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

AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 112 posts

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#81

Post by Retric »

mbesto wrote: post #67
Retric wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those HBO titles are more than 5 years old? Because, comparing 45 years of programming to 5 is completely missing the point. GoT was low hanging fruit with great source material. Recently HBO’s actual original content has been lacking. Their library is enough to get people to sign up and binge watch old content, but they need to pay for a lot of 3rd party content and or high volume production like Netflix…

> HBO titles are more than 5 years old? 5 years since their first season or since they discontinued content? If the former, why does that matter? 4 of those 7 are still all actively creating content/seasons... > GoT was low hanging fruit with great source material. Recently HBO’s actual original content has been lacking. So because GoT came from a book, it's not "truly original"? The Wire is arguably sourced from Sim…

It matters both to compare models and for consistency going forward. Continuing a hit series is a lower risk in the short term, but you need constant pipeline as shows eventually die off.

In terms of GoT they need to pay a 3rd party money reducing profits and their is a limited amount of such content which they need to compete for. They also paid for the the True Blood novels and created less compelling content.

This both hurts their bottom line and creates real risk if they can’t find any affordable content to base their next series off of.

PS: The other issue with long running content is anyone who does not like the series will write off HBO for the next 5+ years when it’s running unless they have other high quality content.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

maxsilver wrote: post #69
bobthepanda wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The young people like Westworld. They may have duds, but their good exclusives are just that, good and exclusive. So long as they have one above and beyond show every time they will be fine.

As a young person who likes Westworld, this is a great strategy for like 1 month a year. What are they going to do for the 15-ish months of downtime they have between seasons? Right now they have a limited selection of high quality shows, just enough to keep people hooked for the next great one. If they switch to just pumping out lower-quality, higher-quantity stuff, I suspect people will just cancel -- everyone alre…

> HBO seems to think it's the next "Netflix"

AT&T seems to think HBO can be HBO and also be Netflix; they're wrong, but it's not inevitable they’ll break the being HBO part irrecoverably before they realize that.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#83

Post by mikepurvis »

ghaff wrote: post #41
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have the best 3 shows on any platform, but if all you have is 3 shows, people won't sign up or stay. Netflix had to invest in quantity side by side with quality because the content providers started taking their ball and going home.

If you have economical access to a bunch of OK mainstream content, it's reasonable to put all your wood behind just a few arrows. You won't get a big hit every time but you can increase your odds by lining up the right people and opening a fat checkbook. And those few hits may be enough to get people to renew. But if your licensed content is mostly drek, you have to create filler content yourself, even if it's mostly…

I don't disagree with this, but it's important to acknowledge that "drek" for you might be someone else's niche interest. Sure, some TV is just objectively bad (low production values, whatever), but easily-dismissed shows like Sugar Rush and movies like the Christmas Prince series have legitimate audiences who find them interesting and engaging.

One of the most significant and under-acknowledged strategic differences between Netflix and a traditional TV network is that they're not limited by a schedule— they don't need to pick just one show to put in that key Sunday night primetime slot, and they don't need to look at what they're "up against" in the same slot on the other networks. Their only practical limit is budget— ergo, a strategy of lots of niche, long-tail appeal type content makes a ton of sense.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#84

Post by EpicEng »

tptacek wrote: post #25
sharkweek wrote: post #3

My problem with this is as follows: HBO has led the way in making some of the highest quality television of the last 20 years. Competition has gotten stiffer, but I still view HBO as the premier place for TV (Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City, Curb, Veep, Leftovers, True Detective, Deadwood... and of course GoT, the list goes on and on). I would argue many of our favorite broadcast/cable shows would simply not exi…

We're in a golden age of television in part because everyone is producing high-quality shows. For every Deadwood, there's a Justified; True Detective, a Mindhunter. HBO has never been the best place for comedy series and, good as Crashing was, it remains an also-ran there as well. HBO's quality has been pretty far off its peak for awhile. GoT is a tentpole show with a rabid audience but it's not especially good (it's…

This post is completely subjective. It seems obvious that numerous people disagree on your assessment of quality. GoT "not especially good"? HBo doesn't have good comedy? Ever seen an episode of Curb?

