[HN Gopher] What AMC's streaming troubles say about the greater ...
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What AMC's streaming troubles say about the greater TV industry
Author : lxm
Score : 58 points
Date : 2022-12-18 22:46 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| perardi wrote:
| I wonder how much the end of syndicated reruns has hit revenues
| all across the TV industry.
|
| If you were a network TV affiliate, you had your Simpson's hour,
| your Friends hour, your...ugh I guess King of Queen's hour...you
| had all this good content (for some value of good) that was
| seemingly syndicated at reasonable rates, and then you could lard
| up with ads. And then not just for conventional TV--how much of
| Netflix was Office back catalog?
|
| But now, the reruns live in their corporate streaming silos. If
| you are a streaming service, you have to have your own content,
| and if you're what remains of a conventional TV channel, you're
| seemingly coasting on cheap-as-hell talk shows.
| ghaff wrote:
| Of course, syndication also provided cheap airtime on TV
| channels for all the people who turned on the TV as background
| or who wanted to mindlessly channel surf. There's no reason to
| assume that will always be a common behavior and, even if it
| is, it seems more common on YouTube etc. than streaming
| television.
|
| One also wonders about the value of the film back catalogs some
| services are acquiring. My sense is certainly that a lot of
| movie watching at home has shifted to TV and other things.
| citilife wrote:
| I actually was interested recently in getting AMC+; mostly
| because I wanted to watch older movies with my children.
|
| Unfortunately, most of that isn't available on AMC+, so what's
| the point?
|
| I'd pay good money for access to movies pre-2000, plus a decent
| series or two that are exclusive, which IMO should be cheaper to
| obtain.
| ghaff wrote:
| For older movies, you might consider getting a Netflix DVD
| subscription though they've let their back catalog deteriorate.
| (Your library is probably also a good source.) You can also
| just digitally rent a la carte on Amazon or Apple. By and
| large, the streaming services have never been great for finding
| a specific film.
| wirthjason wrote:
| AMC+, which costs $8.99 a month for a subscription, does not run
| ads.
|
| How many of these are there going to be? I don't want a $200
| cable bill but I also don't want dozens of subscriptions. I'll
| subscribe to a few streaming services (eg Disney+ which my
| daughter watches) but outside of that I just don't care. I also
| don't have the time for stuff on the fringe.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > How many of these are there going to be?
|
| They're really killing their golden goose by trying to launch
| all these streaming services rather than agreeing to some sort
| of profit-sharing agreement with Netflix like they were doing
| when it first came out. These movies have no value to anybody
| if nobody's paying to watch them and if every studio hides them
| behind yet another $10/month streaming service that nobody is
| signing up for, they're going to go bankrupt. Streaming is how
| we consume entertainment now, and that's not changing - but
| every movie studio launching their own streaming service would
| be like every movie studio lanuching their own video rental
| company in the 90's.
| bloggie wrote:
| I don't know what the future here holds, but I agree
| completely and this is why I think it was a poor choice long-
| term for Netflix to become a production company. Their model
| was wholesaling content, first via mail and later over the
| Internet. Now that Netflix produces content, other studios
| wishing to stream content on Netflix are also in competition
| with Netflix content on Netflix's own platform. The advantage
| of a neutral arbiter -over the debate of what to watch - is
| gone.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Imv, the only profitable option for dedicated streamers/content
| companies (Eg those whose only source of income is their
| streaming/media content) will be to ditch monthly subs and
| implement a pay per show, even perhaps a rent-the-episode
| approach (perhaps 99 cents?). This would probably drive up piracy
| even more but I don't see what other option streamers such as AMC
| have..
|
| Another issue though is that AMC should never have tried to
| handle the infra/app component of the streaming themselves. They
| should have stuck with just an agreement with Amazon or Hulu
| (much like FX has) for the infra/tech side, and then they can
| stick their focus purely on content.
| macintux wrote:
| iTunes formerly allowed TV shows to be rented per-episode.
| Would be interesting to find out why they stopped doing so.
