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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

#71

Post by jstarfish »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #43
esaym wrote: post #24

I gave up on HBO 15+ years ago after every single new show they made was nothing but a non stop stream of cuss words. Their only way to stand out just seems to be by bringing new levels of raunchiness to the viewer, and that gets old.

How do you make a show like The Sopranos without cuss words? Not too many mobsters earn an Eagle Scout medal. And if you tell me that The Sopranos wasn't realistic, I'd say you weren't paying attention to the news in the NYC metropolitan area. Many/most of the show's plots were, at the least, "inspired by actual events". You can always watch the Hallmark Channel on basic cable. Not too many cuss words there.

Eh, I dont know what the OP had in mind, but I've watched all the big HBO shows and the only one that was unwatchable specifically due to profanity was Deadwood.

Whatever story it had was absolutely drowned out by dialogue written by prepubescent boys who just learned the word "fuck" for the first time.

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

#72

Post by siidooloo »

throwawaymath wrote: post #33
SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

House of Cards (First 2 seasons at least), Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, Marco Polo, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Dear White People, Bojack Horseman, and to a lesser extent some of the Marvel shows (Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Punisher), not to mention how much amazing standup comedy Netflix puts out. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but Netflix is succeeding in becoming HBO faster than HBO is becoming…

I'll give you the standup comedy selection because I agree it's really quite good. I also like Stranger Things but can't comment on the others. But I actively dislike the Marvel content on Netflix. I find its characters one-dimensional and its plot unmotivated. Some of this is probably the transition from comic books to TV, but on the other hand I love almost everything from the cinematic universe. I think the bigges…

HBO and Netflix both produce a couple of dozen shows a year. HBO seems like it has a better hit ratio because you have to go back every week to get an update on the one or two current shows you enjoy. HBO has a better presentation for appearing prestige.

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

#73

Post by Apocryphon »

tptacek wrote: post #60
csours wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's enough material in A Song of Ice and Fire to make spin-off series. There's already been talk about adapting Robert's Rebellion. Sure, there's no guarantee that they won't be Caprica rather than Frasier, but it's hardly like AMC facing the loss of Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

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

#74

Post by lawl »

> HBO NOW is only supported in the U.S. and select U.S. territories.

Oh yeah, I still have to pirate the HBO shows I want to watch. Even the Netflix catalogue seems to be shrinking rather than growing here outside of the US. Apparently you can get Netflix to show more stuff here by changing the language on the web interface because they only show me stuff that has dubs for my language. Can't do that in-app though.

Uh, hello, I understand English well enough to be able to watch your fucking show in English, why does my room mate have to call your support to figure this out?

So now they want to turn HBO which is even worse than Netflix into Netflix? Cool, I'll still be pirating.

yawn

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

#75

Post by erik_seaberg »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #26
throwawaymath wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is a matter of opinion, but I’ll bite anyway. What content do you watch from Netflix or Amazon that you find to be comparable to HBO’s tentpole programming? To be honest with you, I find Amazon’s content to be...well, bad. On the other hand Netflix has a few good shows, but the company is clearly prioritizing quantity over quality. Not only does its content not have the awards or acclaim HBO’s garners, b…

House of Cards (First 2 seasons at least), Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, Marco Polo, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Dear White People, Bojack Horseman, and to a lesser extent some of the Marvel shows (Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Punisher), not to mention how much amazing standup comedy Netflix puts out. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but Netflix is succeeding in becoming HBO faster than HBO is becoming…

Marco Polo was great but got cancelled over costs, so that's not the kind of thing we're going to see more of.

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

#76

Post by tptacek »

Apocryphon wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's enough material in A Song of Ice and Fire to make spin-off series. There's already been talk about adapting Robert's Rebellion. Sure, there's no guarantee that they won't be Caprica rather than Frasier, but it's hardly like AMC facing the loss of Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

AMC is already 3 seasons into their Breaking Bad successor (which is arguably better than all but the last season of Breaking Bad itself), and they also have the Walking Dead franchise, plus a plausible franchise in Killing Eve. AMC also owns Sundance TV.

Would I rather own AMC than HBO? No (FX, though, different story). But AMC is a basic cable channel! Breaking Bad and Walking Dead are both much bigger deals than anything HBO has done in the last 10 years except for Game of Thrones. If we have to argue about which is the more important channel in 2018, HBO's model isn't working.

