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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

#81

Post by JoBrad »

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…

It was surprising to me that Netflix wasn’t even listed as a potential acquirer, with the “panic” levels being discussed.

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

#82

Post by ksec »

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…

>I think this primarily comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding

I love this. I am not being sarcastic but the optimistic and somewhat enthusiasm of fundamental misunderstanding.

>It’s a classic story of a tenant mistakenly believing the landlord has it easy

I am old. But it still amaze me that "strategic thinking" is such a rare skill set with top executive while high efficiency executive are in abundance.

But then I also remember for more than 10 years the media went with the idea that "execution eats strategy for breakfast."

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

#83

Post by surgical_fire »

sethd wrote: post #50
HDThoreaun wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix’s foreign content is quite good. Especially the Korean stuff is pretty high quality and way cheaper to produce, seems like a good idea to me.

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.

What is foreign language for such a global service?

If I am in Spain, should shows in English be bundled in a "Foreign Language" along with Korean dramas, Japanese animation, and a couple of odd series in Dutch? How is this helpful?

Not saying that language categorization is a bad thing. Being able to filter shows that are available in a specific audio language, or with a specific language available for subtitles, would be a bad thing. But I seriously question the helpfulness of "English" and "Other"

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

#84

Post by bombcar »

breckenedge wrote: post #78
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.

I’m so sorry to ruin your day.

https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...

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

#85

Post by oblio »

ugjka wrote: post #53

In Europe every country has their own competing streaming services, a lot of them very successful because of local content. But everyone pretty much has Netflix as well

Many of these are propped up by local sports. Once the big American companies start branching out, many of these local streaming services will be acquired or wiped out.

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

#86

Post by fzeroracer »

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…

Ultimately yeah, it's this. Netflix wins because it understands hanging your hat on one series or IP is business suicide. They churn out a bunch of shows, from higher budget big IPs to a bunch of lower budget series and animations.

David Zaslav and other media execs wanted to try and force the old media philosophy in the streaming environment, which also meant executing a bunch of mid-budget and lower-budget series to try and save money. Except they also shot their only chance of following the actually successful model of Netflix.

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

#87

Post by pja »

ethanbond wrote: post #12
zpeti wrote: post #7

Is it just me or has the quality of streaming content gone massively downhill? We are in the era of the McDonald’s of streaming. Everything is low quality mass market crap. At this point I’m only watching pre 2016 content or foreign stuff. It’s just so bad. And this is the stuff writers went striking over. I mean I’m not surprised they are threatened by AI, it’s not hard to copy American films and tv at this point. I…

No not everything is bad. Severance, The Bear, Succession off the top of my head are totally worth watching.

These are all great series, but they are also on three different streaming services, which from a consumer POV is exactly the problem. Everybody wants a marquee drama series to draw the punters in, but the punters don’t really want to be shelling out for every single streaming service just to watch the one good thing on each of them.

So a sizeable chunk of the potential audience picks one channel at a time & chops and changes between them, cutting revenues by 4x, or else they drop them altogether because it just gets boring trawling through the piles of low-grade content trying to find something worth watching.

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

#88

Post by geraldwhen »

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 could have done that and I would have paid.

But they don’t make shows people want to watch any more. Live action Mulan could have been awesome! But they destroyed the themes of family honor and removed the music and comedy.

Pander fatigue is real. I’ve got kids but I’m letting my Disney sub lapse. Anime is way better than the schlock Disney puts out.

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

#89

Post by sethd »

surgical_fire wrote: post #79
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…

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

Huh? What does that have to do with anything I stated?

The same would be true if I was watching Netflix in France with my device locale set to fr-FR. I’d just consider English content to be foreign language content instead.

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

#90

Post by axpy906 »

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…

This comment reminded me of South Park’s Panderverse for some reason.
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