| preston4tw wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Z2FKB
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| AMC's flagship show ( _Better Call Saul_ ) isn't currently
| available on their streaming service.
|
| Personally, I'm happy to sign up for a streaming service to get
| access to a single show (I do often cancel once I'm done, so I'm
| not signed up to everything all the time).
|
| There's only one show I've pirated recently: Better Call Saul. If
| it were on AMC+, I'd be a subscriber.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Better Call Saul is available on ~15 different services
| including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and AppleTV+.
| It would never have occurred to me that I should watch it on a
| separate AMC service.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The last season isn't on Netflix or any of the other services
| you listed though. Personally, I suspect that's because that
| last season was GoT season 8-tier terrible and they're trying
| to get as many new fans to watch the older seasons before the
| masses recognize that the show is dead.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's interesting. It _is_ on Amazon though.
| dlbucci wrote:
| > that last season was GoT season 8-tier terrible
|
| Uh, were we watching the same show? I thought it was an
| amazing finish to 11 seasons of Albuquerque and meth-based
| fun, and so did critics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bett
| er_Call_Saul_(season_6)#Re...
|
| > before the masses recognize that the show is dead.
|
| I mean, that was the final season, so I think most people
| are aware that the show won't be continuing...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > before the masses recognize that the show is dead.
|
| It was widely publicized that the most recent season of
| Better Call Saul was the end of the series.
|
| I also disagree it was anywhere near as bad as GoT ending,
| or bad at all.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I don't remember when, but at some point I tried to watch the
| then-most recent season and it didn't seem to be available
| anywhere legally.
|
| Now, there are some places you can watch it, but AMC isn't
| one of them.
|
| I also checked another flagship AMC show, The Walking Dead.
| Not as critically acclaimed, but huge ratings. You can watch
| only season 11 on the AMC+ service.
|
| Netflix has old seasons of both Breaking Bad and The Walking
| Dead. I'd hope AMC is getting paid handsomely by Netflix for
| the rights to older seasons of these, and that may be the
| right move f financially. But selling the crown jewels seems
| incompatible with running their own successful AMC+. I recall
| reading that Netflix found that the releasing first two
| seasons of a good show helps subscriber growth, then the
| benefit of additional seasons drops off (and costs increase).
| From that perspective, AMC's apparent strategy of only
| hosting limited runs of recent episodes of their most
| bingeable is a doomed strategy.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It would not have occurred to me to watch Better Call Saul
| via a middleman when the technology to obviate them has been
| widespread for more than a decade.
| maxsilver wrote:
| AMC's streaming troubles don't seem related to the greater TV
| industry, so much as AMC-specifically is fumbling a bunch.
|
| Streaming seems to be working great, _if_ you invest in decent
| originals that subscribers like, regularly, with realistic-but-
| modest budgets, and sell that at a cheap predictable
| subscription. (It 's working out great for Paramount+, it _was_
| working pretty well for HBO before Discovery decided to kill off
| all of Warner Brothers)
|
| But like, AMC doesn't seem to be doing much of that. If you love
| the "Walking Dead Universe", yeah, AMC's gotcha covered. For
| anyone else, there just isn't much here.
|
| The last time I heard of an interesting AMC show I personally
| wanted to watch, was "Dispatches from Elsewhere" back in 2020
| (and at that time, you weren't even _allowed_ to pay them money
| to watch it, you had to buy a whole cable package)
|
| ---
|
| Streaming isn't struggling, it's just _competitive_. You can 't
| expect to execute poorly, fumble your way through and still
| magically make a lot of money.
| scotcha1 wrote:
| Streaming is extremely competitive, and may really only work
| best for a certain group according to the former CEO of Hulu:
|
| "I believe there will be multiple business casualties in the
| paid streaming wars and a few (3) business victors. The
| companies that get to the other side of the river will earn 300
| million global subscribers at an average of $15 of revenue per
| month between advertising + sub fees. The 3 companies that get
| to scale are each likely to generate $10B/yr in cash flow from
| their streaming services, far greater than what most
| entertainment companies have ever generated per year. For these
| precious few, the considerable streaming investment will be
| _well_ worth it "
|
| https://twitter.com/jasonkilar/status/1600053919907880961
| hef19898 wrote:
| AMC seems to be cursed be cursed by the success of TWD and
| related shows. Simply, becasue they became lazy and rested on
| that success, at least that is my impression. That TWD ran into
| similar problems like GoT didn't help neither.
