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

arstechnica.com

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

#71

Post by yellow_lead »

gchamonlive wrote: post #69

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 aga…

> 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!

Maybe this was because VCs were footing the bill. Once companies have to be profitable the fun seems to end.

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

#72

Post by hattmall »

frutiger wrote: post #25
apwell23 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disney, Warner, Comcast and Paramount warner is up 22% this year. comcast 26%

You have to compare any growth against a benchmark index which reflects what would’ve happened if the company had simply invested its assets in that index fund instead.

Eh, not really, especially with the extremely dangerous weighting of the S&P.

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

#73

Post by mhaberl »

aCoreyJ wrote: post #49
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…

Disney really shouldn't even be included in the first sentence of this article, according to itself they have 8 million subscribers and are expecting to be profitable next year.

With a subscriber base of 8 million, assuming hypothetically that each pays $15 monthly over an entire year (a figure which is inflated), the resultant annual _revenue_ would be approximately $1.4 billion.

However, their financial losses this year have exceeded even this ($1.6 billion in first 9 months alone)

Their projection of achieving profitability in the next fiscal year seems, under these circumstances, quite optimistic :)

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

#74

Post by neovive »

I recently dropped my cable service (cut-the-cord) after significant price increases over the past two years and switched to a few streaming providers. My household just doesn't watch enough to justify the costs. The plethora of streaming choices is overwhelming right now for consumers, so consolidation is a good thing IMO, assuming it doesn't come with a drop in quality.

As others have mentioned here, the majority of new content recently is mid-level sequels, spin-offs, prequels, etc. It's becoming much harder to differentiate, so people stick with what they know: Netflix, Disney, HBO/Max. I just don't see enough of a market for the other providers to persist long-term (given the high-cost of managing a streaming infrastructure).

I feel like Disney, in particular, should consider spinning off a few of their larger brands, like Marvel and Star Wars, opening them up for licensing revenue and new creative direction.

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

#75

Post by jmyeet »

edgyquant wrote: post #57
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…

I’ve definitely noticed that there seems to be ~5 people who do all the dubs on Netflix. For instance there’s obviously one guy who does all the main character voices, one guy who does all of the black guy voices, etc

Yeah, it's deeply frustrating. I don't want to read subtitles so I like dubs. But compare it to American animated series (eg The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc) where voice acting is taken seriously as acting, which it is. Having the right voice actor matters.

But for dubs it seems like they have like 6 people on staff whose job it is to do the dubs and they're just bad at it. It's clear it's not taken seriously. Being bad at it isn't the end of it either. The voice just has to be appropriate to the presentation and demeanour of the character.

This shouldn't be an afterthought.

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

#76

Post by JoBrad »

graphe wrote: post #37
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…

> Disney naively thought they could just serve up old classics while wringing the life out of Marvel and Star Wars IP and people would happily continue to pay. Wringing the life is a pretty mean way to put it. They tried to use the IP to make money. Their movies and shows sound like propaganda with Twitter quips and they aren't good. Marvel and star wars peaked under Disney the same way that Apple peaked from Tim Coo…

For my family, Disney’s value is more balanced between old and new content, vs Netflix, which I expect to lose content after some time.

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

#77

Post by bluepizza »

graphe wrote: post #37
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…

> Disney naively thought they could just serve up old classics while wringing the life out of Marvel and Star Wars IP and people would happily continue to pay. Wringing the life is a pretty mean way to put it. They tried to use the IP to make money. Their movies and shows sound like propaganda with Twitter quips and they aren't good. Marvel and star wars peaked under Disney the same way that Apple peaked from Tim Coo…

> Wringing the life is a pretty mean way to put it.

Corporations don't have feelings. It is okay to be mean to multi billion dollar corporations.

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

#78

Post by breckenedge »

gchamonlive wrote: post #69

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 aga…

I want to be the consumer, not the product. With large media companies, it’s inevitable that I will become the product.

Cable was supposed to be free of commercials. Streaming was supposed to be free of commercials.

Thankfully books are still free of commercials.

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

#79

Post by surgical_fire »

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…

The world is so much larger than the US, you wouldn't believe.

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

#80

Post by maxerickson »

mhaberl wrote: post #73
aCoreyJ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney really shouldn't even be included in the first sentence of this article, according to itself they have 8 million subscribers and are expecting to be profitable next year.

With a subscriber base of 8 million, assuming hypothetically that each pays $15 monthly over an entire year (a figure which is inflated), the resultant annual _revenue_ would be approximately $1.4 billion. However, their financial losses this year have exceeded even this ($1.6 billion in first 9 months alone) Their projection of achieving profitability in the next fiscal year seems, under these circumstances, quite o…

Disney also has Hulu and ESPN+.

(They rolled up Hulu after acquiring a majority share with the purchase of Fox)

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