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AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

theatlantic.com

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Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#51

Post by drawkbox »

tptacek wrote: post #34
MBCook wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They bought a niche diamond mine and want it to be a giant aluminum recycling company. HBO makes a few REALLY good series. That’s what they do. They are not setup to produce 10x as much content. If they do they may not have the people who can do that with reasonable quality. They’re used to polishing gems. You wouldn’t buy Nintendo and order them to make a console more powerful than the XBox One X. That’s not what th…

HBO doesn't make money by producing really good series . They make money by producing series that get people attached, to pay them for years at a time. Bored To Death might have been a fine show, but to a first approximation nobody signed up for HBO just to see it. They can churn out Vice Principals and Barry's and Young Popes, but if they can't reliably keep a Game Of Thrones or (bleh) True Blood in the pipeline, th…

Silicon Valley and Curb Your Enthusiasm aren't mentioned enough and a big reason I subscribe.

HBO used to be the pinnacle of stand-up shows, but Netflix has taken that torch now it seems.

For comedy series they do well though. Curb, Silicon Valley, VEEP, Last Week Tonight, Eastbound & Down, and back in the day Larry Sanders, Mr. Show, Ali G and more.

They always deliver with great shows non-comedy as well: Band of Brothers, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Sopranos, The Night Of, GoT, Big Little Lies, True Detective and on and on, hard to find this level of quality and creator freedom that allows that. Netflix definitely giving HBO a run for their money in quality and creator freedom, hard to imagine AT&T even giving creators the level of control HBO and Netflix have.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#52

Post by tptacek »

stcredzero wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO doesn't make money by producing really good series . They make money by producing series that get people attached, to pay them for years at a time. Bored To Death might have been a fine show, but to a first approximation nobody signed up for HBO just to see it. They can churn out Vice Principals and Barry's and Young Popes, but if they can't reliably keep a Game Of Thrones or (bleh) True Blood in the pipeline, th…

So the argument is that level of hit-making is unsustainable? Would Apple's practice of coming out with market-defining new products be another example of this hit-making practice? Perhaps the strategy to "reliably keep a Game Of Thrones or True Blood in the pipeline" isn't viable long term? Eventually, everyone is going to miss a beat then go bankrupt.

I don't think it's unsustainable at all.

But HBO used to have buffers for this stuff: a captive audience of cross-subsidized cable subscribers that were paying for HBO as a part of their TV package, and a competitive status as basically the king of the hill for prestige scripted television. They could take flyers on John From Cincinnati and Carnivale and wait for the next tentpole --- the next Game of Thrones or Sopranos or True Blood.

But both of those buffers are going away. Cable TV packages are going the way of Blockbuster Video. If you want subscribers, you're going to have to get them to sign up, in a crowded market, and bill them directly. And HBO isn't even close to the only game in town for prestige television. Even Hulu is competitive here; arguably, The Handmaids Tale has done as well as any non-GoT property HBO has launched in the last couple years.

To me, what this suggests is that for HBO to be competitive, their model is going to have to look more like Netflix's: they're going to need to fund and develop a lot more properties, rolling the dice more often until they can find a bunch more tentpole shows. Which is all the article really says, too.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#53

Post by tptacek »

drawkbox wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO doesn't make money by producing really good series . They make money by producing series that get people attached, to pay them for years at a time. Bored To Death might have been a fine show, but to a first approximation nobody signed up for HBO just to see it. They can churn out Vice Principals and Barry's and Young Popes, but if they can't reliably keep a Game Of Thrones or (bleh) True Blood in the pipeline, th…

Silicon Valley and Curb Your Enthusiasm aren't mentioned enough and a big reason I subscribe. HBO used to be the pinnacle of stand-up shows, but Netflix has taken that torch now it seems. For comedy series they do well though. Curb, Silicon Valley, VEEP, Last Week Tonight, Eastbound & Down, and back in the day Larry Sanders, Mr. Show, Ali G and more. They always deliver with great shows non-comedy as well: Band of Br…

They might be why you subscribe (and I like Silicon Valley, too) but they're not why customers in general subscribe. True Blood had something like 6x as many viewers as Silicon Valley (this is what I mean when I say HBO's business isn't really "quality" so much as stickiness); for Game of Thrones, it's more like 12x.

But also, you can't look at those shows in isolation. Compare them to Netflix's properties. Stranger Things is as big a deal as literally anything HBO has launched in the last decade, including Game of Thrones (I really want to believe that HBO is kicking themselves for not buying the script for that; it was shopped to them). For any given HBO 30 minute comedy, Netflix has probably launched 3 equally credible comedies.

