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The Business of Hollywood & Streaming


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7 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

Serious question because I get that you are in the industry. Why do you think you don't have a more acute sense of honesty and integrity and obligation for paying for an artist, actor, writer, directors work? These are your people and, potentially and probably, you. Why go all-in using torrents and pirating stuff instead of paying into the ecosystem that ostensibly feeds you as well? I can see the laymen and disconnected to the Hollywood industry nobody having no moral qualms about it, but I would guess being inside the circle you'd feel differently, but that would be a wrong guess.

Not a moral attack, just genuinely curious.

i don't feel attacked, i think this is a fair question.

first off, i pay my fair share and then some.  i subscribe to everything, including a live/cable option (directv stream) which i know a lot of people have gone away from.  i go to movies in the theater, and have paid a premium for nice, la theaters since back when assigned seats were a new feature.  i also won't see a movie without popcorn and snacks, which i always purchase from concessions.  movies fuel the entire industry, and concessions fuel theaters, so $16 popcorn buckets don't bother me.

over the years, i have used torrents when it is necessary.  i don't download anything available on a mainstream platform like prime, netflix, hulu, peacock, apple, disney, and so forth.  i use it when a movie is unavailable and i'm trying to show it to someone who hasn't seen it (usually my wife).  keep in mind this is a film that i not only likely paid to see in a theater, but in many cases, have also previously purchased the dvd.  but like i said, we no longer own a dvd player and i have no idea where my old movies even are.

i also used to use torrents when i needed movies for travel before the days of being able to use a streaming platform on my laptop.  much easier to have a file than tote around a bunch of dvds, especially when you live on a bus.  though we did buy plenty of seasons of tv in their old school boxed sets, like the office, lost, 30 rock, etc.

but the biggest factor is whether i even have a choice with something i'm looking to watch.  in many cases, there are no other options.  i downloaded max dugan returns a couple months ago, which is available pretty much nowhere.  same with the color of money, and many other 70's/80's movies.  if they existed somewhere, i wouldn't need torrents. 

in the case of my nephew, he's not going to buy amc+, so this is a way to introduce him to "prestige" tv and what i believe is the greatest drama of all time.  with this experience, he will (hopefully) seek out other high-end productions, both tv and film, and that will affect his life, just as mine was affected as a teenager when i watched butch cassidy, jaws, the sting, the godfather, and all the president's men with my dad.  in turn, he will spend his money on things actually available to him and not relegated to a fringe (at best) streaming platform.  this is a situation where if not for me and wetransfer, he would simply go without.  i cannot allow that.

but here's the sad truth of it all.  when you pay $3.79 on amazon prime for an old movie, that money is not ever getting to the writers or actors, or even the producers.  it just isn't.  that money will go onto the amazon ledger and pay for storage, servers, attorneys, executives, until they turn to 3rd party sourcing companies that purchased libraries from obsolete production companies like vestron or orion and say, sorry, here's your three cents.

i also will download british shows that aren't available yet on us tv or britbox/acorn, like catastrophe.  but once i like something, i'll make sure everyone in my life knows to watch it on whatever platform carries it, which i believe was prime.

*i don't use torrents to download first-run movies or pirated home video shit, in case that part was unclear.  it's not even about the money, it's about the quality.  fuck all that.

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54 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

i don't feel attacked, i think this is a fair question.

first off, i pay my fair share and then some.  i subscribe to everything, including a live/cable option (directv stream) which i know a lot of people have gone away from.  i go to movies in the theater, and have paid a premium for nice, la theaters since back when assigned seats were a new feature.  i also won't see a movie without popcorn and snacks, which i always purchase from concessions.  movies fuel the entire industry, and concessions fuel theaters, so $16 popcorn buckets don't bother me.

over the years, i have used torrents when it is necessary.  i don't download anything available on a mainstream platform like prime, netflix, hulu, peacock, apple, disney, and so forth.  i use it when a movie is unavailable and i'm trying to show it to someone who hasn't seen it (usually my wife).  keep in mind this is a film that i not only likely paid to see in a theater, but in many cases, have also previously purchased the dvd.  but like i said, we no longer own a dvd player and i have no idea where my old movies even are.