You then go on to base your conclusion on your subjective view of the quality of their shows. If anything, I'm inclined to believe the opposite of what you say given how many people would disagree with the basis of your argument.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#85

Post by dragonwriter »

anth_anm wrote: post #55
sharkweek wrote: post #3

My problem with this is as follows: HBO has led the way in making some of the highest quality television of the last 20 years. Competition has gotten stiffer, but I still view HBO as the premier place for TV (Sopranos, The Wire, Sex and the City, Curb, Veep, Leftovers, True Detective, Deadwood... and of course GoT, the list goes on and on). I would argue many of our favorite broadcast/cable shows would simply not exi…

> HBO Go/Now are fine. Not really, they are lousy apps. You can fix that without engaging in the "spew content and see waht sticks" style of netflix.

HBO Go was pretty bad when I used it; worse than HBO Now was both before and after. Not sure why it isn't just exactly HBO Now with the added cable provider verification component.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#86

Post by throwawaymath »

tptacek wrote: post #58
bobthepanda wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The young people like Westworld. They may have duds, but their good exclusives are just that, good and exclusive. So long as they have one above and beyond show every time they will be fine.

Westworld's ratings are far south of even True Blood's. It's a good show. But it's not in many people's top tier.

Eh what? Westworld is rated 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.8/10 on IMDB. True Blood is rated 69% and 7.9/10 on the same platforms, respectively.

Which ratings are you looking at?

EDIT: I also checked Metacritic. True Blood is rated 68 on average across seven seasons, meanwhile Westworld is rated 75 on average across two seasons. If you take the Metacritic rating peak of Westworld (Season 1) and the Metacritic rating peak of True Blood (Season 3), True Blood is only four points ahead.

Given the difference between the Metacritic score and the Rotten Tomatoes/IMDB scores, I'd be inclined to chalk it up to different audiences. But even on the preferential platform Westworld basically at parity with True Blood, not "far south" of it.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#87

Post by cwilkes »

vonseel wrote: post #2

Subtitle: With Richard Plepler out, new boss Robert Greenblatt will need to fix years of missteps to catch up to Netflix. If what they are giving HBO is anything like the “AT&T Watch TV” app, that’s a pretty accurate subheading. The user experience is a solid 5 years behind Netflix and Hulu.

By 5 years behind do you mean HBOs interface is like Netflix of 5 years ago? If so that isn’t going to take 5 years to catch up. I’m not sure what’s so bad about it. Then again I knew exactly what I wanted to watch.

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#88

Post by ghaff »

mikepurvis wrote: post #83
ghaff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have economical access to a bunch of OK mainstream content, it's reasonable to put all your wood behind just a few arrows. You won't get a big hit every time but you can increase your odds by lining up the right people and opening a fat checkbook. And those few hits may be enough to get people to renew. But if your licensed content is mostly drek, you have to create filler content yourself, even if it's mostly…

I don't disagree with this, but it's important to acknowledge that "drek" for you might be someone else's niche interest. Sure, some TV is just objectively bad (low production values, whatever), but easily-dismissed shows like Sugar Rush and movies like the Christmas Prince series have legitimate audiences who find them interesting and engaging. One of the most significant and under-acknowledged strategic differences…

All good points. There's a flip side to the schedule aspect too. Traditional broadcasters also need to fill up slots even if they know they don't have anything great to fill a hole. Which I expect was one of the drivers behind reality TV; you might as well fill the hole with something cheap if you don't expect a scripted show to be at least a reliable audience draw. (And I expect scripted shows are less predictable as well.)

(By "drek," I was mostly thinking of old second-tier and third-tier sitcoms and the like. I'm actually a bit surprised there isn't more of this sort of content; perhaps it's the tension between having lots of content and basically burying your tier-1 content with a bunch of mostly "crap.")

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#89

Post by EpicEng »

tptacek wrote: post #26
chaosbutters wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everyone forgets Oz :(

Because it's not that good. It was good for its time, but TV today is different and better than TV was in 1999. People were still watching laugh-track sitcoms when Oz was in its prime.

>People were still watching laugh-track sitcoms when Oz was in its prime.

Like... Big Bang, the number one network sitcom which averages 18.5 million viewers?

Re: AT&T Is Dragging HBO's Streaming Strategy Out of the Dark Ages

#90

Post by draw_down »

Perhaps their streaming strategy needs to be dragged out of the dark ages, but I don't think the situation bodes well for the quality of their content. The CEO who just left was apparently beloved by creators in the industry, and the new one just wants a firehose of content like what Netflix offers. So it feels like the end of an era.

Looks like the future will be HBO trading on the brand they built over the last few decades but content-wise attempting to match Netflix. I hope I'm wrong.

Post reply on HN