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The Slow Death of Hollywood

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#11

Post by cmiles74 »

> The centralization of power in a few studios and chains is global. In 2015, the U.S.-China Security Review Commission noted that Hollywood now obeys Chinese censors pretty much for all films, even those made and distributed solely in the West. Unless this system is restructured, it is unlikely we will see any critical depictions of Chinese government actors again, which has its parallels to the Studio System in the 1930s pandering to Nazi Germany.

> ...

> In other words, we should aim to restore open markets for content again. This means separating out the industry into production, distribution, and retailing. We should probably ban predatory pricing so Netflix isn’t dumping into the market. And we should probably begin a radical decentralization of chains and studios.

There's some interesting stuff in this article and I'm glad that I read it. But at the end of the piece, aren't we talking about the same thing we're seeing in all US industries? As the players getting larger and more wealthy and become more powerful they do their best to freeze out competitors until we end up with a weird and dysfunctional closed system.

A lot of these criticisms pre-date Netflix and Amazon: summer movies started to become an all-or-nothing bet (and thus more homogenous, dull, and less risky intellectually) when it was just the studios.

I don't know what the solution might be, I struggle to keep a positive frame of mind in this regard. I do think it's unlikely that the government will step in an break these companies up, especially when they have so much money under their control.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#12

Post by jandrese »

mamon wrote: post #8

Cancelling show after two seasons is a blessing: original idea has usually already ran its course by then, and the story becomes more and more convoluted and boring. Very few shows remain high quality in third or subsequent seasons.

I'd argue that a lot of shows have fairly rough first seasons, good to excellent second and third seasons, and then start running out of ideas in the fourth season.

Four seasons is a good length for a TV show. Two is too few most of the time.

This is a very rough metric of course. Some shows peak in their first season and go downhill from there. A few manage to reinvent themselves enough each season to avoid going stale, but in general four and done is good.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#13

Post by cmiles74 »

iscrewyou wrote: post #10
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

"The West Wing" is the one that hurt me in my heart place. I stopped watching when the meteor was hurtling towards the planet and I was relieved I wasn't still watching the show when they started to bring in musical guests.

In my opinion, most shows would do better with far fewer seasons.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#14

Post by sleepysysadmin »

The rapid changing from VCR -> DVD -> Blueray -> digital meant their industry was able to resell their product over and over. This produced a golden age and created a ridiculous amount of money. Their golden age is over.

In the very near future what used to be the movie/tv industry will be significantly smaller.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#15

Post by cmiles74 »

jandrese wrote: post #12
mamon wrote: post #8

Cancelling show after two seasons is a blessing: original idea has usually already ran its course by then, and the story becomes more and more convoluted and boring. Very few shows remain high quality in third or subsequent seasons.

I'd argue that a lot of shows have fairly rough first seasons, good to excellent second and third seasons, and then start running out of ideas in the fourth season. Four seasons is a good length for a TV show. Two is too few most of the time. This is a very rough metric of course. Some shows peak in their first season and go downhill from there. A few manage to reinvent themselves enough each season to avoid going st…

I don't have any data to back this up, but I have been watching TV for many, many years. It seems to me that we have two types of television series...

1) A show that was carefully written over the course of several years and had a pretty large budget when the first season of the show was finally made. These have a good first season and maybe an okay second season but often flounder in their second season.

2) A series that maybe had a good idea and a decently written pilot but not much more on the books in terms of time investment, often having a smaller budget. These shows might have a pretty poor first season with some good episodes here and there, perhaps the cast starts to show some real chemistry as their characters begin to get fleshed out towards the end of that season. The second season only gets better as everyone has a better handle on what is working.

It could be argued in both cases that more seasons are worth the gamble. In practice, though, more shows just get worse. I can't fault Netflix for leaning towards early cancellation, that seems like the obvious safe bet.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#16

Post by celticmusic »

iscrewyou wrote: post #10
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

I agree completely, I even wish seasons were shorter. Very often the start and end to a season is strong, but the middle is filler.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#17

Post by scarface74 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #11

> The centralization of power in a few studios and chains is global. In 2015, the U.S.-China Security Review Commission noted that Hollywood now obeys Chinese censors pretty much for all films, even those made and distributed solely in the West. Unless this system is restructured, it is unlikely we will see any critical depictions of Chinese government actors again, which has its parallels to the Studio System in the…

History is littered with studios that tried to do something “innovative” and more risky and went bust on one film.

The audience has spoken. Studios will produce what works.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#18

Post by goldcd »

I'm actually OK with the cancellations.

Maybe I'd have liked more Santa Clarita Diet - but had given up watching Orange is the New Black and the Marvel stuff.

I'd loved them, liked them, then maybe was watching out of a "sense of duty".. There's only so much TV I can/should ever watch, so if there's going to be anything new, they've got to stop making something old.

Re: The Slow Death of Hollywood

#19

Post by ghaff »

iscrewyou wrote: post #10
cmiles74 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to guess at the reason that Netflix is canceling these shows, but many shows simply have too many seasons. I suspect it's because the way the networks estimate their viewership (things like Nielsen households or telephone surveys) are less reliable than the detailed metrics that Netflix can track. While everyone misses their favorite show when it's canceled, it could be as simple as viewership has dropped b…

I have this gripe that shows DO NOT need to run for 10 seasons. Breaking bad was a great example of a show that didn’t drag on, caught itself when it was starting to and pivoted and finished it strong. Now it’s a classic. Should there still be shows with 10 seasons? Sure. But most of them should be like 3-4-5 seasons. People lose interest. But if they knew that the only need to pay attention for 3-4 seasons, i think…

I've long had something like a 5 season rule. Sure, some "high concept" show are 1 or 2 seasons and done. And some manage to go longer especially if they replenish cast, locale, etc. But somewhere about 5 seasons--especially with traditional 20-ish show seasons--I just start losing interest.

I know there are fans who want shows to go on until the whole cast drops dead of old age, but I'd much rather have a handful of seasons even for shows I really like.

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