i also used to use torrents when i needed movies for travel before the days of being able to use a streaming platform on my laptop.  much easier to have a file than tote around a bunch of dvds, especially when you live on a bus.  though we did buy plenty of seasons of tv in their old school boxed sets, like the office, lost, 30 rock, etc.

but the biggest factor is whether i even have a choice with something i'm looking to watch.  in many cases, there are no other options.  i downloaded max dugan returns a couple months ago, which is available pretty much nowhere.  same with the color of money, and many other 70's/80's movies.  if they existed somewhere, i wouldn't need torrents. 

in the case of my nephew, he's not going to buy amc+, so this is a way to introduce him to "prestige" tv and what i believe is the greatest drama of all time.  with this experience, he will (hopefully) seek out other high-end productions, both tv and film, and that will affect his life, just as mine was affected as a teenager when i watched butch cassidy, jaws, the sting, the godfather, and all the president's men with my dad.  in turn, he will spend his money on things actually available to him and not relegated to a fringe (at best) streaming platform.  this is a situation where if not for me and wetransfer, he would simply go without.  i cannot allow that.

but here's the sad truth of it all.  when you pay $3.79 on amazon prime for an old movie, that money is not ever getting to the writers or actors, or even the producers.  it just isn't.  that money will go onto the amazon ledger and pay for storage, servers, attorneys, executives, until they turn to 3rd party sourcing companies that purchased libraries from obsolete production companies like vestron or orion and say, sorry, here's your three cents.

i also will download british shows that aren't available yet on us tv or britbox/acorn, like catastrophe.  but once i like something, i'll make sure everyone in my life knows to watch it on whatever platform carries it, which i believe was prime.

*i don't use torrents to download first-run movies or pirated home video shit, in case that part was unclear.  it's not even about the money, it's about the quality.  fuck all that.

That all makes much more sense, the way I read your earlier post was like you were just torrenting everything the last 20 years as a first option.

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On 11/13/2023 at 2:08 PM, mdmost said:

WB reverses course and allows Coyote vs. Acme to be screened for purchase by another studio. What a shitfest at Warner Bros.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/coyote-vs-acme-wb-warners-canceled-reversal-shop-film-1235645372/

WBD (and Zaslav) being scorched on this one. 

Quote

 

The backstory: After three years of filming and positive audience tests, WBD announced last week that it would keep Coyote in the vault to get a $30 million tax write-off, echoing its 2022 decision to cancel Batgirl, and even more egregious, Scoob! Holiday Haunt, for tax breaks that make the company’s earnings look better in the short term.

Why did WBD reverse course? The announcement that it killed Coyote went over as well as telling your grandma that you already ate: Many filmmakers canceled meetings with WBD—and one director even called the studio “anti-art.” Meanwhile, US Rep. Joaquin Castro tweeted that WBD’s actions were “predatory and anti-competitive.”

But…WBD CEO David Zaslav’s decisions favoring tax strategies over creators could still deter filmmakers from working with the studio.

 

 

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1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

gee, you think so, doctor?

(quoting the reporter, not the poster)

Also....Zaslav left a little bit of an opening to be ripped open by the right people regarding the treatment of URG who want to probe why did a female superhero movie (Batgirl) get canned for tax reasons but the other movies didn't?

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Pet peeve of mine with semi-streaming channels especially CNN. I was in my car listening to a panel debate on CNN via Sirius. Get home, go inside and flip on the CNN streaming channel logged on with an account for my cable subscription at another house. Not free, I pay for it.  CNN makes me watch 2+ minutes of streaming ads before they broadcast their live channel.

and when I finally got to that debate, the debate was ending and they went to the actual commercials. I’m cool with them paying their bills and earning a profit but abusing your viewers is the wrong path.  Wrap the content with ads on the border but don’t hide your content.

EDIT: had to add this. I kept watching the CNN content. Iin the middle of the next segment CNN popped up ads with a 240 second countdown on the screen. WTF. Interrupt the broadcast for a 4 min commercial break. I’m done with their streaming content.

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5 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Pet peeve of mine with semi-streaming channels especially CNN. I was in my car listening to a panel debate on CNN via Sirius. Get home, go inside and flip on the CNN streaming channel logged on with an account for my cable subscription at another house. Not free, I pay for it.  CNN makes me watch 2+ minutes of streaming ads before they broadcast their live channel.

and when I finally got to that debate, the debate was ending and they went to the actual commercials. I’m cool with them paying their bills and earning a profit but abusing your viewers is the wrong path.  Wrap the content with ads on the border but don’t hide your content.