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

#77

Post by tonysdg »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #55
hinkley wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Nice Golden Goose you got there..."

"...be real shame if someone was to acquire it, force it to produce twice as many eggs on half the feed, create a half-baked digital platform on which you could watch it lay eggs in real-time, watch as its health slowly declined in the face of insurmountable odds, notice the new Platinum-producing Pig making headlines in town, acquire that animal too, then sell what's left of the goose to a local French bistro to make gold-encrusted foie gras for the same someone to enjoy while watching House of Cards for the 3rd time on Netflix."

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

#78

Post by Nimitz14 »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #26
throwawaymath wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this is a matter of opinion, but I’ll bite anyway. What content do you watch from Netflix or Amazon that you find to be comparable to HBO’s tentpole programming? To be honest with you, I find Amazon’s content to be...well, bad. On the other hand Netflix has a few good shows, but the company is clearly prioritizing quantity over quality. Not only does its content not have the awards or acclaim HBO’s garners, b…

House of Cards (First 2 seasons at least), Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, Marco Polo, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Dear White People, Bojack Horseman, and to a lesser extent some of the Marvel shows (Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Punisher), not to mention how much amazing standup comedy Netflix puts out. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but Netflix is succeeding in becoming HBO faster than HBO is becoming…

I don't think any of those shows are on the same level as the top tier HBO ones. The only show that I think reaches it is Breaking Bad (AMC). I actually think the best netflix ever did was with Bloodline (S1 only). House of Cards, while fun to watch, was quite one dimensional. And HBO deserves a lot of credit for supporting The Wire like it did (despite low viewer counts), and continuing to do so, more recently with Show Me A Hero. Shows that will not be popular for the general market but are good shows with a story worth telling. Quoting The Economist:

And second, because as drama “Show Me a Hero” excels. Younger viewers may find this hard to believe, but once upon a time American studios made films for adults, with nary a dinosaur, superhero or hunger game in sight. Directors such as Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet and Spike Lee dealt with serious moral questions, and made urban realism riveting. Messrs Simon and Zorzi are their successors, but their work is richer, more sophisticated—and better.

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

#79

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> there are basic cable channels (AMC and FX) that have given HBO a run for its money.

Each has produced a couple series ever of the quality that HBO has a few of at any given time. They aren't playing at the same level.

> Does anyone really believe that HBO is going to outcompete Netflix on original programming over the long run?

Yes.

> They just randomly drop them in the middle of the week, as if they don't have time even to promote them. Have you ever started an episode of Jessica Jones and had to wait 2 minutes for them to promo the next season of Mindhunter?

Netflix promotes more heavily in the app than most other streaming g services do; I actually find this both more intrusive and less effective than pre-roll promotions like HBO does.

> Meanwhile, after Game of Thrones ends, what's HBO got for tentpole series?

Succession, The multiple (IIRC, 5) GoT spinoff series that are already confirmed in the works, potentially with the first airing as soon as 2020, the Watchmen series they are rumored to be picking up...

> But premium cable is over, everything is going to be disintermediated,

The trend seems to be more streaming services offering premium add-ons like HBO, and away from “streaming means the end of the premium cable model” that was more defensible a claim a couple years ago.

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

#80

Post by Apocryphon »

danso wrote: post #31
wil421 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix takes the shotgun approach, put out as much programming as possible and something will stick. Amazon has yet to provide anything but a bad UI/UX on top of tv or music I can find from a much better competitor. Silicon Valley, Westworld, Vice, and Game of Thrones are worth it plus a steady stream of new movies. Not to mention their older shows. HBO’s quality is much higher than Netflix and Amazon doesn’t even c…

I do agree that HBO's original series are yet unmatched, and that Netflix's and Prime's efforts have not yet reached the same level (I'm personally not a huge fan of "House of Cards"). But HBO as a paid service isn't just competing with exclusives, but with 3rd-party content that Netflix/Prime can license. On Prime, not only is there the soon-to-be exclusive "The Expanse", but they have USA Network's "Mr. Robot", SyF…

GP also forgets that Amazon has "The Man in the High Castle", which might be their one big prestige drama.
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