Netflix’s $72B WB acquisition confounds the future of movie theaters, streaming
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I also don't go to theaters much, although we've avoided high ticket costs for years by frequenting weekend matinees, which are usually half or less than prime time weekday tickets. And by not buying overpriced snacks. Frankly, there's little difference between most of today's rapidly shrinking theaters and my own living room equipped with just a moderately decent television and sound system. And while a theatrical release might have been your only chance to see a movie years ago, with years until it reached broadcast television, now films hit theaters and show up on streaming services within just a very few weeks - sometimes as little as two.
One exception: we recently saw Wicked: For Good at an IMAX theater, with laser projection and specialty sound, and it was...freakishly awesome. Much, much better visually and aurally than anything I can hope to replicate at home. It was my first experience with IMAX, and I can see why it's so popular - it's because it's really, really GOOD, and more like what a theater release ought to be.
But theaters and audiences are locked in a rapidly worsening death spiral, with living room entertainment constantly improving and theaters rapidly devolving into somewhat oversize living rooms, there's little reason for most to see anything in theater when they can wait a short time and see it at home, complete with pausable pee breaks.
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Netflix sent email to me as a subscriber on Friday 5 December announcing the acquisition, subject to regulatory approval. Any bets?
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Stealing is a crime you can be arrested and go to jail for. Torrenting isn't.
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lol ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the last person on earth who cares about Charlie fucking Kirk.
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Depends. The technology of torrenting isn't illegal, but if you use it to steal copyrighted materials you're as much a thief as otherwise.
Bricks aren't illegal, but using one to smash a window and burglarize a house isn't going to make you less guilty in front of a judge.
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That's... not at all the same thing. Insinuating that assassin X has certain political affiliations which might coincide with certain other people is very different from insinuating that victim Y is a fraud.
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I agree with everything you say, but don't forget Netflix also pivoted to showing foreign media. In my opinion, it was something that legacy media was completely uninterested in. That you could license quality shows and Americans would watch them (despite, gasp, not being in English) seemed to surprise them.
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An interesting regulatory alternative... prohibit streaming services from being content owners and vice versa. The idea would be to structure a market where streaming services would license content and offer different bundles.
I consider this analogous to another regulatory structure I'd like to see, prohibit ISPs from offering services over their network connections. Again, this would prevent the infrastructure owners or content owners from controlling too much.
I consider this analogous to another regulatory structure I'd like to see, prohibit ISPs from offering services over their network connections. Again, this would prevent the infrastructure owners or content owners from controlling too much.
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Dude, I don't give a shit. I don't follow American politics if I can help it. I was just pointing out that your comparison was bunk.
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You definitely go to different theaters than I do. Since Covid restrictions ended, there is almost nobody there. The last two movies my wife and I saw, it was the two of us and three other people in the entire theater. In the last year, we've been the only two there once, and less than 15 people every single time. Very seldom see a child there and definitely nobody with phones out. I've been wondering for a few years now when the theaters are going to close since they cannot be making money from what we've been seeing. They have cut staff a lot to try to compensate; often there is not even a person checking tickets at the door. They also put in these silly ordering kiosk things that you have to use instead of ordering from a person. But all of that doesn't seem to be enough savings for them to stay afloat.
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I’m gonna be a bit of a contrarian here and say that Netflix taking over WB is far preferable to Skydance Paramount. SP is going full censorship/facist (a monitor to ensure no liberal “bias”, Erica Kirk specials, etc). I don’t THINK Netflix has kissed the ring and paid a bribe to the chief Cheeto, or offered to fund his ugly ballroom (yet, at least).
And for all that is holy, please let Zaslav become unemployed. He presided over the complete enshitification of Discovery.
And for all that is holy, please let Zaslav become unemployed. He presided over the complete enshitification of Discovery.
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They did not, he did not, and his monologue when he came back was one of the best public speeches I've heard in quite a while. I couldn't care less what "some folks" think.
It really doesn't matter, he could have said exactly what you claim he did and the reaction would still have been utterly inappropriate.
Comedians doing monologues on late night TV are not bound by some bizarre truth commission bullshit. That is not how free speech works.
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Yeah, I really think you're helping me articulate some feelings.
