHANNELS which have been added during the past seven days. These latest additions to the channel line-up have provided us with FRESH CONTENT in the Film & TV, Music, Internet TV, International, Food, Special Interest, Screensavers & Apps, plus Religion & Spirituality genres (i.e. categories).

In keeping with previous installments from the 'Weekly RoundUp' series, details of these new channels have all been listed below, together with links to obtain further information {by clicking on the channel name(s) beneath the respective channel icon(s) as pictured} and to read a 'Roku Guide' review (where available) with an independent (slightly more expansive) assessment of each one:-

SCREENJUICE AUTOS..............COST: £0.69 (ONE-OFF PAYMENT) [Roku Guide Review]

CALVARY CHAPEL FORT WORTH................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

CALVARY TV......................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

iCHURCH LAS VEGAS.......................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

HOUR OF POWER..............................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

THE POLYNESIA CHANNEL...........................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

HOPE OF ISRAEL................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

DUDE FOOD........................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

VIPO.......................................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

FUNNY D00DS....................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

MEDITERRANEAN FOOD (by iFood.tv)...........................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

JAPANESE FOOD (by iFood.tv)..........................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

CRAFT KLATCH.................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

HOMESCHOOLING NETWORK......................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

CHARITY-TV.....................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

UNCONTROLLED NOIZE.................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

DRAMAFEVER....................................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

LAKAY NETWORK......COST: FREE (n.b. may require additional fees) [Roku Guide Review]

SPUD'S CLIFFHANGER COLLECTION..........................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

JUMPINGJACK...............COST: FREE (n.b. may require additional fees) [Roku Guide Review]

KIBAARO GAMBIA TV............................COST: £10.49 (MONTHLY) [Roku Guide Review]

FUNNY FOR FREE.............................................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

LOGAN'S WORLD TV...............................COST: £2.49 (MONTHLY)  [Roku Guide Review]

GINIKO TURKISH........................COST: FREE + $8.95 (MONTHLY) [Roku Guide Review]

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Anyway, like it or not, that is your lot for this week and, whilst it doesn't quite the match-up to the twenty-seven channels which made it into the "Official" Roku USA Channel Store during the same time-frame, I always think it's better to have SOME NEW CHOICES than none at all, don't you ?!!

Still, hopefully everyone in the UK with a Roku player managed to find something they like within the twenty-four channels outlined above. If not, then you'll just have to pay us a visit another time when, with any luck, there will be something more to your liking. Afterall, there's no point installing every channel because, as I've said before, when it comes to adding new channels to your Roku player, IT'S YOUR CHOICE and, as with all things Roku... THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS YOURS !!

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In the meantime, for my last forty-two 'Weekly RoundUp' posts, I have been suggesting we spare a thought for all the poor folk who handed over their hard-earned cash for one of those NowTV Boxes [Powered by Sky] which, as I keep saying, have (so far) totally failed to live up to their full potential. Likewise, the original promise from NowTV of "more apps being continually added", is yet to be adhered to, since there has been ONLY ONE NEW CHANNEL ADDED to the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box SINCE THE PRODUCT LAUNCHED. Given the continued failure by the so-called "developers" at NowTV to add any new channels to the (severely reduced) Roku Channel Store that features on the NowTV Box, it is (perhaps) unsurprising that we have seen one or two notices for job vacancies at NowTV in recent weeks. However, that doesn't prevent their latest recruitment drive from being perceived as unfathomable, not to mention unnecessary, to say the very least...

HINT: Click on the above image to ENLARGE IT for easier viewing !!

PHOTO SOURCE: SCB Citizen

Quite why NowTV would attempt to fill the current void in channel numbers, between the channel store on their NowTV Box and the (far superior) one that features on UK Roku players, by employing an invasive plant species like tumbleweed to add even more "nothing" to the "nothing doing" that's already on the NowTV Box is completely beyond me !! It was only when I read the original article, FOUND HERE, from which the above image was taken... that I discovered a piece of 19th century legislation which may well hold the key to the NowTV business model and their aversion to making any new additions to the Roku Channel Store on their streaming media player:-

HINT: Click on the above image to ENLARGE IT for easier viewing !!

Essentially, back in 1895, the U.S. State of Nebraska made it a crime to allow tumbleweeds to grow on one's property. Examining the text I was able to draw some interesting parallels which, if you'll permit me to paraphrase here by way of illustration, could easily be applied to the NowTV Box:-

Any person or persons, company or corporations, owning content or developing any channels within this store (i.e. the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box)... who shall knowingly permit or suffer any "Roku Channel" to be added or remain thereon... shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour and of maintaining a public (channel) nuisance, and... shall be punished by a fine of no less than ten pounds...