EDIT: had to add this. I kept watching the CNN content. Iin the middle of the next segment CNN popped up ads with a 240 second countdown on the screen. WTF. Interrupt the broadcast for a 4 min commercial break. I’m done with their streaming content.

Yep. I turn it on for background noise for my dogs when I leave the house so they don’t go nuts at every noise. It’s like 80% ads, 20% content. 

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On 11/10/2023 at 3:55 PM, BeardIP said:

There is an interesting read I'll link (it's a bit long, by our 2023 standards to your TikTok and Youtube Shorts point), but it makes the opposite case. That Prestige TV is dying/dead.

Pretty sure Netflix killed it or put it on life support because of the rarity with which they have a show that goes beyond one or two seasons. They also created -- from what understand but am open to correction -- the hard checklist for how often there has to be a chase scene, or a fight, or a hint of a boob, etc. They produce mostly formulaic shit. But it's an all in one product for lowbrow, mass audience tastes such that old, upper-mid tv shows like Suits become attractive and essential viewing.

On 11/15/2023 at 12:09 AM, UpperWestside said:

This is just cable TV all over again. I have Prime (Good for many other things so it’s worth it) and then Britbox, Acorn TV (More UK TV) and PBS Masterpiece (Again mostly British stuff).

This is my tv package too except I have hulu tv for football season and a $20 monthly credit from Amex I can use to pay for Hulu without ads, or Peacock's premium option.

I find it really difficult to watch any non-sports tv with commercials...the quality has to be higher than normal. I barely watch anything on Prime as it is but as soon as they add commercials unless you pay more (next year as announced), I may just cut off our prime membership.

 

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9 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Pet peeve of mine with semi-streaming channels especially CNN. I was in my car listening to a panel debate on CNN via Sirius. Get home, go inside and flip on the CNN streaming channel logged on with an account for my cable subscription at another house. Not free, I pay for it.  CNN makes me watch 2+ minutes of streaming ads before they broadcast their live channel.

and when I finally got to that debate, the debate was ending and they went to the actual commercials. I’m cool with them paying their bills and earning a profit but abusing your viewers is the wrong path.  Wrap the content with ads on the border but don’t hide your content.

EDIT: had to add this. I kept watching the CNN content. Iin the middle of the next segment CNN popped up ads with a 240 second countdown on the screen. WTF. Interrupt the broadcast for a 4 min commercial break. I’m done with their streaming content.

CNN is the same 3 “breaking” stories talked about by a different host each hour with a used up panel of political commentators, all being asked “what’s your reaction?” to said breaking story. 

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I don’t understand why it’s hard for people to find things.  On Apple TV, the search function works across all apps but Netflix.  So two searches and you find what you are looking for, sometimes showing multiple platforms for viewing options.  Now if you aren’t subscribed to the service, it’s a business decision.  But outside of you Torrent pirates, it’s all a business decision anyway, right?

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
3 hours ago, mdmost said:

This feels like it's going to end badly for both the talent and the consumer.

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-merger-talks-1235847958/

I feel like Paramount has been on a diet ever since Brad Grey passed away.  They make about four movies a year and most of their revenue is licensing their catalogue out to the streamers.  

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On 12/20/2023 at 2:26 PM, mdmost said:

This feels like it's going to end badly for both the talent and the consumer.

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-merger-talks-1235847958/

sheeeeeeeeittt... WB + D ended up as as less than the sum of the 2 parts, and the same for Viacom + CBS. The idea that the combo of all of that would somehow be better able to compete with Netflix seems totally ridiculous. Two companies with massive debt, no apparent clue about how to compete in the business they say they want to be in (streaming), yet still basically completely reliant on linear tv revenue. If this merger were to happen the only mystery would be how quickly the new entity would take to implode, and how much the bankers and Zaslav were able to stuff in their own pockets along the way.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Netflix is now in the live streaming business.

Netflix buys rights to WWE Raw, other shows in live streaming push

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netflix-wwe-raw-partnership-live-sports-streaming/
 

Quote

Netflix on Tuesday said it will soon be home to the WWE's most-watched wrestling show, as part of a multibillion-dollar deal that will see the streaming giant enter the ring to compete in covering live sports.

