Netflix’s $72B WB acquisition confounds the future of movie theaters, streaming
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It'll be interesting to see how they will unwind the exclusive agreements that WB has with pay television operators around the world (in New Zealand where Netflix operates, WB has an exclusive agreement with Sky TV for HBO shows) because from what I can find on the internet the exclusive agreement with Sky TV NZ finishes in 2026. What will also be interesting is how much of the back catalogue they will make available online - hopefully they'll eventually get it all online.
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I was doing some browsing around digital stores over black friday/cyber Monday to see if anything was cheap enough for the lockin. My impression was streaming hates one time purchases based on offerings and poorly designed user library management, so I wouldn't be surprised if that goes away, too.
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This is a shocker, I really thought Paramount would get it. Trump's going after Netflix for sure. He doesn't like seeing his buddies frustrated like this. He has a lot of corrupt levers he could pull.
This may be Netflix's first real blunder. They grew into a behemoth without relying much on the two main things that WBD offers - prestige content and franchises. They churn out a ton of mediocre fodder and people keep subscribing. Every so often, one of their no-name shows becomes a hit. It works. Why change it?
Maybe they are seeing something in their data that suggests they are approaching a cliff and it's time to add those two big missing factors: high quality content and franchises.
Or maybe they're just getting way ahead of themselves. Anyway, this could all end up being reversed, let's see what happens in the approval process.
PS Ted Sarandos is lying when he says he will respect the theatrical business. Pfft no he won't. He'll end up giving movies a two week window. He wants subscribers.
This may be Netflix's first real blunder. They grew into a behemoth without relying much on the two main things that WBD offers - prestige content and franchises. They churn out a ton of mediocre fodder and people keep subscribing. Every so often, one of their no-name shows becomes a hit. It works. Why change it?
Maybe they are seeing something in their data that suggests they are approaching a cliff and it's time to add those two big missing factors: high quality content and franchises.
Or maybe they're just getting way ahead of themselves. Anyway, this could all end up being reversed, let's see what happens in the approval process.
PS Ted Sarandos is lying when he says he will respect the theatrical business. Pfft no he won't. He'll end up giving movies a two week window. He wants subscribers.
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I watch them mostly for the anime. The best live action thing they did was the Marvel series a few years ago. They have some good old British comedy too.,
[I just started watching Future Man (originally a Disney show) and it's good.]
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As someone who hasn’t been to a cinema in years, and am content to wait for shows to come to streaming eventually, remind me why this is a bad thing again?
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The real argument against piracy as a boycott or anything sending a message is because it sends no message. It's a customer they didn't get. You're invisible to them. Instead, they count the customers they do get, the customers who renew, the customers who opt for the competition.
If you want to pirate, fine. But just be aware that you've rendered yourself invisible and don't delude yourself that any of the corporate behemoths are paying attention.
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chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
You pay because you want to support a good product and the people behind it. That's completely separate from the question of whether it's morally acceptable to still partake in a problematic product without supporting it financially. And the confounding factor is that piracy actually avoids most of the technical downsides you're likely to run into as a paying customer, so by declining to pay, you're actually getting a better product.
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Yep, the other studios will have their lobbyists working overtime to deny the deal in Washington. And it will be with the hope that WB will be back up for sale now that a valuation has been set, and they can negotiate a better deal.
But OP is definitely correct in that it will likely have very little to do with actual regulation and more about who has the money to control the regulatory committee from the bidders that lost out.
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That’s not what happened or what he said. Educate yourself.
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Nah, he’s used to getting a new Business Daddy every few years because Business Mommy can’t maintain a long term relationship.
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If you're going to countenance the government cancelling a fucking comedian for "news distortion", then Fox "News" should've been ground into dust decades ago, and outlets like OANN would never exist.
I don't know why you're carrying water for the bullshit, anyway, most of your side hated the cancellation as much as everyone else. But trolls gonna troll, I guess.
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Lets be real if Netflix didnt buy it and regulators it would only be to sell it at a discount to one of the Ellisons. Thats the current climate
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Because not everyone thinks stealing is okay. If you really wanted to watch Futurama you could subscribe to Hulu, watch all of it, and the bonus seasons that Hulu funded as well, paying the creators for their hard work.