It's tough. Because measuring success on some level means hurting these companies. Reducing profits. Which trickles down to creators, layoffs etc.
But what's the alternative? Just keep being safe, keeping the status quo, and watching everything keep consolidating?
I find my compromises. I pay for YouTube Premium even though I'm trying to get less Google in my life. It's the best way I can support a broad range of content that's meaningful to me.
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If they were previously confirmed crisis actors that only recently got at odds with the other crisis actors over their new love. Sure. And your statement is still a lot stronger than what Kimmel said, which would be more like "The Left is frantical to distance these kids from any accusations of being crisis actors",
edit: and several if prominent Left wing politicians had come out during the last 24 hours unprompted and for no apparent reason directly said "These kids are NOT crisis actors, they are obviously anti-crisis actors".. providing no evidence.. Then, then you might be on the parallel setup with the same joke reversed
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I agree. Netflix is bad, but the Ellisons are a lot more bad. Given that it's up for sale in the first place, Netflix isn't exactly an exciting choice for new owner, but it's better than the alternative. Unless some third party White Knights in and purchases it with the intent of maintaining it as a standalone third alternative, which seems very unlikely.
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Actually, they are. They aren't owned by a Trump crony. I figure there's very little chance this goes through.
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Netflix currently relies on a variety of external production studios to produce their original content. With this acquisition of the Studios & Streaming division of WBD, Netflix will own established in-house studios, which should be good for both cost structure and consistency of production quality.
Additionally, Netflix licenses the majority of the content that appears on its platform. Purchasing a swath of popular content gives them clear cost savings: one-time finite costs, amortized over a fixed number of years and gradually approaching zero marginal cost, vs periodic license renewals.
If approved, this deal is absolutely NOT a blunder by Netflix.
I don't think he is lying, he said he would respect existing theatrical commitments—which run through 2029. Long term I agree that he will give movies much more finite exclusivity windows, but I also see Netflix being willing to have movies in theaters and available on streaming simultaneously, even if only as an experiment.
Some movies are "event" films, and the theatrical experience can exceed what 99% of the subscriber base can replicate at home. For instance, Top Gun Maverick had these wraparound dogfight scenes where images were also projected onto the sides of the theater. Virtually nobody is recreating that at home, and movies with that sort of spectacle element could continue to see strong box office numbers even while being available to stream at home.
Anyway, I think this is a cool deal and I look forward to its approval and execution.
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Pretty much the entirety
Netflix effectively killing the theater industry and calling it progress is like putting an oil rig on a beach and killing tourism and calling it progress. In this specific case only the government can stop this madness.
It's not hyperbole to say that this will affect the quality of life of the entire western world. It certainly will affect mine because I go to the movies a lot.
Netflix effectively killing the theater industry and calling it progress is like putting an oil rig on a beach and killing tourism and calling it progress. In this specific case only the government can stop this madness.
It's not hyperbole to say that this will affect the quality of life of the entire western world. It certainly will affect mine because I go to the movies a lot.
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Warner Bros has been a distressed asset for nearly 30 years ever since they were acquired by AOL back in the 90's in what is widely regarded as one of the worst, most misguided deals of the 20th century.
They have a ton of debt and have been bought and sold multiple times since then. The current owners only bought them in the hopes of flipping them a few years later. This is the culmination of that.
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Ahh yes, and while I do follow US politics a little, before the nasty dude in question was shot I hadn’t actually heard of him.
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It's possible but I don't think they or anyone eslse can believe that shit about Jimmy Kimmel is objective truth.
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I think the durability/security of physical media is overstated in these comparisons. You can get H.265 players 'anywhere' too. Disc players are getting thin on the ground these days, and will inevitably go the way of the VCR and be quite hard to get, and to fix.
'Tim Apple' is well past its use-by date. I haven't abrogated any rights however. 'Rent' isn't exact, any files I download don't go anywhere if I stop paying. I replied to that post because the idea that Apple arbitrarily/capriciously blocks access to 'purchased' files in cases where their license to sell same expires is incorrect. In the unlikely (but for arguments sake) event I no longer want to use Apple devices or platform, DRM would be the issue to resolve.
