‘Batman,’ ‘The X-Files,’ and More Streaming on Vertical Video Service

The classic Adam West-led 1960s Batman series and long-running sci-fi drama The X-Files are among [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

The classic Adam West-led 1960s Batman series and long-running sci-fi drama The X-Files are among the titles now streaming on Dream TV, a television channel app tailor made for smartphone viewing.

Described as a "modern, mobile-only, broadcast-like TV service," Dreams allows users to tune in — via a phone app — to watch shows belonging to genres that "thrive in a zero-effort, channel surfing context." The mobile TV service is free without login and users can swipe through channels with just a finger.

As reported by Variety, the service now offers shows like Batman, X-Files, and NYPD Blue among its offerings as vertical video. Dreams will add 'new' episodes each week, with every episode optimized for upright, handheld viewing.

Batman airs Mondays and Tuesday, preceding NYPD Blue on Wednesdays, The X-Files on Thursdays, Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting on Fridays, and a mishmash of cartoons on weekends. Users can select from multiple channels — HGTV, Food Network, Animal Planet, Discovery, Bloomberg, and others — but unlike traditional streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, full seasons are not available and individual episodes cannot be selected.

"We wanted to redesign TV for the phone," co-founder Greg Hochmuth told Variety. Shows begin playing once a user lands on a channel, automatically pausing if the viewer switches to something else, and can be watched vertically or horizontally.

Every episode has been optimized with vertical viewing in mind because "it's more comfortable" to hold a phone, said co-founder Tom Bender, who explained apps like Instagram and Facebook have conditioned users to consume media in vertical mode. 70% of viewers opt for vertical viewing and tune in for an average 24 minutes a day.

"People actually do want a long-form TV experience on their phones," Hochmuth said. Dreams viewers can't binge — only one episode is delivered at a time, like traditional television, and there's no archive — which Bender said helps cultivate a more social TV-viewing experience.

"On demand is great," he said, "but in a lot of ways, it's very lonely."

"A good channel surfing experience requires aggregation. People don't think, 'I want to watch content licensed by Company X,' or, 'I like to browse content created by Studio Y,'" Dreams explains on its website.

"This is especially true on mobile: no one wants to hunt through a dozen different apps on a small screen. People just want to turn on the TV."

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