The streaming giant is acquiring the rights to WWE Raw in a $5 billion deal to be paid out over 10 years, as the wrestling group's contract with Comcast nears its expiration, Bloomberg reported. The series will begin airing on Netflix in January 2025, and will be available to subscribers in North America and other international markets. WWE is part of TKO Group Holdings.

"Our partnership…dramatically expands the reach of WWE, and brings weekly live appointment viewing to Netflix," TKO President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said Wednesday in a statement.

 

 

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9 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

Buying up the live entertainment rights seems like a much better use of Netflix cash than trying to release a new shitty big budget movie every week.  The goal has to be eventually getting in on the NBA or certainly the NFL, but this is an interesting start.  

More interesting to me is the opposite angle, which is the WWE business and their diversification efforts. They seem to be pretty innovative-- or at least, experimental-- which I'm not sure if it is surprising or comes with the DNA of a $20bn entertainment company which began as a choreographed carnival game for the carnies, drunks and rubes behind the big top.

image.png.d7e6e4487ccc4e62e7a02a73635bbfc3.png

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On 12/20/2023 at 9:23 PM, atomheartbevo said:

Bunch of Star Trek content about to get Star Fucked if this happens.

It will probably be parted out to various other shitty streaming services.  Shit, Warner Brothers is already pushing top-tier DC stuff to other platforms.

Pluto TV has alotta TNG and OG.  Mighta seen some DS9 too.  All free w/commercials.  I watched Yesterday’s Enterprise like 3 times last week.  SO good.  Shoulda been a movie.  “Let’s make sure history never forgets…the name…’Enterprise.’”  Chills every time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well holy shit.

image.thumb.png.c63da230f03e015c6324da3e7cb8ba1b.png

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/disney-warner-bros-discovery-fox-launch-sports-streaming-service-1235817744/

nb:  "A source says that the new venture, while a major step forward, is not expected to impact ESPN’s plans to offer a direct-to-consumer “flagship” ESPN streaming service, but is meant to complement it. In some ways, the new venture is closer to something like a “skinny bundle” of streaming networks, one that is focused exclusively on channels with live sports, rather than entertainment."

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Was reading this, about the ^^

The first and most important takeaway is about what this says about Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery. Specifically, it seems clear that both have gotten religion about the importance of managing churn when it comes to standalone subscription services. It has almost certainly been an expensive lesson; Peter Kafka posted this chart on Business Insider:

image.png.d4200934c10fdc1d223d16c98c87f3cd.png

I can’t overstate what a disaster this chart is for everyone other than Netflix. To put it in concrete terms:

  • Netflix, assuming an average churn rate of 2%, retains the average customer for just over 4 years.
  • Disney+, assuming an average churn rate of 5%, retains the average customer for 1 year 8 months.
  • Max, assuming an average churn rate of 7%, retains the average customer for 1 year 2 months.

The difference in time becomes much more pronounced when you multiple the time on service times the subscription fee; it becomes downright painful when you subtract the revenue gained from the cost to acquire the customer in the first place.

Stepping back, it is, as a rule, much more expensive to acquire a new customers than it is to retain an old customer; it is often the most expensive to acquire a previously-churned customer, who already decided your service isn’t worth it. That noted, that last rule may not apply quite so clearly to streaming services: customers are already accustomed to dipping in-and-out, and that is likely to be particularly relevant for sports-centric services, which offer up different sports in different seasons.

The solution, as I have written ad nauseam, is to bundle: if the customer always has something to watch, they’re not going to churn; not churning means not spending on customer re-acquisition, which more than justifies getting less from that customer on a per-month basis than you might as a standalone service.

Consider Warner Bros. Discovery and their Bleacher Report sports tier, which includes the NBA, NCAA tournament, MLB, and NHL: hardcore sports fans may wants all of those sports, which do extend year round, but more casual viewers may find the relatively limited inventory in any one of them not worth the hassle and expense; what, though, if you could subscribe to one bundle and get access to a much wider variety of games, such that you had something to watch any night if you wanted to? And, of course, this sports bundle can be bundled with Max as well.

