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Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

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Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#241

Post by turnsout »

afavour wrote: post #206
PaulHoule wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to HBO Max? Will you be able to watch all that with a regular Netflix subscription? Seems the business doesn't make sense unless New co revenue >= Netflix + HBO revenue Also: is Netflix going to take the theatrical and traditional TV businesses seriously at all?

I imagine it’ll end up looking very much like the Disney + Hulu + ESPN bundle. Minor savings but still more expensive than an individual subscription. > traditional TV business This was actually excluded from the deal. CNN, TNT, Discovery and the rest are being spun off into their own company. Presumably to wither and die.

If they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#243

Post by tolerance »

jmkd wrote: post #199
quasarsunnix wrote: post #186

We’re witnessing the globalization of television. When all is said and done there’s going to be a few players left and they’re all going to be American by the current looks of things. You could argue movies were already like this, but for television that’s quite the change as most countries had many television production companies and stations. Now it seems like they’ll be a few global media companies and maybe some…

They won't be American. The balance of power has already shifted east. There are now more productions, more money and more facilities east of Madrid than west of it.

So the companies in charge of distributing the content are American-based multinationals; production leaks out of the US toward prettier places and more amicable laborers; if you’re American and want to tag along—in or behind the scenes—you’re going to need a passport or a visa.

Or something like that?

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#244

Post by PearlRiver »

jmkd wrote: post #119
phartenfeller wrote: post #52

I don't like this. Netflix rarely creates excellent content; instead, it frequently produces mediocre or worse content. Will the same happen for Warner? Are cinemas now second behind streaming? Edit: I agree Netflix has good Originals. But most are from the early days when they favored quality over quantity. It is sad to see that they reversed that. They have much funding power and should give it to great art that re…

Cinema is indeed second behind streaming. The theatrical window is now so short (~40) days that audiences are happy to wait for the increased benefits and reduced cost of watching at home.

This was inevitable. Technology was bound to catch up. Hollywood actually panicked in the 1960s. But those screens were tiny. Nobody wants to see the Godfather on a cheap 1974 Panasonic.

But TV today is at least 55 inch and in crisp 4k resolution. A modern TV is good enough for most content.

It is not Netflix that killed the movieplex. They were just the first to utilise the new tools. The movie theater became the steam locomotive.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#245

Post by lxgr »

tiborsaas wrote: post #112
amrrs wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly speaking Netflix has good catalog, much more comparable to Hollywood. Take the latest Frankenstein for example. Don't look at only series. They also have recipes repurposed. But they acquire good titles and also produce some good ones.

I have 459 titles on my IMDB watchlist and a tiny percentage of it is available on Netflix (if at all), but this is anecdotal and might have to do something to where I live.

Netflix outside of the US is a very different experience.

In the US, it's mostly their own productions and older content they explicitly acquired, but elsewhere, especially in markets that don't have a local HBO or Disney streaming service, they have incredible backlogs.

I remember finding basically everything I could wish for on there when traveling in SE Asia almost a decade ago, compared to a still decent offering in Western Europe, and mostly cobwebs in the US.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#246

Post by afavour »

turnsout wrote: post #241
afavour wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it’ll end up looking very much like the Disney + Hulu + ESPN bundle. Minor savings but still more expensive than an individual subscription. > traditional TV business This was actually excluded from the deal. CNN, TNT, Discovery and the rest are being spun off into their own company. Presumably to wither and die.

If they like money, they'll just roll HBO into Netflix and raise prices. I really doubt Disney's complex bundling/pricing scheme is helping their bottom line.

I dunno about that. They introduced the ad supported tier as a way to reach consumers at a lower price point and apparently it’s been very successful. I don’t think they want to lose those customers by jacking up prices now.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#247

Post by shufflerofrocks »

awongh wrote: post #223

In terms of people who actually like movies and music it’s not a great time. Unfortunately it’s pretty clear that the true business model of music and content streamers is about “putting something on in the background” and not actually about the quality level of the content. Thus you get inoffensive cheap netflix series and AI generated chill beats to study to, and no one really notices as long as it’s above a certai…

My blood always boils a little whenever I read about Netflix's "Not second-screen enough" business model.

What shitty point we've enshittified to, where we prioritise passive slop consumption over active enriching one.

All of this is a result of the algorithmic media addiction people have been engineered into, in my opinion. Every moment you're not consuming something is a moment you're wasting, and a moment you have to spend alone with your thoughts (which is too terrfying for people now apparently).

A proper solution to current video content landscape used to be piracy - Netflix literally succeded early on in streaming because they were more convenient than pirating stuff. But with these Media Moguls lobbying hard to crack down on piracy (at the risk of privacy), it does look pretty bleak.

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#248

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

justin66 wrote: post #207
raverbashing wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After that complete fumble of HBO becoming "Max" they were at their last legs

The "Max" fiasco was pretty much the strangest branding mistake ever. Not just an obvious mistake but it was honestly kind of a mystery that anyone would even be tempted to do that.

"HBO or Cinemax... um, I wonder which name I should keep."

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#249

Post by irl_zebra »

jmkd wrote: post #199
quasarsunnix wrote: post #186

We’re witnessing the globalization of television. When all is said and done there’s going to be a few players left and they’re all going to be American by the current looks of things. You could argue movies were already like this, but for television that’s quite the change as most countries had many television production companies and stations. Now it seems like they’ll be a few global media companies and maybe some…

They won't be American. The balance of power has already shifted east. There are now more productions, more money and more facilities east of Madrid than west of it.

I haven't heard of any of them, which I am open to being because of my own ignorance. Can you give some examples?

Re: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros

#250

Post by yabatopia »

sethops1 wrote: post #188
afavour wrote: post #182

Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know). From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix…

Surely the move now would be to rename the app to Netlfix Max

To keep it more in line with other brands:

- Netflix Max: basic subscription with ads, no 4K

- Netflix Max Ultra: basic subscription with ads, but with 4K

- Netflix Pro Max: standard subscription without ads, no 4K

- Netflix Pro Max Ultra: standard subscription without ads, with 4K

You can add a Mobile VIP package for one extra viewer outside your house, but only for Pro plans.

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