Find apps for ABC News, NBC News and CBS News on iTunes.

I may have mentioned it before, but I don’t have cable. I stream television, only. For the most part, this works fantastically. I have Hulu Prime for current season TV shows, Netflix for last season and older, and iTunes for premium shows from HBO, Showtime and Downton Abbey. What I miss is the broadcast news. I thought there was an app for that, but broadcast news apps are pretty much useless.

Broadcast news apps are pretty much useless, so far

The only time I miss cable is when it comes to live TV. For instance, I’m writing this now while I’m streaming the Oscars from the Oscars App. This is the first time in many years that I’ve seen the Oscars live, so I’m super excited. It’s mostly working, though my iPhone that I’m streaming from keeps going to sleep. Why don’t these broadcasters set the app so it won’t sleep? It’s just not that hard. So every five minutes I have to turn it back on.

It would be great if I could also stream the news like this. I’d watch the local and national news every night if their apps would stream. But do you know what the national television news does on its apps? It has print news. WTF? If I want to read the news, I’m going to my NYTimes app, or Twitter or Facebook. When I turn on a television broadcast app I want…wait for it… video!

ABC does have individual news clips, about a minute each. But unlike NPR, you can’t even add these to a play list and have them play through continuously to imitate a real broadcast.

Really, is that such a leap of the imagination? Television needs to get its sh*t together.