| TylerE wrote:
| Plus by far it's two most desirable properties are locked into
| Netflix (Breaking Bad and Bwttwr Call Saul)
| maxsilver wrote:
| That's hilarious -- I didn't even realize Breaking Bad /
| Better Call Saul were AMC shows, since AMC+ isn't advertising
| them on their own streaming site (presumably because they
| sold the streaming rights away?)
|
| But yeah, exhibit A in "don't execute poorly" -- maybe don't
| give away your most popular show to your biggest streaming
| competitor.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Yeah here in my country Breaking Bad was always a Netflix
| show.
|
| Which also explains why Netflix still has the international
| market. They have years of mind share.
| theklr wrote:
| AMC didn't own the shows. They were both Lionsgate and Sony
| Pictures respectively. They overcorrected with TWD and
| haven't marketed a single show since effectively.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. I'll pay a la carte for a show I want to watch--but I
| suspect not enough. And all-you-can eat subscription streaming
| has become so established that I'm pretty sure a _lot_ of
| people don 't even consider an a la carte rental or purchase as
| something to even consider; it's pirate or just watch something
| on the streaming services they have.
| vogt wrote:
| Could not agree more, AMC+ is an absolute trash fire mess of an
| app. It is decidedly not competitive in every way. I bought all
| of better call Saul through Amazon video in order to avoid
| interacting with the AMC+ app.
| teeray wrote:
| Nobody cares about the network--they only care about the shows.
| If Breaking Bad were airing today as an AMC+ exclusive, they
| would have no problem with subscribers.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This is exactly it, but executives keep thinking they can make
| streaming into cable, because cable worked for them:
|
| "But that is not enough to solve a bigger problem: The money
| that the company makes from its streaming business, including
| AMC+, is not making up for the loss of revenue from its
| traditional cable channels, as people abandon their cable
| subscriptions and advertisers pull back on spending."
|
| Naturally, the solution is to spread IP even thinner, license
| more Walking Dead merchandise, new spinoffs, games and whatnot
| and, clearly, not trying to create a digital library with other
| IP holders so that customers can have access to everything they
| want. Gate keeping is that important.
|
| << Nobody cares about the network--they only care about the
| shows.
|
| I will add one more thing here, because some executives seem to
| miss this point. I did enjoy Breaking Bad and their other
| shows, but I can easily live without them. It is not a
| necessity. I might care about their shows, but there is a limit
| to the amount of hoops I will jump through. The cable days are
| over. I am not going back to ad infested and ad interruptions (
| my wife might ). I am an adult.. and I do have other
| entertainment choices ( and failing that, numerous obligations
| my entertainment choices prevent me from completing ).
| subpixel wrote:
| If you ask the average person under 50 what network produced
| a list of hit shows from the last decade, you'd get some
| correct HBO answers and a whole lot of blank stares.
|
| In the heyday of the Pirate Bay that was where you got shows.
| Today I'm a Google search away from illicit streams. This is
| how it should be when the alternative is 500 subscriptions,
| to put a twist on the famous 500 channels quote describing
| the attractive future of cable tv.
| gcanyon wrote:
| There's only room for so many streaming services. Sample size of
| one, but I literally don't know anything that's on Shudder, and
| AMC+ I can name The Walking Dead, which I gave up on after the
| first season; and apparently the Ann Rice-iverse? I've read a few
| of her books, and saw Interview with a Vampire 30(?) years ago?
| That's not compelling.
| zeruch wrote:
| Is this an AMC problem, or just that every player now wants a
| streaming service and people accustomed to bundled TV options
| (and I count Netflix as that for argument) are now exhausted at
| the prospect of endless streaming services to subscribe to.