ESPN’s calculus is similar, and yet likely more expansive. One of the details that has yet to be disclosed is who is actually building this service and selling ads on it; my bet would be that Disney is providing the backend for both. This privileged position is justified given ESPN’s preponderance of sports rights, and it also fits what I believe to be Disney’s strategy with ESPN.

https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-wins-streaming-wars-this-chart-shows-why-2024-1

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Frankly, I find this the least compelling for Fox. On one hand, this is a short-term win: Fox doesn’t have any real streaming service to speak of, so piggy-backing on this effort keeps their sports rights viable. On the other hand, sports rights tend to be very poor investments in-and-of-themselves: they are best leveraged in service of something else, like Rupert Murdoch’s push to make Fox into a nationwide broadcasting network via the NFL, or Disney’s attempt to boot-up an at-scale advertising network via ads in games. Fox, though, doesn’t have any auxiliary businesses that benefit from this bundle: they just hasten the demise of their actual moneymaker.

The other services worth considering in this analysis are Peacock and Paramount+, which matter for the simple reason that they have NFL games. Frankly, I take their lack of inclusion as further evidence that their executives have no idea what they are doing: both services are subscale, provide minimal subscriber promise of ongoing content to justify staying subscribed month-over-month, and, in the case of Peacock, are in direct conflict with a key revenue driver for their parent company. The NFL, meanwhile, is not only the most ruthless in extracting every bit of value it provides from its contracts (necessitating orthogonal strategies like Fox in the 1990s), but is also only on for half the year: are Peacock and Paramount+ simply going to accept that most of their customers will churn every single year for half the year?

Sports fans led a blessed existence for almost the entire cable era: because everyone paid for cable the reality is that a huge portion of sports revenue came from people who never watched a single game — that was a truly a effective bundle. Now, though, sports aficionados are going to pay for sports, and it’s going to be pricey: I would expect this bundle to start around $30/month, and probably settle significantly higher than that; indeed, in the long run I would expect that most sports fans will have to pay something close to the old bundle prices to get access to everything they want to watch, and you can make a very rational argument that that is actually exceedingly optimistic: if only sports fans are paying then they by definition have to pay more individually to drive the same amount of revenue. Moreover, they will have to pay even more to get the general entertainment that used to be included “for free.”

Still, this is an important step to paying less than they might have otherwise: bundles are a win for everyone, even if this bundle will feel a lot worse for everyone than the cable bundle ever did.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-wins-streaming-wars-this-chart-shows-why-2024-1

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  • 2 weeks later...

YOUCH!

The widely panned Dakota Johnson/Sydney Sweeney vehicle made just $25.8 million at the domestic box office in its debut, the worst-ever opening for a Sony superhero movie and a major financial boondoggle, given its reported budget between $80 million and $115 million. To put the numbers into context, the universally mocked Sony project Morbius managed to make $39 million during its opening weekend in April 2022. Madame Web’s poor showing can’t be blamed on a slow overall weekend, since the Bob Marley biopic One Love amassed $33.2 million and has earned $51 million since it was released on Valentine’s Day.

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I wrote in the thread specifically about this disney/fox/hbod deal that the cable companies are losing their shit about the Iger sports package. I like this thread better for future discussion because it cuts across the entire industry. What disney/hbod/fox have planned is essentially a hulu lite product. I don't see the cable companies being able to stop it based on contractual issues and certainly not anti-trust but that won't stop 'em from trying, esp. Brian Roberts with Comcast. 

I'll be interested to see if Disney still plans the espn stand-alone product or figures out a way to roll it into a bundle with the new Joint Venture.

This article is from last Friday - https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/pay-tv-distributors-may-be-planning-their-attack-against-new-sports-joint-venture/ar-BB1ijUyj

Quote

 

It's been about a week since Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox announced a new joint venture to offer live sports outside the traditional cable bundle, and pay TV distributors are still trying to figure out just how disruptive the new service will be.

The key question for distributors such as Comcast, Charter and DirecTV is whether they'll be allowed to offer the same skinny bundle of linear networks that Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox announced will be available to consumers later this fall. That bundle includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Fox, FS1, FS2, and a handful of other cable channels that showcase sports.

If Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox allow distributors to offer the same product, in addition to the standard cable bundle, there's likely to be minimal consternation about the joint venture. But it's not clear that will be the case, given that may defeat the purpose of its existence.

