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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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and Netflix couldn't grow as a tech company paying the ever increasing content costs (and wasn't happy with a utility company valuation) so has spent enormous sums on just terrible shows. If you're an executive at any of these companies: VERTICAL INTEGRATION If you're an outsider looking in: GREED

Ok but what's wrong with becoming a basic content internet utility? Why can't Netflix "just" be YouTube for professionally made TV and movie content, with a great UI? Why is that a bad business?

It's not a bad business it's just a different business. What you are describing already exists and is less valuable than Netflix.

Nebula, brilliant, masterclass, dropout, ...

I do recommend all of these. They provide a stream of high quality YouTube like content.

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

#242
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religions don't wring up other religions by making more media of other religions.

WTF does religion have to do with this? I have no idea what you're trying to say.

You don't wring anything by making more media. It is a ridiculous idea to think.

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

#243
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 th…

Then what's your theory why Netflix is not doing theatrical, if, like you say, it's just a missed opportunity ?

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

#244
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody wanted to control the entire pie, when in reality almost all of them would have been better off just licensing their content to Netflix and not worrying about streaming distribution

> better off just licensing their content to Netflix the thing is, this makes your IP a commodity. If netflix truly has a monopoly on the market like this, then they can supress the price of the licensing down to very low, and therefore disney would make very little money from the licensing. It's good for the consumer, but not for disney.

If the IP is valuable that would in the negotiation. Simply put, there would be a minimum Disney would require from Netflix for their content. Better yet, structure some type of Joint-Venture deal with Netflix if the Disney content is so valuable (I suspect it is not…)

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marvel and Star Wars are managed in radically different ways, by completely different "PM"s.

Weird, I couldn’t tell at all since they both have converged on the exact same format.

Are you serious? TLDR: They feel pretty different to me. SW has nowhere to go and is trying to go nowhere. Marvel continues doing its thing, within the level of competence they've always demonstrated.

I find that SW has declined to a level previously unimaginable, they are effectively stuck doing live action versions of children's animated TV shows. The mild incompetence of Clone Wars is now a distant memory, the lowest level of quality in a SW fiction project ever has been breached multiple times now by shows such as Boba Fett. The whole universe has no guiding function, expect to retcon as much as possible on top of previously very popular characters.

Marvel has ALWAYS been a milquetoast production company, with some big hits like Iron Man, Avengers films, etc. But most of their production has always been "ok", and having watched The Marvels recently, I felt like they're just going back to their Phase 1 days, where some films were good, many not really (Thor 2, Avengers 2, Iron Man 2).

BUT Marvel has a guideline for where they want to take their content, even if they just recently lost a major actor (only his own fault).

So yeah I do think there's a difference. Marvel is ok, has always been ok, with some moments of brilliance.

Star Wars was a bit all over the place but it definitely had new ideas, every single movie introduced something interesting, be it a location/planet, a character or spaceship. It didn't constantly flirt with the same recycled material ad nauseam, because its creative direction was set, even if sometimes the audience did not like the result.

Current Star Wars creative direction is nil outside of "let's find some other popular side character to wrap a show around, maybe?". There is no story line that makes any sense for the SW being produced, it's just a grab bag of "this worked I guess".

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

#246

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.

Not to backseat parent or anything, but I would never let my kids watch Anime unsupervised. Disney is fine, and they aren't going to sexualize minors like anime often does.

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

#247
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody wanted to control the entire pie, when in reality almost all of them would have been better off just licensing their content to Netflix and not worrying about streaming distribution

> better off just licensing their content to Netflix the thing is, this makes your IP a commodity. If netflix truly has a monopoly on the market like this, then they can supress the price of the licensing down to very low, and therefore disney would make very little money from the licensing. It's good for the consumer, but not for disney.

The way around this is license it to another platform. No exclusives.

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

#248
post #18

The one that surprised me the most to be struggling is Disney+. I thought they would have the strongest streaming story since they have so much of the prime IP: Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation, Pixar, etc, whereas Netflix is still heavily dependent on licensed IP.

> The one that surprised me the most to be struggling is Disney+. Smells like Hollywood accounting [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Turns out that streaming unlimited things to a family of 2+ for $13 a month is less profitable than selling $20 experiences per person per view?

Doesn't seem too surprising to me.

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. Netflix was valuable to me because I could watch any movie at any time, but now the streaming space is so fragmented that no single provider is worth the price of the subscription, so our family doesn't pay for any of them. We told ourselves that if we really want to watch movies we'd just rent them off Amazon on a case-by-case basis, but in practice we just completely stopped consuming streaming conten…

I am in this boat as well. Our stream subscriptions are down to zero -- just the one I get for free with my cell carrier. And as for Disney and whatever the heck it is they have become, I have reverted back to purchasing purchased discs of any good movies or series.

Same, and with my toddler we’re back to good old fashioned DVDs. They may be slower, fragile and have a few unskippable parts but at least the ads are predictable, they don’t involve endless scrolling, and they belong to you.

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you’re trying to gaslight me into thinking this term is from TikTok.

"gaslight" != "trick" You can trick someone without deliberately working to make them doubt their own sanity.

Ehh that’s really the old definition. Nowadays I feel the colloquial definition is simply asserting a narrative you know is false. Emphasis on narrative, not a simple individual factual claim.
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