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Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

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Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this analysis. Netflix-created content is hit-or-miss, and generally miss IMO. I honestly keep the subscription alive today for the same reason I started it in the first place, all those years ago - to have on-demand access to old Star Trek TV shows (TNG-ENT). If they drop those shows, I'll drop them.

All content everywhere is hit or miss. With Disney, I didn't care for Solo or Star Wars Resistance. I enjoyed Star Wars Rebels and Rogue One. The Last Jedi had mixed reviews at best. I haven't been interested in a Pixar movie in several vears. It's not like Disney content is amazing all the time. It has winners and losers like everyone else. Netflix has some of the best shows I've seen in a long time. It also has som…

The Last Jedi might have had “mixed reviews”, but it grossed 1.333 Billion.

As far as Pixar movies, it doesn’t matter what you are interested in, look at their box office, home video, video on demand results and related merchandise sells and theme park attractions.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to do anything. You just feel the need to watch everything that can be watched. If you don't want to pay for every service, you should just reset your expectations.

That's not how it works. For one, it's the age-old anticonsumer situation, but a fully distributed edition. People value movies and shows by title, not by distributor. Platforms aggregate orthogonally to that. The end result is, even if you ranked all the movies/shows by how much you wanted to that and restricted yourself to top 10, you'll likely end up having to subscribe to all the mainstream platforms to get them.…

If you sold your TV I bet you’d have something to talk about.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s estimated that 62% of households in the US have Prime subscriptions. https://www.geekwire.com/2019/new-survey-estimates-amazon-pr...

Amazon Prime Video is not the same as Amazon Prime and Amazon Prime has nowhere near 62% (since 101m is less than 1/3 of the US population). If we're talking "households", that doesn't pan out either since the average US household has 2.6 people, right now. I would be willing to say these numbers aren't concrete, but they are closer to the ballpark of reality than a 62% market penetration when I can ask all my cowork…

Everyone who had Amazon Prime has Amazon Prime video. Should we base how many people who have Amazon Prime on your anecdotal experience at “the company you work for”? Do you have a better citation?

We also don’t have to guess the number of households in the US. We have the Census.

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/HSD410217

Around 119 million.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every commercial product is designed for maximum ROI. They buy everything they can and then force theaters to show their films in the most desirable weekend spots. You really think movie theaters would rather show movies that don’t fill it? They're soaking up all the money and pushing the smaller players out. Ever heard of Blumhouse? Their entire business model is to make low budget movies that cost under $10 million…

> Every commercial product is designed for maximum ROI. Not true with art. > You really think movie theaters would rather show movies that don’t fill it? Disney takes a larger cut per screen, so the theater actually makes less money on Disney films. If they don't show Disney films on their best screens, they'll lose the right to show any Disney films. It's extortion. [1] [2] > Ever heard of Blumhouse? Their entire bu…

Disney takes a larger cut per screen, so the theater actually makes less money on Disney films. If they don't show Disney films on their best screens, they'll lose the right to show any Disney films. It's extortion. [1] [2]

Movie theaters have never made most of their money from ticket sales. They make money from concessions.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#165
post #2

>including all 30 seasons of The Simpsons; Never thought I'd see the day when a Disney service would air the Simpsons. The idea of the simpsons airing on the disney channel back in the day would have been ridiculous. Seems so strange to go from being considered one of the most notorious shows around to being carried by Disney. The very antithesis of what it was when it started. Not sure what that says more about thou…

The Simpsons was never really that controversial was it? It's fairly family-friendly. Didn't have any bad language, almost zero sexuality, zero nudity, any violence is very cartoon, its satire is pretty gentle, plot-lines are usually wholesome in the end.

It’s main character is an incompetent drunken father who regularly strangles his son for annoying him.

It started out controversial and the success normalized it. Now we all just laugh at the kid being strangled.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So how should we pay for software developers? Taxes, of course. That's how we fund things where individually charging people does not make sense. > Should software as service products that have hosting cost also be free? Generally not, why?

