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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

#171

Post by kd5bjo »

basch wrote: post #167
kd5bjo wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s tricky to nail down how much revenue loss each switch to ad-free will cost because you’re splitting your demographics. If you’re playing ads in the paid version, it’s by definition not ad-free; it’s some kind of hybrid that I haven’t thought enough about to address.

If enough viewers that actually buy things move over to your ad-free product, you tank the value per impression that advertisers are willing to pay. Thus you lose not only the impressions of people who pay, but also the lower the value of each ad you’re still showing.

I suspect that this will cause most providers to be either primarily subscription or primarily advertising, to the extent that the less-popular choice doesn’t have enough customers to be worth keeping around.

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

#172

Post by jogjayr »

mattmaroon wrote: post #126
scarface74 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix’s issue is not the quality of content - it’s their business model. They are borrowing billions to create content with the only way to recoup the cost is mostly by subscription revenue. Their initial rationale was that they were building a content library that would have value. But, they admitted during the last conference call that subscriber growth was slow expectations because they didn’t have any new big r…

I think what you're describing is squarely in the realm of content quality. They're spending large amounts of money and getting content that's largely junk, and even when it's good, it's buried under so much junk that it's hard to find. HBO spends 1/7th of what they do and has better shows. Netflix has spent billions trying to get one Game of Thrones and failed miserably. That's what's killing subscriber growth. Lack…

No one can predict what will be a hit ahead of time. There are only 2 reliable ways to have a library of hits:

1. Produce a ton of stuff, over a long period of time, and some of it will turn out to be good.

2. Buy someone else's content library.

Disney has done both.

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

#173

Post by basch »

megaremote wrote: post #68
basch wrote: 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…

> After people binge through new shows, the big 4 will be the ones holding all the old content. Do most people really want that old content? Apart from a few shows, I say no.

arent Friends and The Office some of the most streamed shows?

I have to think Disneys back catalog of shows and movies will be a bigger draw short term than their new content. Are people buying it to watch The Mandalorian and the new Lady and the Tramp, or are they buying it so their kids can watch every disney movie ever made? Dont get me wrong, having a bunch of Marvel mini-series as their launch content is a brilliant move to make it not "just the old stuff."

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

#174

Post by anoncake »

scarface74 wrote: post #169
anoncake wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Public broadcasting isn’t exactly producing great content.

I frankly don't know if our experiences differ that much or if your mind is clouded by ideology.

> Do you really want broadcasting to be controlled by the government?

Of course not, that would be even worse than private broadcasting is.

> What happens when the “other party” is in power?

I don't understand the question. Which "other party" do you mean? There are many.

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

China didn't have an economy at all? That's news to me. Maoism must be even more stupid than I thought.

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

#175

Post by Shorel »

echelon wrote: post #21
whyenot wrote: post #11

Amazon, Apple, Disney, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, ..., oh, and Netflix. How many monthly memberships are people going to want to pay for, especially when there is already a huge library of free content on YouTube? Interesting times...

This is strictly worse than cable. Streaming in the 2010s was a breath of fresh air. You could find everything on one platform, watch it at your leisure, and pay way less than cable. Now we're going to have to pay more AND switch between nine different apps with broken UIs. This is god awful. All of this because of greed and a lack of regulation. We need to campaign for limited copyright (20 years), and build service…

You can't do binge-watching with cable. This is the fundamental difference here.

You can subscribe to one service, binge all you want, change to another, and so on.

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

#176

Post by mattmaroon »

jogjayr wrote: post #172
mattmaroon wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're describing is squarely in the realm of content quality. They're spending large amounts of money and getting content that's largely junk, and even when it's good, it's buried under so much junk that it's hard to find. HBO spends 1/7th of what they do and has better shows. Netflix has spent billions trying to get one Game of Thrones and failed miserably. That's what's killing subscriber growth. Lack…

No one can predict what will be a hit ahead of time. There are only 2 reliable ways to have a library of hits: 1. Produce a ton of stuff, over a long period of time, and some of it will turn out to be good. 2. Buy someone else's content library. Disney has done both.

I don't think that's correct. I mean nobody can predict it with 100% accuracy. but as I pointed out, Netflix spends 10 times the amount HBO does on content and gets less from it.

HBO is batting at least .700, and Netflix is not even batting .100. That's not randomness. I don't know nearly enough about the industry to know why.

but what I do know is that Netflix has probably spent more money on content in The last two years then HBO has spent in its entire history, and HBO's library is significantly more valuable.

I was in the valley during the time the music industry was being gangbanges by technology and I have a good guess as to why. Tech people often make the mistake of thinking non-tech people are stupid. Pure speculation on my part, but I would guess that Netflix thought they could solve the problem by throwing money and technology at it, and the people who have been making good content for 20 years were just better.

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

#177

Post by scarface74 »

anoncake wrote: post #174
scarface74 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Public broadcasting isn’t exactly producing great content. I frankly don't know if our experiences differ that much or if your mind is clouded by ideology. > Do you really want broadcasting to be controlled by the government? Of course not, that would be even worse than private broadcasting is. > What happens when the “other party” is in power? I don't understand the question. Which "other party" do you mean? There…

If the “public” is funding broadcasting and the elected officials are holding the purse strings, do you really think they are going to be overly critical of the government?

China had an economy but resources weren’t properly allocated and people were starving in one region while the other region was producing things that no one needed.

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

#178

Post by brogrammernot »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26
brogrammernot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn’t really count as it’s an added benefit of Prime. However, all of those you listed are cheaper than adding cable to my bill. I pay for Netflix, Hulu and YoutubeTV. It’s cheaper than adding cable to my bill & that’s just absurd to me.

Any of them individually, or all of them together? If the latter, then wherever it is you live, you have some ridiculous places for cable TV there.

Together, the cheapest plan I could add that would actually give me the shows I watch is around ~$50 additional, so it’s about even.

Not taking Prime into account cause I use other prime features more-so

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

#179

Post by echelon »

jfim wrote: post #152
echelon wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is easy now. Just wait until retention starts hurting their bottom line.

That's not legal in California since 2018. From SB 313, which requires that a subscription that was initially started online shall be cancelable online as well: a consumer who accepts an automatic renewal or continuous service offer online shall be allowed to terminate the automatic renewal or continuous service exclusively online https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

What about all the other states? I don't live in California. Companies can and do script different behaviors depending on which state you live in.

And that doesn't stop them from using dark patterns or cancellation fees.

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

#180

Post by echelon »

Shorel wrote: post #175
echelon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is strictly worse than cable. Streaming in the 2010s was a breath of fresh air. You could find everything on one platform, watch it at your leisure, and pay way less than cable. Now we're going to have to pay more AND switch between nine different apps with broken UIs. This is god awful. All of this because of greed and a lack of regulation. We need to campaign for limited copyright (20 years), and build service…

You can't do binge-watching with cable. This is the fundamental difference here. You can subscribe to one service, binge all you want, change to another, and so on.

> You can subscribe to one service, binge all you want, change to another, and so on.

That is such a headache. Are you calling this a feature?

What about those with ADHD that struggle to pay bills on time and never cancel gym memberships? How's that going to work out for them?

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