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The Slow Death of Hollywood

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#41

Post by AnthonyMouse »

0815test wrote: post #36
WarDores wrote: post #22

I'm typically a "when in doubt, free markets" type, but the three tier system (production, distribution, and retailing) has numerous advantages. The craft beer boom, for example, would never have happened in the absence of a legally-mandated 3 tier system. Not only did this result in greater consumer choice, but it also allowed small businesses to thrive in a sector where there are significant economies of scale. I t…

> "when in doubt, free markets" Monopolies are antithetical to the free market, and vertical integration in industries with high economies of scale does create substantial monopoly concerns! The best market-based solution, so far as we can tell, is precisely to carve out the monopoly-prone "tier" in the industry (this is not always easy as monopoly-potential is not always correctly judged; it's more about inherent la…

> even nationalizing it if necessary (this is, after all, the basic rstionale for why many public services are provided by the government)

Note that those public services generally aren't nationalized. The local water utility is typically operated by the city, not the feds.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#42

Post by chipperyman573 »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #35

Honestly I'm expecting the whole industry to crash hugely. I've received so many free cinema tickets to mainstream cinemas in the past 3 years that I haven't once actually paid to see anything by a major studio in that time, and I'm someone who goes to the cinema once a week on average. Much like MoviePass I assume _someone_ is paying for all those trips I go on for free, and when they stop paying I'm not going to go…

Wow, what mailing lists are you on that give you weekly tickets to mainstream cinemas? I'd love to get on that.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#43

Post by filoleg »

celticmusic wrote: post #16
iscrewyou wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

I agree completely, I even wish seasons were shorter. Very often the start and end to a season is strong, but the middle is filler.

That's how I feel about Silicon Valley (the TV show), despite liking it a lot. It had a strong story in season 1 (and somewhat 2), and it has plenty of great jokes and relevant commentary. However, I cannot recall anything about the overall storyline past season 2 at all, because the rest of the seasons follow the structure of:

episode 1: set up the direction for some conflict/direction of the season.

episode 2 - episode n-1: a bunch of filler material with wild movements and swaps with no particular direction.

episode n: after all the wild moves, the characters and the story ended up back in pretty much the exact same place where it started.

If you care just about the story, you can legitimately skip all seasons after 2 and jump straight into the newest one without missing out on any actual story development, minus some minor references and newer characters. Which is a shame, because of how strong and directed the story in season 1 was.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#44

Post by pier25 »

Very few shows are good after the first couple of seasons. Breaking Bad is probably the only TV show I know longer than 2-3 seasons that maintains its quality from beginning to end. The Americans is also pretty good.

Even Game of Thrones went downhill on its last seasons.

Stranger Things has also gone down the hill. I watched the first 3 episodes of the new season and I'm done with it. It has gone from a sci-fi show to a teenager drama.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#45

Post by groby_b »

iscrewyou wrote: post #10
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

It's not just losing interest. Unless you catch it at the very end, when all seasons are produced, each new season carries a startup cost - you'll need to re-acquire a lot of knowledge about the world it's in. (Or, colloquially, "Who the fuck are those people and why do I care" ;)

At some point, it's too much. It's becoming work. And if you learn/relearn an entire world, why not something you haven't seen before? So the series gets ditched.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#46

Post by api »

iscrewyou wrote: post #10
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

Makes me think of how amazing the X-Files would have been had they fully developed and then concluded the mytharc. They could have ended with full-on hard core sci-fi and exploring the political and social implications of alien disclosure, not to mention good and bad humans and aliens and all the rest.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#47

Post by jstutzman »

[Netflix] now routinely ends shows after their second season, even when they’re still popular. Netflix has learned that the first two seasons of a show are key to bringing in subscribers—but the third and later seasons don’t do much to retain or win new subscribers.

- That's crazy and smart all at the same time. Definitely not user-centered design.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#48

Post by [deleted] »

jstutzman wrote: post #47

[Netflix] now routinely ends shows after their second season, even when they’re still popular. Netflix has learned that the first two seasons of a show are key to bringing in subscribers—but the third and later seasons don’t do much to retain or win new subscribers. - That's crazy and smart all at the same time. Definitely not user-centered design.

[deleted]

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#49

Post by addicted »

pfranz wrote: post #39
WarDores wrote: post #22

I'm typically a "when in doubt, free markets" type, but the three tier system (production, distribution, and retailing) has numerous advantages. The craft beer boom, for example, would never have happened in the absence of a legally-mandated 3 tier system. Not only did this result in greater consumer choice, but it also allowed small businesses to thrive in a sector where there are significant economies of scale. I t…

> the three tier system (production, distribution, and retailing) has numerous advantages Do you see cable tv as a successful implementation of this? Every few years I'll see news articles and billboards about "Fox couldn't negotiate a deal with Dish." It'll be unavailable for a few weeks until they reach a deal, but in the meantime both sides blame each other and the customer goes without. Not to mention cable addin…

For all the complaints about cable, what we are transitioning into is significantly worse, with a bunch of different concentrated streaming services.

The Fox-Dish battles were basically what helped keep prices lower for viewers.

Right now, customers have no big player on their side, so essentially the only way to fight Netflix price increases is on a purely individual level, which rarely works. Dish would concentrate the power of its many subscribers.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#50

Post by AnthonyMouse »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #3

"...Netflix’s strategy is straightforward market power exploitation. The company is cancelling shows that subscribers like, so it won’t have to pay creators the amount they would otherwise be able to get for making good commercially successful art. In other words, Netflix is subtly raising prices on subscribers and paying creators less for their work." I wonder if this means in the future, the price for a first and s…

> I wonder if this means in the future, the price for a first and second season labor will be higher, thereby locking out new competition to new original series.

It could be a consequence of the whole industry going the other way.

It used to be that if you were Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts or Harrison Ford then you could write your own ticket because the star power would put butts in seats for anything you were in, which was a highly valuable commodity.

Now there are a zillion new shows, half of them with complete unknowns in them, and people figure out which shows are good based on Rotten Tomatoes and social media rather than by who is in it.

Then you get a cast who thinks their star power is worth more than it is anymore and they threaten to stop producing the show if they don't get more money, but Netflix calls their bluff because there are a thousand aspiring actors and writers behind them who are happy to make a different show that produces the same revenue for half as much money.

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