So now we are going to charge higher taxes to subsidize software developers. Are we also going to have a centralized “5 Year Plan” for the economy? How has this worked for China and Russia. They realized decades ago that this didn’t work.

> So now we are going to charge higher taxes to subsidize software developers.

What's wrong with "subsidizing", aka paying, software developers?

> Are we also going to have a centralized “5 Year Plan” for the economy? How has this worked for China and Russia. They realized decades ago that this didn’t work.

The lack of creativity on a website supposedly populated by engineers keeps astounding me. Hell, you don't even need creativity to be aware that public broadcasters exist.

Or to recognize that computing and communication technology has somewhat improved in the past 30 years. Considering that the planners of the eastern block had to greatly simplify their plans and still weren't able to finish their calculations within 5 years, the state capitalist economy worked remarkably well.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#167
post #142
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Nickelodeon/Showtime. Sony. Disney/Hulu/ESPN count as one, though you can buy smaller packages. ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney will still be the big 4 of all the ones you listed. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have minuscule content libraries by comparison. After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Netflix cant afford to produce co…

> The extra money will come from people not wanting to watch ads. Having both an ad-supported and paid ad-free versions of the same product is likely an unstable equilibrium— Customers with disposable income will gravitate towards the ad-free product, and those are the people that advertisers are really paying for access to.

Why would a streaming provider not offer the customer an equal cost to not be advertised to, that the advertisers are paying to advertise to?

Plus, I would still expect ad free to allow an ad before the show starts, although its often an ad for other content, a la Disney Channel only playing ads for other Disney channel shows.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#168
post #80
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBS/Viacom/Paramount/Nickelodeon/Showtime. Sony. Disney/Hulu/ESPN count as one, though you can buy smaller packages. ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and Disney will still be the big 4 of all the ones you listed. Amazon, Apple, and Netflix have minuscule content libraries by comparison. After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Netflix cant afford to produce co…

How will there be a race to the bottom on price, when companies like Netflix are barely cashflow positive right now? Will subscribers really decide to pay $5 a month for a subscription with a bunch of shows they don’t want to watch instead of $10 a month for a subscription with a few shows they really want to see? How are these companies going to deliver more video ad value per viewer than someone like Google does wi…

>How will there be a race to the bottom on price, when companies like Netflix are barely cashflow positive right now?

I think netflix is in a bind cash wise, it costs cash to make content and they down own decades of library paid for in the past. The big 4 I mentioned are the ones that can race to the bottom. Disney might want to raise prices in 3 years but itll be right as ViacomCBS and NBCUniversal go into full swing.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now we are going to charge higher taxes to subsidize software developers. Are we also going to have a centralized “5 Year Plan” for the economy? How has this worked for China and Russia. They realized decades ago that this didn’t work.

> So now we are going to charge higher taxes to subsidize software developers. What's wrong with "subsidizing", aka paying, software developers? > Are we also going to have a centralized “5 Year Plan” for the economy? How has this worked for China and Russia. They realized decades ago that this didn’t work. The lack of creativity on a website supposedly populated by engineers keeps astounding me. Hell, you don't even…

Public broadcasting isn’t exactly producing great content. Do you really want broadcasting to be controlled by the government? What happens when the “other party” is in power?

China didn’t “work” until they started allowing private ownership and profit.

Re: Disney: Bob Iger bets the company (and Hollywood's future) on streaming

#170
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Simpsons was never really that controversial was it? It's fairly family-friendly. Didn't have any bad language, almost zero sexuality, zero nudity, any violence is very cartoon, its satire is pretty gentle, plot-lines are usually wholesome in the end.

It’s main character is an incompetent drunken father who regularly strangles his son for annoying him. It started out controversial and the success normalized it. Now we all just laugh at the kid being strangled.

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