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Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

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Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#61

Post by hattmall »

s0l1dsnak3123 wrote: post #15

The answer to this nonsense is quite clear to me: we need to build a federated media platform instead of building silos that create negative outcomes for the customer and perverse incentives for the distributors and producers. We need to homogonise the pricing just like cable bundles do, but without locking the customer into products they don't care about. Spotify, while having many issues of their own, have more or…

It was piracy that really cracked the nut of the music industry though. They simply couldn't fight it so they had to offer an alternative. Video media hasn't gotten to that point with piracy and for the majority of people it's easier to pay for content.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#62

Post by tomashubelbauer »

sethd wrote: post #38
tom_walters wrote: post #29

I think this primarily comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of where the value in streaming services lies from the perspective of old world media giants. The majority of people who buy streaming, I suspect, are interested mainly in the conveyor belt of diverse and engaging content. Sure I whack an episode of Rick and Morty on via Netflix once a month, but 90% of viewing is of new serialized content. Disney na…

> and leveraged cross-country content like no old-world provider ever has. Mixing in a lot of foreign language content to make their library seem larger is a sad joke and one of the main reasons I no longer subscribe to Netflix. Edit for clarity: I’m fine with foreign language content in general, as long as it’s categorized as such. The problem is how Netflix mixes it in with everything else in a deceptive manor. I c…

Cross-country content doesn't have to mean foreign language content, right? Squid Game and Money Heist are two examples of "cross-country" content that served Netflix extremely well IMO. Produced for a specific non-anglo-centric region, they slapped shitty English dubs on those and suddenly, world-wide hits.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#63

Post by steveBK123 »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #52
steveBK123 wrote: post #41

As all these competitors launched, I thought maybe NFLX's days were numbered. Basically NFLX was first mover, but now you have a mix of niche targeting streamers in play. If you have kids or want Star Wars you get Disney+, if you care about sports/live then you pick one of the competitors with that, if you want more highbrow you get HBO/Max, if you want Star Trek you get Paramount+. Now watching them all burn cash an…

Disney really fucked up here. As Netflix has figured out the number one quality a streaming service needs is endless content so that no one opens the app without at least scrolling for a while. Every single person has some sort of guilty pleasure show that can be produced cheaply, and Netflix figured out they can make everyone’s guilty pleasure show by just green lighting everything they come across

My wife watches more than me and I occasionally join. It's all genuinely decent stuff compared to awful NBC/ABC/CBS 12 season x 20 episode x ~20min weekly churned out dreck.

But it is also completely mid / forgettable in a totally different way. A lot of the content is longer than a movie but shorter than a series. You get 5-10 episodes of ~40min length, enjoy it, and never ever think about it again. Rinse & repeat.

A lot of the actors I jokingly refer to as "poor mans __" because they often cast people that sort of look like someone famous. They have a nack for casting decent early career actors/actresses. Sort of a corporatized studio that realized they didn't need prestige names. Maybe, darkly, they've also identified the fact that a lot of people "give it a shot" in acting and then move on, and they can be had a lot more cheaply than someone with a decade of film&TV under their belt. If you live in LA/NYC you've probably got a few of these types in your friends circle.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#64

Post by sidlls »

Streaming has become the new cable: a bunch of piecemeal services with mostly terrible content and a few gems each, with their own pricing plans and ad models. I have no interest in subscribing to all of them or even most of them. There's just too much junk, too many different subscriptions to monitor, and too much deception in their ad models (if I pay for "no ads" and see a 30 second unskippable ad for the service's content before every show that's a dealbreaker--AMC+ does this).

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#65

Post by kranke155 »

jmyeet wrote: post #48

I remember groaning when all the "me too" streaming platforms were announced. Netflix was good when it had what I called "remnant content" like full ad-free seasons of TV that I could finally catch up on. And at $8 (or even $10/month) I basically kept it forever even if I didn't watch it for a few months. But now all these services are rapidly pushing towards $20/month. My usage pattern is to sign up for Netflix abou…

>The only thing that makes movies economical is theatrical releases.