In 2023, Charter began offering a package of cable networks that didn't include sports to lower the cost of cable TV for customers who only wanted news and entertainment. Offering sports to only those people who want to watch sports is good for distributors, but it's harmful to programmers, who benefit from the millions of households that pay for sports but don't watch them.

That's why, logically, the new sports joint venture only makes sense if the three media companies bar distributors from offering the same product.

So far, the largest pay TV distributors haven't spoken publicly about the forthcoming bundle because they're still gathering information on the joint venture's plans, according to people familiar with their thinking, who asked not to be named because the discussions have been private.

Privately, however, leaders at Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox have begun to hear complaints from some distributors, who are concerned the new skinny bundle will lead to increased cable TV cancellations, according to people familiar with the matter.

Pay TV distributors typically strike most-favored-nation deals with programmers that allow contracts to be replicated among like partners. It guarantees that a company such as Disney can strike a deal with DirecTV that's similar to its deal with, say, Dish.

If the sports joint venture refuses to allow distributors the same terms as it's offering retail customers, distributors could either refuse to carry their networks when carriage renewal deals are up or even sue, according to Craig Moffett, an analyst at MoffettNathanson.

"The distributors have been begging for the right to offer cheaper and skinnier bundles, especially bundles that would segregate expensive sports from cheaper non-sports programming, for at least two decades, and they've been met with a brick wall," Moffett said. "At the very least, this would seem to violate the most favored nation clauses that prohibit the programmers from offering better terms and conditions to another distributor, even if that distributor is a JV [joint venture] of the programmers themselves. I would be surprised if there aren't some lawsuits."

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox all rely on the pay-TV distributors for the bulk of their revenue.

And while some stand to indirectly benefit from the potential popularity of the joint venture — Charter and Comcast, for example, could see a boost to their broadband businesses, since the digital app would require high-speed internet service for best performance — others, such as DirecTV, Dish and YouTube TV stand more directly in the crosshairs and could lose video subscribers.

Still, early conversations between distributor executives and leaders at Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox haven't been particularly substantial, because limited information has been disclosed about the strategy of the joint venture, which hasn't been formally named or even legally agreed upon by the companies.

"The formation of the pay service is subject to the negotiation of definitive agreements amongst the parties," Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox said in a statement last week.

No leader for the joint venture has been named yet, although one has tentatively been selected, according to people familiar with the matter. Puck reported Tuesday the front-runner is former Apple executive Pete Distad.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

 

 

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34 minutes ago, Chopper said:

I'll be interested to see if Disney still plans the espn stand-alone product or figures out a way to roll it into a bundle with the new Joint Venture.


If they roll it in, they may have found a way to subsidize the cost of espn, or some of it anyway. 

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3 hours ago, Doc Sam Beckett said:

"Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a former UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida dive bar."

Lulz 

Right? And there was confusion as to why it got the "made for TV'ed / straight to DVD" treatment?

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January stats from Nielsen

https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2024/colder-weather-and-nfl-playoffs-drive-increased-tv-usage-in-january/

doesn't include the super bowl

Most streamed show on netflix was something called "Fool Me Once." On Disney+, it was "Bluey" and on prime it was "Reacher." "Fool Me Once" was streamed for ~50% more total minutes than "Reacher" which gives a huge comparison about the value of Netflix vs Prime imo.

 

image.thumb.png.911802ecc7d005ad900bd073a2ccc71e.png

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9 hours ago, Chopper said:

January stats from Nielsen

https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2024/colder-weather-and-nfl-playoffs-drive-increased-tv-usage-in-january/

doesn't include the super bowl

Most streamed show on netflix was something called "Fool Me Once." On Disney+, it was "Bluey" and on prime it was "Reacher." "Fool Me Once" was streamed for ~50% more total minutes than "Reacher" which gives a huge comparison about the value of Netflix vs Prime imo.

so the january stats don't include ratings from a football game played on feb 11th?

