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Netflix's New Chapter

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Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#171

Post by layer8 »

thedrbrian wrote: post #74
tootie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, D+ is churning out an enormous volume of what would be considered prestige content at other services. All the Star Wars and Marvel shows are star-studded and larded with top-tier visual effects. And some of them aren't really getting a lot of viewers from what the rumors say.

>All the Star Wars and Marvel shows are star-studded and larded with top-tier visual effects. I'm just going to throw this out there. What if these shows just aren't that good?

You don‘t need a “what if” for that. ;)

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#172

Post by WalterBright »

darth_avocado wrote: post #21
zamadatix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is how e.g. Disney+ is losing so much money. It's Disney's content, has an enormous userbase, and somehow is bleeding billions?

> It’s Disney’s content That is partly the problem. You spend hundreds of millions to make blockbuster movies and then release it on Disney+ in a few months for free (or sometimes directly). That costs money. Add to that over reliance on only Disney content creates two problems: 1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. 2. You have to pay money to…

What I don't understand about the movie business is the cost of making them. The most important ingredient to the success of a movie is the plot. We've all seen low budget movies that made lots of money - because of the plot. Casablanca, Psycho, Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Primer, ...

Star Trek TOS was a very low budget affair, and produced excellent results, because they hired the best scifi writers. When they threw money at the Star Trek movies, they were all terrible.

It's the plot that matters. Nothing else.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#173

Post by de_keyboard »

exhilaration wrote: post #13
b112 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBO / Netflix merger FTW?

HBO is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, likely one of their most valuable assets. I can't see them giving it up.

Indeed. Feels like vast majority of the TV worth watching is HBO. I value my time so I'd rather have access to a few HBO series / year than an endless sea of A/B dross.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#174

Post by deepzn »

ghaff wrote: post #122
deepzn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In regards to content scaling, that seems right on the face of it. But, Netflix had been pushing the idea of "Amortization of Content" in that content once created has an extremely long lifecycle, and essentially a long tail. As people will always watch older content. And a lot of times people would miss it, and things start trending later on. However, quality of content matters. If you're spending money on poor qual…

People do watch at least certain types of older content. They watch movies from the earlier part of last century. But I'm not sure how much money is in there, especially for a subscriber service--which mostly justifies licensing costs by retaining or gaining subscribers. I'd also observe that Netflix has allowed their back disc catalog to deteriorate. Which suggests a fairly comprehensive back catalog doesn't necessa…

Yeah the author suggests as such..."it turns out, though, that Netflix gets and keeps customers with new shows that people talk about, while most of its old content is ignored", again lies the difficulty in churning out new hits with new IP.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#175

Post by WalterBright »

twblalock wrote: post #159
msluyter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round." For our household, this is true of all streaming services. We rotate them, or subscribe for short stretches. For example, I got Paramount+ for a couple of months, watched all of the Star Trek content, and then cancelled. Amazon Prime is the exception (because free(-ish) shipping.) I wonder to what extent…

The services definitely know about this and to a large extent they build it into their model. Every subscription service has a churn model being accounted for. The services also know that the only thing they can do about this is release enough new content to keep users engaged, or bundle the subscription with other ones.

Or rotate what parts of the library are available each month.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#176

Post by smachiz »

ghaff wrote: post #34
darth_avocado wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s Disney’s content That is partly the problem. You spend hundreds of millions to make blockbuster movies and then release it on Disney+ in a few months for free (or sometimes directly). That costs money. Add to that over reliance on only Disney content creates two problems: 1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. 2. You have to pay money to…

>You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. I suspect that, in addition to ad-supported tiers, we'll see more annual subscriptions or at least subscriptions where annual is sufficiently cheaper on a monthly basis that it's essentially an offer a lot of people can't refuse.

along with maybe a broader return to serialization and longer seasons again - but this only really is valuable for shows that capture the zeitgeist, otherwise most people will just wait until the season ends and subscribe for a month to binge and move on.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#177

Post by throwaway894345 »

jessaustin wrote: post #101
throwaway894345 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is my family. We don't have kids, but we probably wouldn't have D+ if it didn't come bundled with our Verizon bill. I don't know how everyone else is managing, but I'm suuuuuuuper burned out on superhero and star wars movies. It really feels like Disney in particular but Hollywood more generally need to branch out more and not rely so much on stamping out franchise films--they're good for an occasional fli…

...we probably wouldn't have D+ if it didn't come bundled with our Verizon bill. This feels like it should be illegal. You're certainly paying for D+, and it's not as though Verizon competes in a free market.

Eh, I don't really have a problem with it. I'd pay Verizon's rate even if they didn't offer D+ because the network is just so much better than the competition (I have no loyalty to Verizon; I've used AT&T, T-mobile, and US Cellular and they're worse by a considerable margin in my experience traveling around the country).

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#178

Post by WalterBright »

saghm wrote: post #110
JackFr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you’re not into superheroes and Star Wars, despite it being Disney there’s not a ton there.

Even if you are, there's the chance that the glut of the content coming out causes fatigue. I used to really look forward to new Star Wars things because it didn't come out super frequently (a new trilogy of movies every few decades, a TV show here and there), but it was enjoyable. Then they started coming out with a new movie and multiple TV shows year after year, and it just wasn't good enough to justify going out…

I knew I was done with Star Wars movies when I caught myself looking at my watch about a half hour in.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#179

Post by layer8 »

coredog64 wrote: post #106
jdorfman wrote: post #90

> Three months later Netflix cut prices and referred to Amazon’s assumed imminent entry to the space; Netflix’s stock slid again. I never understood why Netflix would continue to become one of the largest AWS customers after Amazon entered the space. Will someone please enlighten me?

Amazon doesn’t really compete with Netflix. Prime Video is there as a marginal benefit to keep customers paying for Prime, which in turn keeps them shopping at Amazon. The Prime catalog frequently changes to the point that a third or even half of my bookmarks are either pay-to-rent or just not available at all.

I wouldn’t dismiss pay-to-rent and the additional subscription channels. If you’re not averse to those, Prime is still the best one-stop besides Netflix.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#180

Post by thewebcount »

jdprgm wrote: post #126

A few thoughts: 1) On the talk of saturation Netflix had somewhere around 230 mil subscribers last year. In theory the addressable market should be adults ~20 and up so somewhere around 5 bil. So not even close to saturation. Discounting say half of that imagine how much better the service could be with 10x the current subscriber base. They talk about increasing subscription price... At 10x you could half the subscri…

> 3) The lack of global hits is very strange.

Yeah, this part of the article really struck me:

> what’s really interesting is there aren’t that many global hits, meaning that everyone in the world watches the same thing. Squid Game was very rare in that way. And Wednesday looks like one of those too, very rare in that way.

I have to wonder what the problem is. I've watched more foreign-language shows in the last 3 years than in the rest of my 51 years combined thanks to shows on Netflix, HBO Max, Apple TV+, etc. I'd love to see more of them, but they aren't surfacing in my searches and recommendations very frequently. I'd really like more variety in show selections. They don't even have to be big hits like Squid Games or Lupin. I'd be interested in any show that's good regardless of whether it's been a blockbuster hit.

On something like Hulu, there are tons of shows that mostly fall into Police/Medical procedural, Office-like sitcom, or Friends-like sitcom. Those are fine, and some are even pretty decent, but I'm really tired of those formats. Seeing shows about other cultures has been fascinating. And just having other types of stories is nice, too.

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