Ah no. Home releases have been for very long the single biggest profitable part of a movie's life cycle. That's why Netflix doesn't waste its time with theatrical unless it has to, ie when they employ Scorcese and he puts in his contract, I'm assuming.

https://stephenfollows.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/how-mo...

https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-b...

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#66

Post by rwmj »

mindcrime wrote: post #35

Most of these companies should never have entered the streaming business to begin with. Approximately nobody wants to be in a position of needing to subscribe to 17 different services to see a broad swathe of general purpose content. OK, sure, if you have something really niche then maybe it makes sense to run as a separate service. But for most players, I can't help but think they be better off licensing their conte…

Unless the government mandated some kind of maximum fees / compulsory licensing scheme, all that would happen is Netflix and Amazon would ratchet fees until they were talking all the value. This kind of licensing arrangement happened for radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license) so it's possible.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#67

Post by fullshark »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #52
steveBK123 wrote: post #41

As all these competitors launched, I thought maybe NFLX's days were numbered. Basically NFLX was first mover, but now you have a mix of niche targeting streamers in play. If you have kids or want Star Wars you get Disney+, if you care about sports/live then you pick one of the competitors with that, if you want more highbrow you get HBO/Max, if you want Star Trek you get Paramount+. Now watching them all burn cash an…

Disney really fucked up here. As Netflix has figured out the number one quality a streaming service needs is endless content so that no one opens the app without at least scrolling for a while. Every single person has some sort of guilty pleasure show that can be produced cheaply, and Netflix figured out they can make everyone’s guilty pleasure show by just green lighting everything they come across

Netflix basically created a better cable TV, endless trash but there's those few shows you enjoy watching or classic sitcoms as comfort food you like to put on and shut your brain off for.

The content isn't king, at least not like the media conglomerates believe.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#68

Post by sethd »

tomashubelbauer wrote: post #62
sethd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and leveraged cross-country content like no old-world provider ever has. Mixing in a lot of foreign language content to make their library seem larger is a sad joke and one of the main reasons I no longer subscribe to Netflix. Edit for clarity: I’m fine with foreign language content in general, as long as it’s categorized as such. The problem is how Netflix mixes it in with everything else in a deceptive manor. I c…

Cross-country content doesn't have to mean foreign language content, right? Squid Game and Money Heist are two examples of "cross-country" content that served Netflix extremely well IMO. Produced for a specific non-anglo-centric region, they slapped shitty English dubs on those and suddenly, world-wide hits.

That’s another thing I don’t like about Netflix: English dubs by default. It’s an example of the deceptive tactics I’m referring to in how they present foreign language content.

The default audio should be in the source language, with subtitles in your language.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#69

Post by gchamonlive »

It is interesting how round things come and go.

First we had cabe TV and for a time it was good.

Then there came the dawn of the internet and with it piracy and lawsuites.

Then came the age of the streaming services, and for a time it was good again. It resembled the cable age of old, but with the power of choice!

Or so it seemed. Then came competing services. Monopolies fuelled by publishing rights. The user had again to pay for each extra subscriptions, just like in the old days, with movie packages, sports packages and whatnot.

Streaming is so bad now it makes sense to pirate stuff again. (This comment doesn't condone illegal practices).

We kinda came full circle.

Re: Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers

#70

Post by pmontra »

londons_explore wrote: post #30
JKCalhoun wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you feel the need to have AI "cleanse" older shows? Otherwise, I agree there is a rich history of films.

It really depends what the watcher desires... A lot of audiences will say "ewwe, I couldn't possibly let my children watch that, there are homophobic slurs in it". Or parts are simply outdated and won't be understood by viewers - like a key element of a plot being that someone erased an answerphone tape - perhaps in todays world you'd replace that with messages showing one tick only...

I'm not a fan of this approach or instead of somebody jumping on a horse and riding two days and two nights they should be driving a SUV to destination, in a couple of hours and with AC. After a while movies become historical movies even if they started as contemporary. The 90s stay the 90s, the Old West is the Old West, etc.
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