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Disc players are not hard to get at all. You can get an external DVD/CD RW from Best Buy for $40. Disc players may soon be hard to get, but heck my local library has a very healthy collection of DVDs, with recent titles too. Someone must be checking them out, and more than just me.
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Ha! I must have posted that without realising. After writing it I thought, ok not really on topic or important to argue. I'm not against DVDs at all, I still have a stack of them. I don't actually have a working player, but that's why I'm aware there aren't so many on offer. Also, I don't want a tacky one.
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The only service I pay for now and probably ever will from now is dropout TV. An independent company that cares more about what they produce than the money they can extract.
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"DVDs are fine actually" definitely isn't a popular position to have an a technology forum, but it's the hill I choose to die on. And like I say, clearly I'm not the only person to think so, because my local library would not have a growing / up-to-date collection if it didn't matter to patrons.
I'll also take this opportunity to plug Kanopy, a streaming service that partners with libraries so that you can stream some content for free (you get a certain number of "tickets" to watch shows or movies per month).
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Well of course, no one can forever seal away the eldritch beings of yacko, wacko, and dot. The WB tower can only hold for so long every time
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This is the correct answer really. By funding or getting exclusive deals for their own stuff, streamers become monopolists on (Stranger Things | The Rings of Power | Harry Potter | Bluey) and it incentivizes further monopolism.
If you forcibly divided the content library providers from the providers of the streaming experience (and banned exclusive deals), then the streamers would have to compete on their app/connectivity/compatibility experience, and the content library providers (LucasContent: Home of Star Wars! PixarContent: License Toy Story here!) would have to compete on providing quality entertainment.
It's not a particularly novel approach to markets - banks, investment providers, market-makers, and other financial systems are all quite finely divided to prevent monopolism and conflict of interests. Even in the entertainment industry, theatre owners have generally been prevented from also being studios for decades.
And of course, mergers between two solvent entities should be banned. If WB went bankrupt, sure, let someone buy the corpse as that's not a reduction in competition. But this is strictly a reduction in competition and thus a hit against people interested in their product.
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By the time the product gets to the consumer, everyone I care about has already gotten paid. They aren't going to the crew and taking back their pay when some executive decides to cancel a finished product. So someone bootlegging a Blue ray or downloading a torrrent is not hurting those people. At that point it's a service issue.
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From here. Growing box office totals while the number of tickets sold decline means that the mean ticket price is increasing. But, yeah, it's Netflix that is "effectively killing the theater industry."
One of the problems of media analysis is the assumption that consumer behavior will remain fixed despite a changing distribution reality. The theatrical presentation business did not always exist; the theatrical presentation business will not always exist. (Similarly, the sale of recorded music has not always been a business, and the sale of recorded music will not always be a business—or at least not a significant business.)
What actually killed the theater industry was the broad availability of cheap high-definition televisions and decent at least stereo audio. DVD was the first high-definition "on-demand" content delivery method, on Netflix's original business model was based on it, but there's a reason they didn't call the company DVDsByMail. Most consumers can create an acceptable substitute for the in-theater experience for a fraction of the total cost, when amortized over the life of the equipment, and connect it to a few all-you-can-stream subscription services. Netflix is infinitely better positioned for this reality than, say, Cinemark or Regal.
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There's such a thing as residuals, but whatever you need to tell yourself to rationalize taking it...
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Well, there's at least one or two years of inflation before we get quite to THAT point!
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Your own post debunks your theory. Your chart clearly shows all time highs immediately before covid and all time lows immediately after. Home theaters didn't all of a sudden get vastly better.
Media companies went all in on streaming because theaters were closed and Netflix was taking over as the only major streaming game in town. Now they are making a move to put a stake through the heart the theater going experience leaving only home video of witch they already own the lions share of. Its an end game type of move that will be bad for everybody not immediately associated with Netflix or Netflix stock.
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Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
I don't get residuals from the content I created at past jobs even though that content is still used. Just because something exists doesn't mean it should.
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You re leaving out a metric ton of context here. None of those companies were media companies and they had no idea what they were getting into or how the business worked. Its not a coincidence that Discovery is making out like bandits. It is because they were a media company and already had experience in the field.
I really don't think people quite understand how bad this deal is. Or maybe people are so disillusioned that they can't even bother to care anymore at this point.
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