| rcarr wrote:
| I'm thinking of keeping my subscriptions for my family but
| personally trying to do a whole year of no films and tv, just
| books. Wouldn't be able to escape YouTube because I need it to
| learn things, but I'm interested to see:
|
| - If I can achieve more with the extra time
|
| - If my memory and concentration improves from less screen time
| CabSauce wrote:
| Okay. Thanks for keeping us informed of your plans.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| The article is pretty light on AMC's mis-steps. Just as an
| example, The Walking Dead:
|
| First they let go of Frank Darabont who probably could have used
| a chill pill and a secretary between him and Outlook, not firing.
| Then they started wild deviations from a much-beloved series (I
| even bought my mother the huge printed tomes, she loved the
| show), and more and more decisions to milk it and send it off the
| rails at the same time. Show should have ended some time back,
| and spinoffs _why?_
|
| They really hamstrung Shudder. About their only smart move with
| Shudder is having Joe Bob Briggs on. Shudder's horror catalog is
| only about two or three times the size of what you can get on
| Netflix. I haven't done a really heavy analysis of overlaps, but
| Tubi has a shocking amount of stuff Shudder has on. But sure,
| let's fire a lot of good people at Shudder instead of working on
| picking up some good stuff to watch.
|
| Three months, ten million dollar severance. Nice work if you can
| get it, I suppose, but budget-wise ...
|
| They absolutely need to have one overarching team working on all
| of their apps, because various apps they own fumble differently
| on different devices. That's a lot of duplicated effort when it
| could be shared.
|
| Then there's Interview with the Vampire. Everything I have read
| suggests that it has a bad case of "I Need to Put My Stamp on
| This" from one or more _creatives_ , starting with the cast.
| Claudia has been aged-up, again, which more than a little negates
| the whole purpose behind the character, and Daniel ... I don't
| even know what to say. I like Bogosian but he isn't the guy for
| the part by a few decades.
|
| AMC needs to get _tight_ and _smart_.
| TylerE wrote:
| They've screwed up and spread to thin, such a pain as a user.
|
| Prime Video used to be better but now their're siloing super hard
| too.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| They have had some good shows, but I can buy entire seasons on
| Amazon Prime. I suppose they could shut that channel off or delay
| it, but that would _not_ make me subscribe to AMC+. Rather, I 'd
| just do without, or wait until the end of the season.
| msoad wrote:
| It's not a mystery. Attention is moving on from TV to phones. I
| personally spend more minutes on Instagram Reels than watching
| actual TV content. Most of TV shows are boring and filled with
| uneventful minutes. I'm in my mid 30s. Probably much worse for
| younger folks.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I will admit that this is news to me, but I don't have that
| many friends with Instagram ( and I suppose that means my
| social circle is pretty narrow ). Aren't those so short you
| basically just make an animated gif equivalent?
|
| Is it just the question of advertisers going where eyeballs
| are?
| ghaff wrote:
| Viewing habits can switch. I don't watch YouTube a lot and
| don't even have a TikTok account. But a fair bit of my fairly
| light video watching (maybe 8 hours a week or so) has switched
| from movies to streaming TV.
| Semaphor wrote:
| 8 hours a week doesn't even seem that light. We certainly
| have weeks (well, I. My wife loves YouTube) with fewer hours
| watched.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's assuming I'm at home and aren't going somewhere on
| evenings or weekends. That's probably more like a max than
| average.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There is truth to this, but if it was fully true than Quibi
| would've taken off.
| P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote:
| I've been slowly making my way through the Walking Dead season
| 10 on Netflix.
|
| I legitimately will skip probably 60-70% of the episodes.
| They'll seriously skip from one scene of super-slow angsty
| bullshit to another scene with other characters involved in
| super-slow angsty bullshit.
|
| I watch just enough to get the point and then skip the next
| 5-10 minutes until the next scene shows up, at which point I'll
| watch just enough to get the point ... ad nauseum.