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This is a bad take imho. Streaming service sprawl has no consumer benefits whatsoever - they are not competing. They all operate like monopolies for the content they own, which is where the real value lies for the consumer. It's like having to go to 5 different super markets to get the stuff you want each week. Luckily we can choose a supermarket based on the their own strengths and we should be able to do the same for streaming. There will be no real competition on price vs features until content is no longer allowed to be exclusive.
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So, he said exactly what happened? I can see some folks getting upset about that.
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Apple may well have responded following the Mctyere case. When I buy film/tv content the pop-up says:
Which seems functionally equivalent to purchase of digital content on most media. Compared to a DVD which is functional only while I can still access a DVD player, etc. I mean Apple could go under, or stop offering a media player. Certainly films they no longer have rights to sell remain in my library and remain playable (whether I’ve downloaded them or not).
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The 80% of the profit in a two player market fits that definition.
Edit: At least if we use monopoly as a synonym for the Trust in antitrust. Which one is the standard for everybody not protrust
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Then tell me where in that quote he said anything not true.. You are imagining parts there that aren't there.
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Same. Well to be clear I like seeing movies in the theater. I just detest having to do it with everyone else for the reasons described above.
As a compromise I have started buying movie tickets to movies that I am interested in watching but I don't actually go to the screening. I instead wait for being able to see it at home. Did that with Predator Badlands and Tron Ares.
A good step for me returning to theaters in my country would be that they implement something like Yondr.
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There's no scenario that if Netflix had created GoT that they'd cancel it in 2 seasons. Stranger Things has made it to what 5 seasons, with the last season costing 1 billion to make? And Stranger Things is not close to the cultural phenom that GoT was.
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Ah great! Now our leaders just need to fine one company and get some money back. Cheers! (/s)
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I expect this is about access to library content.
If Paramount took over WBD then that leaves only 4 big legacy media companies Netflix can licence library content from that will make it too easy for them to shut Netflix out if they want.
Netflix getting WBD's library solves that while also giving Netflix some very experienced high end TV and film production studios on top.
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Not exactly, Discovery is walking away with the news/other media assets (the "Time" in "Time-Warner"). They're selling for 80b half of what they bought from AT&T for 40b.
Were not TV/Media Discovery's bread-and-butter, CNN, Time and TBS would be a lot more useful for the Ellisons as another lever to yank on the USA's public discourse. But unless Discovery just sells itself to the Ellisons, now I don't expect them to get their hands on CNN. Not that it's needed at all to silence CNN, there are other financial and regulatory ways of turning a news operation into a lapdog.
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Content has always been exclusive, to watch The Simpsons you needed Fox.
If you want a big bundle of streaming channels to replace the big bundle of cable channels make your own bundle of streaming services!
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"Last month, US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote to the DOJ’s antitrust division urging that any WB deal “is grounded in the law, not President Trump’s political favoritism.”
For a moment there, I was very concerned! But now I'm relieved that this was brought to this Administration's attention, so it will be properly scrutinized for sures.
For a moment there, I was very concerned! But now I'm relieved that this was brought to this Administration's attention, so it will be properly scrutinized for sures.
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No it does not. It says maga people like you are eager to pretend this queer adjacent far righter isn't far right. Note how I stated much more than Kimmel ever did. You can argue over my statement but Kimmels is so empty of content arguing against it is a dead give away for biased idiots
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No, no.
It will take a commitment to never hire anyone but white straight males ever again, and for all future shows and movies to be devoid of LGBTQ+ characters, actors, and topics. Except maybe young girls kissing. Cruel Intentions remakes are permitted, for artistic reasons.
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MilanKraft
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
This is just fucking disgusting, no other way to put it. Even for CNN (which became a joke years ago with its focus on talking head idiocy instead of real reporting), this is a direct undermining of journalistic integrity, albeit was the last method of doing so that I expected.
Ted Turner — never exactly a popular fellow himself, but a saint compared to today's tycoons — is rolling in his grave. Way to shit on the man's legacy. And Paramount / CBS / 60 Minutes' coverage of the "gamble on everything" platform the other day, without seriously questioning a single thing about it, as if it were just some amazing new techology that will help us "understand _____ in a different way," and not literally "wisdom of the idiot masses gambling on everything you can think of," was pathetic. And people wonder why I'm such a believer in the misanthropic. Even the people assigned with the responsibility of protecting us by keeping us informed and questioning those in power, are fucking us.
