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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

#91

Post by matthewdgreen »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #44
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…

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.

The content quality is excellent, but the English-language voice acting is horrible.

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

#92

Post by oblio »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
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…

I have to wonder why consumers so desire new content. Old films and TV shows have much the same entertainment value, and are vastly cheaper to stick through some AI to turn to HD and strip out the no-longer-politically-acceptable jokes. There is also a wealth of content from other countries and languages, which could be translated with a little AI assistance to do lip sync etc. With far more content than anyone could…

> I have to wonder why consumers so desire new content.

After watching kids grow, it struck me.

That's how we learn. New stuff = different stuff = learning. My kids would look at the floor for a bit as babies, it would be interesting. After a while, watching the same "old" tiles would become boring, not much to learn from there (color, hardness, temperature, grip, etc). So they'd start looking for lint, pebbles, bits of paper or dirt on the floor, cause that was new :-)

Content creation piggy backs on this intuitive understanding and hacks it, since as you say, old content can have great educational and entertainment value.

But I think it all boils down to "new = potential for learning" being wired into our brains.

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

#93

Post by oezi »

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.

Netflix isn't profitable if you reject that their production have long term value. Or did that change?

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

#94

Post by bombcar »

londons_explore wrote: post #11
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…

I have to wonder why consumers so desire new content. Old films and TV shows have much the same entertainment value, and are vastly cheaper to stick through some AI to turn to HD and strip out the no-longer-politically-acceptable jokes. There is also a wealth of content from other countries and languages, which could be translated with a little AI assistance to do lip sync etc. With far more content than anyone could…

People want the same content but new, shoveled out almost exactly the same but slightly different each time.

This is most obvious in certain “genres” of entertainment but it has always existed - romance novels, simplistic comics, etc.

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

#95

Post by oblio »

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…

I'm confused about your numbers.

Disney+ apparently has 150 million subscribers.

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

#96

Post by sklarsa »

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

I always watch with subtitles in general because the dubs seem to lose the emotion of the scene. The downside being that I can’t multitask and have to pay full attention to what’s happening on the screen. Why do you prefer dubs?

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

#97

Post by sethd »

surgical_fire wrote: post #83
sethd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, wo…

I think the right approach would be to label content that is not in the source language you have set as your device locale.

It’s not about filtering out the content, it’s about making it easy to tell whether or not it’s going to start playing with dubbed audio so the viewer can make a better choice.

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

#98

Post by whstl »

sethd wrote: post #68
tomashubelbauer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it really the default? My "default language" isn't english but don't remember seeing a dubbed show.

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

#99

Post by sethd »

whstl wrote: post #98
sethd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it really the default? My "default language" isn't english but don't remember seeing a dubbed show.

Unfortunately it is. If you want to listen to the original source audio with subtitles, you have to change these settings each time. It’s super annoying. (Unless something changed recently)

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

#100

Post by jmyeet »

kranke155 wrote: post #65
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-mov…

First, that's 2016. The central point there is how the fall in physical media sales is hurting movies. That trend has continued. I found something else suggesting DVD and BluRay sales were now about 2/3 of theatrical earnings where it used to exceed it. And that was a problem.

Second, from the article:

> Video on Demand performed very poorly for these blockbusters, with almost half of the films earning under 1% of their total income from VOD.

So the digital home entertainment income is revenue from jsut having the content available on Netflix, Hulu or whoever.

Third, even here 20%+ of the revenue came from theatrical release. Given how much a concern there is around the decline in physical media sales, losing that 20% seems like a far bigger deal, which is my point. Netflix basically loses that 20% off the bat.

Fourth, these are averages. There is a long tail in theatrical earnings where the biggest blockbusters can make over a billion. By having streaming-only income you basically lose all your blockbuster potential.

Lastly, just speculating here but as soon as the windows come down between theatrical release, paid VOD release and streaming release come down, it hurts all theatrical and paid VOD release revenue because a lot of people will just wait. This comes into play with simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases, which seem to make even less economic sense.

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