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Netflix's New Chapter

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Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#281

Post by dangus »

golem14 wrote: post #232
LarryMullins wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Donald Duck cartoons in particular, but I think a lot of those old cartoons are difficult to find because they contain content that the corporation fears might offend somebody. Racist (or arguably so) ethnic caricatures, extreme cartoon violence, that sort of thing. For instance, the original version of Disney's The Three Little Pigs has the wolf disguising himself as a stereotypical Jewish merchan…

So, pay someone with good sensitivities to watch the cartoons and decide based on notes. How expensive can that be ? Or, integrate a feedback system and take down complained-about cartoons quickly. That's probably better since sensitivities change and some perfectly fine items today might be off-limits tomorrow. Doing nothing is not a great option, even if it's the easiest to implement.

In sales there’s a concept where you don’t just sell against competitors, you sell against doing nothing.

What’s the convincing reason for Disney to not simply do nothing? Sell me on Disney digitizing and releasing old cartoons with the salary of at least one person versus doing absolutely nothing.

You also have to sell me on that employee working on the Donald Duck smoking cigars and speaking in a Mid-Atlantic accent archive project versus working on something else. Why is that employee not instead working on The Avengers Versus Guardians of the Galaxy 2: Hulk We Groot Again!”

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#282

Post by JackFr »

dmitriid wrote: post #248
JackFr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also if you’re not into superheroes and Star Wars, despite it being Disney there’s not a ton there.

Marvel released 4 movies and 3 series in 2022. Plus a second season of an existing one and a holiday special. There were four Star Wars series. That's too much content. Two movies a year that Marvel started with was perfect. It gave you tome to unwind, and get hungry for more.

Superhero movies are like Westerns in the fifties. It’s a just a weird genre that’s having a moment.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#283

Post by user_named »

no_wizard wrote: post #7

I'm gonna attempt to break this down: - Netflix has 5-6 Billion USD free cash flow, and because they got what debt they do have under favorable terms, they are positioned to retain most of that free cash flow - Disney, Comcast (Peacock), CBS/Viacom and other media corporations are saddled with debt, and are all losing money on their own independent streaming businesses. Likely untenable in their shareholder model - T…

The competition is never going to give up on streaming.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#284

Post by joshspankit »

surge wrote: post #94
darth_avocado wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s Disney’s content That is partly the problem. You spend hundreds of millions to make blockbuster movies and then release it on Disney+ in a few months for free (or sometimes directly). That costs money. Add to that over reliance on only Disney content creates two problems: 1. You can’t have enough new content every month, subscribers therefore don’t keep the subscription year round. 2. You have to pay money to…

A lot of it also, is just not that good. And they keep pulling stuff down or putting stuff up. I don't need artificial scarcity, I want access, just as I want to listen to a song on Spotify when I really want to hear it without being told its no longer available with my subscription. I'm subscribing to the Disney library and most of the time half of it is unavailable.

Are they still doing “The Vault” over on Disney+?

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#285

Post by joshspankit »

dangus wrote: post #281
golem14 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, pay someone with good sensitivities to watch the cartoons and decide based on notes. How expensive can that be ? Or, integrate a feedback system and take down complained-about cartoons quickly. That's probably better since sensitivities change and some perfectly fine items today might be off-limits tomorrow. Doing nothing is not a great option, even if it's the easiest to implement.

In sales there’s a concept where you don’t just sell against competitors, you sell against doing nothing. What’s the convincing reason for Disney to not simply do nothing? Sell me on Disney digitizing and releasing old cartoons with the salary of at least one person versus doing absolutely nothing. You also have to sell me on that employee working on the Donald Duck smoking cigars and speaking in a Mid-Atlantic accen…

The sell (though they seem to be avoiding this particular avenue) is that they have become the owners of a LOT of cultural cornerstones and can leverage that content to create something Netflix cannot:

A complete multi-generational back-catalog that is always available to stream.