|
| ----
|
| It doesn't have to be like this, but JFC I'm not interested in
| someone spending 10 minutes expressing what a normal human
| being would express in 1 because the producer thinks slowing
| their speech patterns down to .0001x is somehow more dramatic.
|
| I cannot wait for this trend to pass because it's absolutely
| not just the walking dead.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| This is ridiculous. The correct way to handle this is to put
| the boring TV show on, play Pokemon on your Switch, have your
| phone there for chat and looking up stuff about your game and
| doomscrolling-breaks, and only pay full attention to the TV at
| most 5% of the time.
| diydsp wrote:
| ya mean to say TV is going the way of music? that is t say,
| it's becoming an adjunct source of perceptible data to fill
| in those small potential gaps where we might unwillingly
| brush up against the desert of the real?
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people have always liked to turn the TV on as
| background. If anything I would think that would be less
| common today if you don't have live TV. Personally, it
| drives me crazy. Back when I would sometimes have a shared
| hotel room on a group trip, something that would drive me
| crazy was the person who, first thing upon entering the
| room, would be to head straight for the TV and turn in on.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Oh, it's been that since at least the 80s. It's just that
| now the other things we do during it are also on screens.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| I spend alot of time on youtube and tiktok throughout the day
| and I'm in my early 40s. Its not til after 8 or 9pm that I will
| flip to streaming. Contrast that with my youth, where TV was
| playing constantly.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I'm in my early 50s, and I honestly spend about 60% of my
| video-watching on YouTube, 15% on IG and TikTok, and 25% spread
| among Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, Prime, etc. I really
| should start being a serial canceller.
| knaik94 wrote:
| AMC alone doesn't say much about the greater TV industry since
| people have loyalty to specific shows and not the channel.
| Breaking Bad didn't become popular while airing, it became
| popular because it released on Netflix. Cable channels have
| outlived their purpose. Emulating cable channels by partitioning
| shows into streaming services is pushing people back to piracy.
|
| The traditional TV industry is continuing to fail to adapt to the
| different way in which people watch content. Youtube demonstrates
| really well how people are no longer loyal to a network, they are
| loyal to a creator or topic. There have been certain groups of
| channels that sort of remind me of an old school TV channel, like
| MatPat and his youtube channels Game Theorists, Film Theorists,
| and Food Theorists could have been a TV channel in combination
| with some other video game or theory crafting channels but people
| don't search by a bigger topic. People find content based on
| recommendations, either algorithmic or popular things watched by
| friends. Netflix Originals and Amazon Originals seem better, but
| I can't understand the metrics Netflix uses when deciding what to
| cancel.
|
| As someone who has shifted to online media as the main form of
| content I watch, I can't tell you what makes a cartoon network
| show a cartoon network show. I know because of the logos between
| shows and during ads, but I struggle to find a strong underlying
| identity.
|
| The easier access to international media has also caused an
| oversaturation of available good media. I no longer need to worry
| about what part of the world a show is made in, if it's popular
| enough, you'll be able to find it sailing the seas. HBO Max, the
| supposed online equivalent to the cable channel HBO will drop
| Westworld from its online catalog. Some fantastic Disney+ Marvel
| shows, like the critically acclaimed Loki, have no announced
| plans of getting a physical release and Loki released back in Jun
| 2021. When a TV show enthusiast sees those two pieces of news
| back to back, a normal conclusion is that the only "sure" way to
| own shows is piracy.
| cooperadymas wrote:
| This is the problem.
|
| * Amazon Prime
|
| * Disney+
|
| * HBO Max
|
| * Netflix
|
| * Hulu
|
| * Paramount+
|
| * Peacock
|
| * AMC+
|
| * Apple TV+
|
| * ESPN+
|
| * Shudder
|
| * Sundance Now
|
| * Youtube TV
|
| * Tubi
|
| * Crackle
|
| * Roku Channel
|
| * Discovery+
|
| Want to watch the old Newhart show? Even with all these options,
| you're out of luck. Try your library. Streaming is a nightmare.