The very best, most important 60-minute scripted dramas in the past decade have not as a rule, with the exception of Game of Thrones, been on HBO. If AMC can do Mad Men and FX can do The Americans, there is no reason to believe that Netflix can't do equally well just by pouring investor dollars into acquiring shows. At the end of the day, that's what these businesses do: pick production companies to fund, fund them, and then distribute the results.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#54

Post by siidooloo »

tptacek wrote: post #25

I don't buy the logic here, and I'm not sure David Sims does either; this strikes me as one of those headlines that was written by an editor, independently of the article. For as much as anybody here likes HBO, the diagnosis Stankey (and, I think, Sims) has of it seems apt. HBO has a sterling reputation. But so what? Even today, they're no longer distinctively good; in fact, there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX…

I feel like HBO manages to make people feel like there are fewer lulls in its schedule by stretching their shows airtimes out over 3 or 4 months. On other services people watch a show over a week and then look for something else.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#55

Post by AceJohnny2 »

hinkley wrote: post #46
dagenix wrote: post #11

So, basically day 1 of owning HBO, they tell the employees that they aren't making enough money (even though they are quite profitable) and that they are going to have to work harder. I'm speculating here, but I'm guessing there was probably no talk about compensating them more. Its hard to imagine a better way of convincing all your best employees to start thinking about switching jobs.

Yeah but think of all the money you’ll save in salaries!

"Nice Golden Goose you got there..."

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#56

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

tptacek wrote: post #25

I don't buy the logic here, and I'm not sure David Sims does either; this strikes me as one of those headlines that was written by an editor, independently of the article. For as much as anybody here likes HBO, the diagnosis Stankey (and, I think, Sims) has of it seems apt. HBO has a sterling reputation. But so what? Even today, they're no longer distinctively good; in fact, there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX…

HBO is not an app, it's a feature.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#57

Post by greedo »

tptacek wrote: post #53
drawkbox wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley and Curb Your Enthusiasm aren't mentioned enough and a big reason I subscribe. HBO used to be the pinnacle of stand-up shows, but Netflix has taken that torch now it seems. For comedy series they do well though. Curb, Silicon Valley, VEEP, Last Week Tonight, Eastbound & Down, and back in the day Larry Sanders, Mr. Show, Ali G and more. They always deliver with great shows non-comedy as well: Band of Br…

They might be why you subscribe (and I like Silicon Valley, too) but they're not why customers in general subscribe. True Blood had something like 6x as many viewers as Silicon Valley (this is what I mean when I say HBO's business isn't really "quality" so much as stickiness); for Game of Thrones, it's more like 12x. But also, you can't look at those shows in isolation. Compare them to Netflix's properties. Stranger…

The Wire. Arguably one of the best dramas ever created. The Sopranos. Deadwood. Carnivale.

You're avoiding some incredible shows.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#58

Post by tedunangst »

tptacek wrote: post #25

I don't buy the logic here, and I'm not sure David Sims does either; this strikes me as one of those headlines that was written by an editor, independently of the article. For as much as anybody here likes HBO, the diagnosis Stankey (and, I think, Sims) has of it seems apt. HBO has a sterling reputation. But so what? Even today, they're no longer distinctively good; in fact, there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX…

Im happy to pay HBO $10 for content and $5 for curation and an app that isn't constantly hiding what it teased yesterday but has now seemingly forgotten about.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#59

Post by tptacek »

greedo wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be why you subscribe (and I like Silicon Valley, too) but they're not why customers in general subscribe. True Blood had something like 6x as many viewers as Silicon Valley (this is what I mean when I say HBO's business isn't really "quality" so much as stickiness); for Game of Thrones, it's more like 12x. But also, you can't look at those shows in isolation. Compare them to Netflix's properties. Stranger…

The Wire. Arguably one of the best dramas ever created. The Sopranos. Deadwood. Carnivale. You're avoiding some incredible shows.

OITNB is a Netflix show, which makes my point for me.

Season 5 of The Wire was just about a decade ago, and it was abbreviated because it didn't get great ratings.

Carnivale was cancelled for low ratings after its second season. I'm not saying it's bad (it was a mess, though). I'm saying that HBO has to do more things like Carnivale, on a much faster schedule, if it's going to keep up with Netflix.

Re: AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

#60

Post by tptacek »

csours wrote: post #47
tptacek wrote: post #25

I don't buy the logic here, and I'm not sure David Sims does either; this strikes me as one of those headlines that was written by an editor, independently of the article. For as much as anybody here likes HBO, the diagnosis Stankey (and, I think, Sims) has of it seems apt. HBO has a sterling reputation. But so what? Even today, they're no longer distinctively good; in fact, there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX…

HBO is still distinctively good - they have the time and money to fund things like limited series, and huge shows like Westworld and GoT

Season 2 of Westworld had fewer viewers than Ballers. Ballers. You're right; it's a huge-budget show, and one HBO clearly hopes will be a tentpole. But it's no Game of Thrones.
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