Netflix’s irrevocable back-catalog can only go as far back as their first Netflix original. Everything else is licensed.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#286

Post by ethbr0 »

mattkrause wrote: post #220
auggierose wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or each day! And we are back to where we started.

Hear me out: what if we had like...an hour block where EVERYONE streamed one of the same 15-20 shows at the same time? Obviously, we'd also need to have a few random catch-up blocks for older shows, maybe in the mid-afternoon. Perhaps we could even do it over the air wirelessly, with no ISPs involved.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_TV

Of all the competitors to Netflix, Pluto tv (owned by Paramount) is the most interesting.

Precisely because they built, and continue to optimize, their product around profit:user.

If they can get favorable licensing deals by broadcasting as linear programming... they do it.

If they can get good deals around on demand... they do it.

The end result seems to be that they have many more options to minimizing cost of licensing content, and therefore maximizing the amount of content they can offer a user, versus a pure-play on demand provider.

If Netflix added linear programming "channels", I'd buy their stock tomorrow.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#287

Post by joshspankit »

duderific wrote: post #246
paulryanrogers wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair warning there is a Bluey episode where the kids push their father down steps. A day after watching one of my wards pushed someone down the steps :/

I have some beef with how Bluey depicts the parents as stooges to be toyed with and manipulated as the kids see fit, with little pushback from the parents. In the end there's generally some kind of lesson to be learned, but the parents go along with pretty much anything the kids propose.

Is Bluey this generations’s Caillou?

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#288

Post by joshspankit »

latexr wrote: post #192
WalterBright wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand about the movie business is the cost of making them. The most important ingredient to the success of a movie is the plot. We've all seen low budget movies that made lots of money - because of the plot. Casablanca, Psycho, Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Primer, ... Star Trek TOS was a very low budget affair, and produced excellent results, because they hired the best scifi writers. When they…

> The most important ingredient to the success of a movie is the plot. Provably false by all the bad sequels which nonetheless made more money than the original¹. If plot were that crucial, movies would consist of a person sitting down reading a book, à la The Invention of Lying². Money matters to commercial success of a film above anything else. ¹ https://www.vox.com/2016/7/1/12070048/resurgence-independenc... ² htt…

The Invention of Lying makes me sad. I just showed it to someone last week[1]. Great premise, the first half is genuinely funny and then it throws out the whole vibe and turns in to a very cliché critique of religion.

[1] I actually only showed them the first part so we could walk away enjoying it

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#289

Post by philwelch »

LarryMullins wrote: post #197
TrueSlacker0 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't even list all their old content. For example the old Donald duck cartoons, there seem to only be about 15 or so streaming. The rest are not available. Why?

I don't know about Donald Duck cartoons in particular, but I think a lot of those old cartoons are difficult to find because they contain content that the corporation fears might offend somebody. Racist (or arguably so) ethnic caricatures, extreme cartoon violence, that sort of thing. For instance, the original version of Disney's The Three Little Pigs has the wolf disguising himself as a stereotypical Jewish merchan…

Old cartoons have been whittled down like this for decades. In 1999, Cartoon Network stopped airing anything with Speedy Gonzales because they decided he was an offensive ethnic stereotype. They ended up reversing course when they discovered that Hispanic audiences by and large liked the character.

Re: Netflix's New Chapter

#290

Post by ska »

ska wrote: post #226
thedrbrian wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All the Star Wars and Marvel shows are star-studded and larded with top-tier visual effects. I'm just going to throw this out there. What if these shows just aren't that good?

> What if these shows just aren't that good? What if they aren't that good in a very calculated, lowest-common-denominator way? Any really big $$ production has to have really broad appeal to succeed. Maybe the safest way to do that is just to target some minimum threshold for ticket buying on a rainy thursday.

Fwiw too late too edit but I meant that in a technical, not judgemental way - and I’m not suggesting that being popular implies not being good.
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