This whole "gamble on everything" moment is truly some next-level, you can't make it up, Hollywood shit. I feel ike I'm a helpless bystander in one of those 80s depictions of the future techno society where nothing makes sense. lol
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No. DVD is an open standard, you can get machines anywhere. Apple is a rent. Miss the rent, lose the stuff. You lose the right to stop supporting Tim Apple if his shenanigans offend you, because you'd lose "your" stuff. That's too much of a switching cost.
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I very much appreciate your participating and balanced input.I believe in paying and supporting content creators. I'm really grateful for all the subscribers we have, you make a difference in our existence. We are not Too Big Too Fail, that's for sure.
What we do depends on the support of our readers. It doesn't exist otherwise.
And yet when I see people postingetc I not only get where they're coming from, but I also wonder at what point is it almost an ethical response?
That said, I think your difficulty is that there's a two-layer aspect to this.
People advocating hoisting that flag are trying to punish the companies they interface with. More, just as CEOs defend consumer-hostile decisions behind their "duty to the shareholders to maximize profits", consumers have a "duty to the public to maximize punishment".
Boycotting merely silently deprives the company of income. There's no difference between someone who doesn't subscribe because they have insufficient disposable income and someone who wants the company to be pressured into not doing consumer-hostile things.
Piracy on the other hand... well... that literally does the same thing as boycotting, fiscally. 1 pirate = 1 non-subscriber. But it's not silent. The company gets to find out statistics like "our content is on a thousand pirate sites" and "our content has been downloaded 16 billion times" and get very upset. They freak out about this "stolen profit", as if those downloads represent paying customers. They're not. Many or most of them are people who would never have subscribed, who don't count in any way. Many or most of them are boycotters who are also sending a message.
That's it. If you're okay with boycotting, piracy is functionally the same.
Except layer two is where the livelihood of content-creators comes in. Granted, pirates aren't taking them into consideration. Neither are boycotters. A content creator suffers from a cancelled subscription in exactly the same degree as when that ex-subscriber then downloads the content. EXCEPT... pirates also consume the content and discuss it. It's literally free advertisement, good or bad. The people paying the content-creators have the exact same income as if the pirates were boycotters. Only their art is witnessed by more people. Which - if they are good at their job - is a net positive.
I humbly submit that in the case of protesting corporate decisions, piracy is not only a morally acceptable approach, but it is the best approach.
The inception of Steam alone has demonstrated that those who can pay for content do, barring things like excessive DRM, advertisement, absurd pricing, or... bad corporate actions.
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Add me to the list of people that have not been to the cinema in years to watch a movie.
I think the last time was one of the Star Wars movies about six or seven years ago.
The ticket costs are outrageous, by the time my little family buys tickets, overpriced and underwhelming popcorn, a sugary drink and maybe some chocolate, were were in for about £60-80, assuming we wanted a seat where we could see the screen without doing lasting neck damage.
and even then, despite wearing hearing aids, the fucking dialogue track is near always tucked way at the back of the sound stage. So I struggle.
I'm happy to buy or rent or plain what for streaming for the majority of movies.
I've long stopped buying physical media and apart from a USB version, we no no longer own a Blu-ray player.
I get a big green (100 inches), a big sound system - Atmos, decent popcorn and alcohol and... subtitles !
oh and control of the sound stage - lift that dialogue out of the gutter....
I think the last time was one of the Star Wars movies about six or seven years ago.
The ticket costs are outrageous, by the time my little family buys tickets, overpriced and underwhelming popcorn, a sugary drink and maybe some chocolate, were were in for about £60-80, assuming we wanted a seat where we could see the screen without doing lasting neck damage.
and even then, despite wearing hearing aids, the fucking dialogue track is near always tucked way at the back of the sound stage. So I struggle.
I'm happy to buy or rent or plain what for streaming for the majority of movies.
I've long stopped buying physical media and apart from a USB version, we no no longer own a Blu-ray player.
I get a big green (100 inches), a big sound system - Atmos, decent popcorn and alcohol and... subtitles !
oh and control of the sound stage - lift that dialogue out of the gutter....
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