|
| Want to watch every game your favorite NFL team plays this season
| but you're not in their broadcast area? Try to suss out this
| mess.
|
| https://www.nfl.com/ways-to-watch/
| fleddr wrote:
| I'm frankly annoyed that so many people call this a problem.
| Sure, I understand the surface level inconvenience of this
| fragmentation, but I think we're getting a little spoiled here.
|
| Dial back all these streaming services and you'd have less
| content back then. And virtually no say in what to watch when,
| plus shitty ads. To watch anything specific, you'd have to go
| to the movies or go for a rental.
|
| Now you have a huge amount of freedom of choice, with no ads,
| much more convenience, at fairly reasonable prices. The
| exceptions you mentioned are just that, exceptions. So that's
| my first point, we seem to be perpetually unhappy, no matter
| how rich an offering is.
|
| Second, I consider this semi-fragmented landscape a solution,
| it's healthy. Services are fiercely competing with each other
| for your eye balls. That means they're in a race to produce
| good content and it suppresses prices. This is actually
| happening. When Netflix dominated, they had advanced plans for
| major price hikes. The arrival of Disney+ stopped this in its
| tracks. Do you really want this industry to be consolidated
| into 1-2 players? With a price monopoly? With producers being
| squeezed, creatively constrained? Just so you have to press one
| less button?
|
| Third, the idea that you could combine the production value of
| hundreds of billions of $ worth of material into a single
| affordable streaming service for the masses is a delusion. The
| math simply doesn't add up.
|
| Fourth, most people just vegetate after work for an hour or
| two. They need something watchable. They don't need 17
| subscriptions, it's not a common need.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I also do not understand why people complain about having the
| choice to not pay for things they do not want to watch.
|
| I can turn on the TV, press the microphone button, say the
| name of the media I want to watch, and usually a screen pops
| up letting me know if I have already paid for it, and if not,
| how much it will cost. And a couple buttons later, I can be
| watching it, or doing something else with my time.
|
| Much more convenient than watching media in the 1990s and
| 2000s.
| fleddr wrote:
| Exactly. I think the unrealistic expectation regarding
| media accessibility comes from many places but one I want
| to explicitly mention: torrents.
|
| I'm from the Netherlands where for about 20 years, it
| wasn't even illegal (today it is). We'd pay a "media tax"
| on empty discs (like 0.10$) and this would clear you to
| make "home copies". Of anything, without paying for the
| original.
|
| Anyway, this legal anomaly has created a culture where
| media that costs a shit ton to produce (movies, series) is
| valued at: nothing. zero. Not by some dark tech-savvy
| internet lord, it's valued at zero by society as whole.
| People are even proud to showcase the many ways in which
| they dodge paying for content.
|
| Now people project this learned behavior (have it all for
| near-zero costs) on the entire streaming market.
| DJBunnies wrote:
| I struggle in valuing anything that can be infinitely
| copied and resold at more than zero.
|
| I'm not saying content producers shouldn't be paid, but
| art should be for everybody.
| no_wizard wrote:
| I think what everyone wanted and briefly had, was a few
| streaming services for basically all content, without ads.
|
| Before the more recent Cambrian explosion, it was just
| Netflix, HBO (via HBO Now), Hulu, and Showtime. Yes, there
| are some smaller players too, but these were the big ones.
|
| Everything else was licensed out (typically to Netflix) and
| in some instances was perhaps only available on cable.
| People got alot of content for sub 60 USD, for the most
| part.
|
| Then everyone started clawing back their catalogues for
| their own streaming services. I think the 2017-2019 period
| was the "golden age" of Netflix streaming in terms of sheer
| good content availability, and people really liked it.
|
| At least Apple TV+ is original content and not re-selling
| the rights that used to be on a different platform. They're
| a genuinely new entrant into the space.
| fleddr wrote:
| Netflix had a good run. Massive investments in content,
| no competition, maximizing the network effect by
| tolerating the sharing of accounts, real "growth
| hacking". But we all know what happens next in such
| trajectories: the squeeze. They were about the cash in on
| their market dominance.
