Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AT&T’s Troubling Plan to Change HBO

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 111 posts

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

#91

Post by tptacek »

kasey_junk wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you say another single bad thing about Carnivale we go to war...

It's fine. It's much better than John from Cincinnati or Luck or Vinyl was. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Boardwalk Empire.

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

#92

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #91
kasey_junk wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you say another single bad thing about Carnivale we go to war...

It's fine . It's much better than John from Cincinnati or Luck or Vinyl was. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Boardwalk Empire.

War I say.

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

#93

Post by dylan604 »

wolco wrote: post #12
homero wrote: post #2

HBO is incredible. Sharp objects with Amy Adams just premiered last night. AT&T is going to ruin it.

I subscribed recently and watched silicon valley, entourage, ballers, veep and watching the wire now. What do you recommend, as most of the other series I haven't heard much about them and hbo shows for some reason seem a little bit harder to get started with.

True Detective Season 1. Don't watch Season 2.

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

#94

Post by siidooloo »

throwawaymath wrote: post #90
siidooloo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, I disagree strongly. I don't binge Netflix and I still feel the same way.

Do you watch 24 different HBO shows a year, or do you watch 4 or 5?

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

#96

Post by Steko »

throwawaymath wrote: post #19
forapurpose wrote: post #13

I've wondered about HBO's future. I see a few problems: First, it used to be the only source for intelligent programming. Now I can get as good or better content from Netflix, Amazon, and smaller arthouse-oriented channels. HBO doesn't stand out to me. Second, streaming channels are a la carte, not bundled, and I'd have to pay cable TV-sized bills to subscribe to 100 channels. HBO doesn't seem to offer enough to be w…

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…

> comparable to HBO’s tentpole programming?

I think this misses the forest for the tentpoles. Right now HBO's original programming is one episode per week of: Sharp Objects, Succession, Last Week Tonight, Vice and a Bill Maher special. Yes I think Netflix's better new content competes with that. Netflix supplements that with a huge array of quality third party tv shows. Non-English content is another set of moats for netflix, I wouldn't be shocked to learn that Netflix Japan has more hours of original-ish (lots of it is co-produced) content per year than HBO. Korean and Spanish might be behind but not too far and Chinese and Hindi are just a couple years away.

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

#97

Post by c22 »

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…

If you're only interested in serialized content I can see how it might be easy to exhaust HBO's offerings. But any time I just want to grab some popcorn and watch a nice old fashioned 110-minute-contained narrative HBO Now has my back with 100+ movies, almost all of which I want to watch. Sometimes I spend several minutes deciding which movie to watch cause they all sound so good. If I do this 3 times a month it's easily worth the $15 to me. I also spend a long time picking movies to watch on Netflix and Amazon, but that's because even the stuff that sounds good has a non-negligible chance of being bad to mediocre and there is such a huge swath of options that just sound (and are) terrible.

When it comes to in house content Netflix's best attempt so far (House of Cards) barely reaches the quality level of HBO's B-roll.

I could probably lose Netflix or Prime without missing a beat, but I will be chagrined if ATT fucks with the format of HBO Now/Go.

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

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

tptacek wrote: post #86
dragonwriter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ti…

Are you sure about that, or does it just feel like it should be true? Take AMC --- again, a basic cable channel that should be nowhere near HBO's level, and just look at the time span during which Breaking Bad ran. During that time, HBO ran Curb Your Enthusiasm, True Blood, Big Love, Boardwalk Empire, The Newsroom, Treme, and (at the end) Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, AMC ran Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Hell On Wheels, The…

> Take AMC --- again, a basic cable channel that should be nowhere near HBO's level

While for my tastes AMC is nowhere near HBOs level, I take issue with the idea that something I pay for by subjecting myself to commercial advertising should not be of equal quality to something I pay for in equal (or lesser) value in currency.

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

#99

Post by throwawaymath »

Steko wrote: post #96
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…

> comparable to HBO’s tentpole programming? I think this misses the forest for the tentpoles. Right now HBO's original programming is one episode per week of: Sharp Objects, Succession, Last Week Tonight, Vice and a Bill Maher special. Yes I think Netflix's better new content competes with that. Netflix supplements that with a huge array of quality third party tv shows. Non-English content is another set of moats for…

To be fair, you chose the bottom quartile of HBO content (two of those are not even the same genre of entertainment). Netflix's best content does compete with HBO, but it sure seems like it takes a lot of greenlights just to get there.

I'm not really talking about how large of a selection either platform has, either. I don't think they should even directly compete. HBO's niche is precisely that its new content is generally of a higher bar than Netflix's (or other platforms).

Strictly speaking, Netflix simply doesn't have a show like The Wire or The Sopranos. Those are cult phenomenon (and deservedly so). On the other hand, HBO also offers greater freedom and creative control to innovate in narrative storytelling. House of Cards fourth wall breaking is the closest I think Netflix has come to this (and after that maybe Stranger Things). But the gigantic ensemble cast of Game of Thrones and the heavy use of non-linear timeframes in Westworld are somewhat unimaginable in hithertoseen Netflix content.

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

#100

Post by tptacek »

dragonwriter wrote: post #98
tptacek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that, or does it just feel like it should be true? Take AMC --- again, a basic cable channel that should be nowhere near HBO's level, and just look at the time span during which Breaking Bad ran. During that time, HBO ran Curb Your Enthusiasm, True Blood, Big Love, Boardwalk Empire, The Newsroom, Treme, and (at the end) Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, AMC ran Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Hell On Wheels, The…

> Take AMC --- again, a basic cable channel that should be nowhere near HBO's level While for my tastes AMC is nowhere near HBOs level, I take issue with the idea that something I pay for by subjecting myself to commercial advertising should not be of equal quality to something I pay for in equal (or lesser) value in currency.

Go the opposite direction and think about: AMC gave HBO a run for their money despite having to deal with the influence of advertisers. And in some ways, Mad Men and Breaking Bad are both more transgressive than what HBO ran in the same time period. They did well despite a higher degree of difficulty.
Post reply on HN