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This seems like it's a fake excuse:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/tyler-perry-ai-alarm-1235833276/

Entertainment mogul Tyler Perry said he was halting plans for an $800 million expansion of his Atlanta movie studios after seeing the capabilities of Sora, OpenAI’s jaw-dropping text-to-video model that debuted on social media less than two weeks ago. The sight of dolphins riding bicycles compelled Perry to sound an alarm about the future of filmmaking in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“This will touch every corner of our industry.” Perry sees advantages to leveraging AI in his work—less travel, fewer sets to build, more exotic locations built through text—but they don’t outweigh his concerns for everyone in the moviemaking business, from actors to crew members to transportation employees. These worries are not new: The use of AI was one of the big sticking points for striking writers and actors last year, who negotiated guardrails into their new contracts.

Is it too soon to panic? Many filmmakers are saying yes…for now. The technology as it exists is, at best, a replacement for stock footage, and OpenAI says it will reject requests to replicate celebrities in its videos. But even industry leaders who don’t share Perry’s level of concern for Sora concede that text-to-video technology will likely cost people their jobs in the future.

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I dunno man. I'm gonna have to say the fact that Netflix is the only streamer adding new users, that WB Discovery's market value has gone from $130B to $60B in 2 years since the merger, and their subscriber numbers haven't budged since Max debuted has more to do with it than AI. And their studio business has sucked despite a hit like Barbie, and paramount's studio is sitting on the market without a bidding frenzy surrounding it. But that's just me.

WBD's earnings were announced on Friday.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-23/warner-bros-sales-miss-as-tv-advertising-continues-to-fall

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Total subscriber numbers for Max were buried deep in WBD’s earnings announcement for a reason. The growth rate, whether measured sequentially or year over year, was unimpressive for a frame in which Netflix bolted on 13.1 million subscribers. Max’s worldwide subscriber base stood at 97.7 million at the end of last year, up from 96.9 million at the end of 2022. Domestic subscribers stood at 52 million, down from 54.6 million in the year-ago period.

 

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WBD is in the same leaky streaming boat as Disney, Comcast and Paramount Global when it comes to squeezing out a profit from its direct-to-consumer ambitions. The solution for all of them seems to be moving away from the “direct” and “consumer” parts of the equation and back to the B-word: Bundling.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-zaslav-q4-earnings-warning-1235921220/

 

 

Edited by Chopper
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On 2/26/2024 at 6:19 PM, Chopper said:

I dunno man. I'm gonna have to say the fact that Netflix is the only streamer adding new users, that WB Discovery's market value has gone from $130B to $60B in 2 years since the merger, and their subscriber numbers haven't budged since Max debuted has more to do with it than AI. And their studio business has sucked despite a hit like Barbie, and paramount's studio is sitting on the market without a bidding frenzy surrounding it. But that's just me.

WBD's earnings were announced on Friday.  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-23/warner-bros-sales-miss-as-tv-advertising-continues-to-fall

image.thumb.png.d8cb9da73225afea5013438e1590d2a2.png

image.png.99c21585be2811236c974733d946454c.png

 

 

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/warner-bros-discovery-zaslav-q4-earnings-warning-1235921220/

 

 

Read yesterday WBD bailed on their pursuit to acquire Paramount. 

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10 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

Read yesterday WBD bailed on their pursuit to acquire Paramount. 

I’m skeptical it was serious in the first place,  rather it was floated in the press to see how the market would react.  

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Just now, LCHorn said:

I’m skeptical it was serious in the first place,  rather it was floated in the press to see how the market would react.  

Maybe...more broadly M&A is coming back this year, so I figured it could be the puppy crazies from a lot of bankers and bb's looking excited for the thaw and some good weather.

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  • 1 month later...

AI generated movie trailer: 

 

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But the trailer for Next Stop Paris makes even the schlockiest rom-com look like a contender for Best Picture, with hacky dialogue, garbled scenery, and uncanny valley animated leads.

A release notes that the movie used an original script and human voice actors alongside AI animation, and that future projects will use “guild” talent. Hollywood did just endure two strikes over, in part, AI protections for human actors and writers; this probably isn’t what they had in mind.

No one would expect…

… an experimental AI movie to be high caliber, but it’s hard to imagine watching Next Stop Paris for any purpose but ridicule.

But 404 Media points out a grim truth: we’re already swimming in AI crap. Even in this singular instance, 404 found that Google surfaced terrible AI-generated articles written about this likely terrible AI-generated movie ahead of known outlets like Engadget.

 

 

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