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The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

theguardian.com

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Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#71

Post by kmeisthax »

Agingcoder wrote: post #24

´ based on a legendary piece of intellectual property. ´ I’d have said ´ book´ instead, but IP and the associated business idea seems to be the new normal for culture. I find it a bit sad.

The only thing more offensive than calling a book, movie, or TV show "intellectual property" is calling it "content". The former turns creative work into something you buy and sell on Fidelity[0] and the latter turns it into TikTok. Either way, the end result is human culture being made disposable.

[0] As far as I'm aware, nobody has actually tried selling fractionalized derivatives of copyright, patent, or trademark interest on an open market. The closest you can do is buy shares of a media conglomerate. I assume it would at least be legally possible if you could get the SEC to sign off on it and write up a contractual structure for how the fractional owners of the work would agree on licensing it out.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#72

Post by bluepod4 »

Agingcoder wrote: post #24

´ based on a legendary piece of intellectual property. ´ I’d have said ´ book´ instead, but IP and the associated business idea seems to be the new normal for culture. I find it a bit sad.

This isn’t new. It’s been happening for decades. Right?

What’s different now?

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#73

Post by WorldMaker »

pimlottc wrote: post #9

How much of this tax reduction is based on convoluted Hollywood accounting? If the tax on the value of the show is higher than the streaming revenues, doesn’t that imply that the valuation is bogus? Can someone explain how the numbers add up here?

I don't think a lot of it is actually taxes but that "blame it on the IRS" has been a PR spin win for Hollywood. (Some small amount of it is taxes, which muddies the waters just enough for plausible deniability and PR spin.)

I think some of it is plain old opportunity cost and "vaulting". Streaming a classic on your own streaming network doesn't generate money like selling DVDs/Blu-Rays or another streaming network paying you to license it.

I think a lot of it is probably residuals owed to writers and actors and other staff. Many of the shows being vaulted right now are the sorts of "steady trickle" viewership shows with presumably expensive residuals owed to current creative talent: enough people are watching that the companies see the residuals they are paying on it, but not enough people that they like how much they are paying for it.

Maybe some of that is also how much of the vaulted shows are tied to writers and actors actively striking. It seems a bit unlikely of a coincidence in timing how many of these shows disappearing are happening at various stages in the strike. I would hope the National Labor Relations Board is paying close enough attention and taking notes to try to find out just how much is "coincidence" and how much is retaliatory income cuts.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#74

Post by fullshark »

bluepod4 wrote: post #72
Agingcoder wrote: post #24

´ based on a legendary piece of intellectual property. ´ I’d have said ´ book´ instead, but IP and the associated business idea seems to be the new normal for culture. I find it a bit sad.

This isn’t new. It’s been happening for decades. Right? What’s different now?

A decade getting too much (frankly poor) content instead of not enough of beloved characters/worlds/etc totally devaluing the product.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#76

Post by readthenotes1 »

AJ007 wrote: post #48
atduskgreg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The write off is based on the cost of creating the show. I think the article is wrong/sloppily phrased in its line about the value of the company. If they remove a show then it will never generate any future revenue so they can write the cost of producing it off as a loss. The real scandal here is how little viewership streaming shows get and how little revenue they generate off of that viewership. Particularly for h…

I really have wondered who convinced them the strikes were a good idea. It's clear the streaming content bubble has popped. It was a revenue windfall for everyone involved save investors (Disney's stock has lost nearly a decade of gains.) The AI stuff is a wildcard on top of everything. The worst case scenario for the WGA and SGA is that the more successful they are with their getting their demands, the less likely t…

Maybe the workers involved?

Most background actors replaced by AI generated substitutes.

Writer rooms turned into editor rooms for AI generated thoughts that simply rehash the existing 100k hours of plots already extant.

In a sense, it's the buggy whip workers striking after the Advent of cars

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#77

Post by fullshark »

rossdavidh wrote: post #69
phonon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.thewrap.com/slip-n-slide-show-nbc-diarrhea-shut-...

You know, if they had worked this properly, the delay/shutdown could have just stoked interest, and they would have ended up with a much bigger audience. On the other hand, if the people involved aren't willing to return, that's understandable.

I'm guessing the show was really an ad for the toy, and the toy manufacturers killed it.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#78

Post by readthenotes1 »

aqme28 wrote: post #62

I know taxes are complicated, but can someone explain how a complete loss today is financially better than a smaller loss* over a longer period? * or possibly a profit, but no one will ever know.

Let's say you have $1B in profit this year and a really terrible show that cost $1B to make.

You can either write it off and pay no taxes on those profits ($200M saved), or not ($200M squandered) (I'm assuming 20% tax rate just to make math easier.)

Also, many executives have compensation packages tied to financial metrics and they've been known to game those metrics for personal gain.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#79

Post by readthenotes1 »

rwmj wrote: post #31
polski-g wrote: post #3

This article doesn't really explain the "why". The title is very misleading.

In particular, why remove existing shows from streaming services. How does that affect accounting?

I'm sure there are other reasons but at least it drives viewers to other shows that they want us to watch.

Re: The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

#80

Post by paulmd »

fullshark wrote: post #7
atduskgreg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They explain that the benefit to the companies is the tax write off. The part they don’t explain is how little money shows like these generate that they’re worth less than the potential write off. The big semi-open secret in streaming right now is that viewership is a lot lower than people think and much less correlated with show “quality” (where by “quality” here I mean production cost). This is why the whole indust…

The streaming boom was what, the last decade? Whenever Netflix started spending on House of Cards? Billions spent on prestige TV shows to acquire market share and they all have seemingly no cultural relevance at all. None will be remembered or cherished 10+ years from now I think. Pretty insane.

even the ones that did have cultural relevance (like game of thrones or house of cards) have been pretty well "culturally liquidated" at this point. ain't nobody going back for a rewatch of game of thrones, or at least not past about season 5.

it's funny, a couple years before the show was finished (during the first time when they stalled out for a year) my sister gave me a box set of the blu-rays, at first I was a little bummed because I'd inevitably end up with a couple mismatched DVDs/not in the box set, but it turns out that stallout was also the point where the show started imploding.

I like to joke that after she gave me the set they never finished the show, haha what are the odds!? /s

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