Barker TPIR on Roku running fewer ad breaks, different eps

[Kniwt]

And they're not starting episodes on the hour or half-hour anymore, either. The guide shows the current episode as running "4:44-5:35", and they just skipped right from one act to the next without any ad. And their "we'll be back" screen now has a countdown timer that it didn't have before.

But I looked at Barker TPIR on a couple other streaming services, and they're showing a different episode, still hour-aligned.

I guess the fewer ads are good, but the notion of the "same channel" not really being the "same channel" everywhere is odd.

[Steve Gavazzi]

I don't follow this as closely as some people, but my understanding is that there have been two different streams used on different services for some time now, running different amounts of commercials but ultimately still showing the same group of episodes.  I think Roku just switched from the Pluto stream to the whatever-the-other-one-is stream.

[TimK2003]

I don't follow this as closely as some people, but my understanding is that there have been two different streams used on different services for some time now, running different amounts of commercials but ultimately still showing the same group of episodes.  I think Roku just switched from the Pluto stream to the whatever-the-other-one-is stream.

I tend to favor for the Barker "Express Lane" channel on Roku over the "Local Lanes" Pluto feed for the simple fact of less commercials, and like with many of the Pluto channels, if an episode ends 4-6 minutes before the top or bottom of the hour, you get the same Pluto animations as filler. 

Plus the Roku Channel Shows that "Bob Barker" video which uses the TPIR sfx as the rhythm bed along with the various Bob Barker labels over the old game displays.  That took a lot of time and creativity -- I wish they'd do more of those.