Based on how the pricing for individual products, between the USA and the UK, is often little more than a case of changing the "$" (U.S. Dollar) symbol for "£" (British Pounds) - rather than an actual currency conversion - it would seem that the NowTV Box is more of a bargain than it first appeared. If you think about it... that equates to zero inflation over a period of almost one hundred and twenty years. Although, having said that, the references to punishment and fines suggests that the amount may well apply to the cost of a 'NowTV Sports Day Pass' rather than the price of a NowTV Box !! Interestingly the article from 'SCB Citizen', by Katie Bradshaw, was titled "Blankety-Blank Tumbleweeds" which is presumably a reference to the "Blankety-Blank Cheque Book & Pen" which NowTV Box owners must use (on a daily basis) & fork over their hard-earned cash to watch their chosen sport for 24 hours. Then again, it could also hint towards the fact there's "Blank All" to choose from in the channel store on the NowTV Box until the NowTV developers pull their "Blanking" fingers out of their "Blanks" !!

Consequently, it's likely to be of no surprise to any of you that (as with EVERY WEEK BAR ONE since launch) there has (once more) been literally NO ACTION in terms of NEW ADDITIONS to the Roku Channel Store selection on the NowTV Box. What this means is that, over the course of the past week, NowTV have (again) produced a (NOT SO) GRAND TOTAL of ZERO NEW CHANNELS to add to their (already SEVERELY REDUCED) version of the Roku Channel Store as included on their NowTV Box. Meanwhile, the "Official" Roku Channel Store that features on all UK Roku players has added a further TWENTY-FOUR EXTRA CHANNELS during that same period of time. To keep things firmly in perspective, in the forty-four weeks since the launch of the NowTV Box, there has been a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO EXTRA CHANNELS added to the Roku Channel Store on UK Roku players, as compared with ONE EXTRA CHANNEL being added to the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box. That, surely, must tell you something ?!!!

Like I've said in previous weeks, it seems to be a case of one step forward and two steps back when it comes to the meagre selection of channels available in the Roku Channel Store which features on the streaming media player from NowTV. To illustrate my point... from the moment that the NowTV Box was launched, they have managed to completely lose 'WatchIndia' and 'USTV Now', with '4oD' being  the one & only channel added to the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box since it launched !! Three weeks ago it was the turn of '4oD' to up-sticks and leave it's original home in the "Film & TV" category to hide-out in the "Most Popular" channels, presumably (like 'Flixster' before it) preferring the (relative) obscurity of a twenty-five channel lineup to the company of just six other channels with which it had shared the genre since 'Flixster' went into hiding. Perhaps worse still was the loss of 'MLB.TV' from the "News, Weather, Sport" category which, unless you added it previously (in which case you'll find it under 'My Channels' in the menu), you will not (currently) be able to add to the channel selection on your NowTV Box. In fact, as far as the channel selection on the NowTV Box goes, the best I can say is that at least the 'Havoc Television' and the 'VEVO' channels (which had both been missing an "official" Roku Channel Store category on the NowTV Box for a very long time) have now managed to stay put for the past twelve weeks, having found their way back into the 'Music' genre (i.e. category) of the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box. Likewise... the other channel lacking an "official" Roku Channel Store category on the NowTV Box for quite some time, namely 'HooplaKidz Rhymes', remains part of "Internet TV".

Sadly, this means there are still just 47 CHANNELS to be found in the NowTV Box version of the Roku Channel Store PLUS the 'NOW TV' and 'Sky Store' channels which (unfortunately) means the overall total remains at only forty-nine channels (even less than there were when the product was launched in July 2013). Plus, let's not forget, those last two are only there by default and not included with the apps (i.e. channels) in the Roku Channel Store on the NowTV Box. If we then leave aside the "Most Popular" channels and any additional ones listed in "My Channels" (as I do with my channel count for the Roku player), when it comes to the actual Roku Channel Store categories on the NowTV Box, there remains no more than a paltry 45 channels in total compared with 1,025+ in the channel store on UK Roku players !!!

Bearing this in mind... whilst the NowTV Box won't exactly leave you out-of-pocket, if you are after a streaming media player which can genuinely boast of "more apps being continually added" and is a lot less likely to leave you wanting by the time the summer holiday period begins, then I strongly advise you to do yourselves a BIG FAVOUR and spend the extra twenty quid or so to get a genuine original Roku LT streaming media player that will allow you to ACCESS NETFLIX plus many other film & tv channels (incl. NowTV) as well as having both the 'Plex' and 'YouTube' channels readily available via the channel store and will give you more than 975 EXTRA CHANNELS TO CHOOSE FROM when compared with the selection (currently) found on a NowTV Box.

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Still, whether you happen to own a Roku player, a NowTV Box, OR BOTH, as I do... be sure to come back in seven days' time for my next 'Weekly RoundUp' and, if you can't wait that long, remember you can always keep up with all the UK Roku action (as it happens) throughout the coming week, by following the companion Twitter Feed: @ukrokuchannels where up-to-the-minute info on all things Roku-related (here in the UK) is posted on a daily basis (well, almost).

Until the next time, then...

That's all folks !!