|
| Competition stopped that. You should be happy about it. I
| know I am. Let the explosion happen, let them compete for
| our money. The minor inconvenience of occasionally
| jumping in and out of a secondary service is worth it.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| The big question is what is the solution to all this that
| doesn't involve 3 big players buying out all the rest? Is it
| even possible to get these guys to all play together in some
| kind of shared space.
| lozenge wrote:
| I think it's a stable form of price discrimination.
|
| Super price sensitive - subscribe to one service and switch
| service every month. $5-10/month.
|
| Typical - subscribe to three services and cancel one every
| few months and swap another one in. $20/month.
|
| Super price insensitive - subscribe to everything and pay as
| much as you used to with cable.
|
| The ideal is for Apple TV, Fire TV or whatever to create a
| unified search and discovery mechanism.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| These companies would have a lot more of my money if they let
| me pay them for *.mkvs a la carte. I still pay the subs for a
| couple of them but my default is to just pirate the file,
| even if it's on a service I pay for. I'm not claiming this is
| a solution, but it would definitely earn them more money from
| my end.
|
| Piracy is generally really quick and frictionless, but even
| so I do have to wait a couple minutes sometimes before I've
| found enough peers to start streaming something. If I could
| pay a couple bucks to just get the file off a fast CDN I
| absolutely would.
| riskable wrote:
| Regulation _might_ be able to fix it: Prevent streaming
| companies from owning content production. Split up companies
| that already exist like this (e.g. Comcast, Netflix, Disney,
| et al) then the content creating entities will be forced to
| pick the highest bidder for exclusive access or try to
| maximize profit by syndicating their content across as many
| platforms as possible.
|
| It would be a better world, IMHO.
| euos wrote:
| Exactly, like they split movie theaters from the movie
| studios or car dealers from car manufacturers.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The paramount decree was rescinded 2 years ago, so movie
| studios can own theaters now:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/us-judge-ends-decades-
| old-mo...
|
| And as far as I can tell, the only people fighting to
| keep car dealerships separate from car manufacturers are
| car dealership owners. I would like to be able to just
| order a new car online and have it be delivered directly
| from the manufacturer.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Why would adding a middleman make anything better?
|
| If society wants more people to be able to watch more TV,
| then society should just give people cash so they can buy
| access to more streaming services. Or reduce copyright
| terms to something reasonable like 10 years.
| izacus wrote:
| > Why would adding a middleman make anything better?
|
| Because market competition is what makes capitalism a
| liveable social order for most people. Adding market
| competition makes everything better. Command economies
| (corporate or socialist) don't.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Adding middlemen increases the supply of middlemen, and
| hence puts pressure on the price of middlemen.
|
| Disney can charge $15 to an individual, or $15 to a
| middleman, it makes no difference to them. It is just a
| waste of society's resources.
|
| Reducing copyright length so old Disney stuff enters the
| public domain quicker would increase supply and drive
| down price for the media.
| lxm wrote:
| The "golden age" started with Netflix directing its
| cashflow into risky content like "House of Cards" and
| "Orange is the new Black".
|
| What's the business model for a content production company
| that doesn't have such sugar-daddy?
| izacus wrote:
| How about splitting the content and the platform?
|
| Like you know... how your local store was allowed to sell you
| VHSs of the Terminator and you didn't have to pay
| subscription to Warner Bros store (which only existed in
| swamps of Florida) to get it? And how you could then give it
| to another person without restriction or tax to the said
| corporate lord?
|
| Monopolization and integration of multiple markets into
| single corporate entities always hurts the consumers. Maybe
| it's time for US government to pull thumbs out of their bums
| and take out their cartel breaking hammers?
| selimnairb wrote:
| Yeah. There should only be a few distributors. They should
| be something like a common carrier. Why should AMC, et al.
| duplicate streaming infrastructure? Focus on content and
| let someone else deliver it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Various internet service providers are delivering it.
|
| Comcast is probably the only one making and delivering
| media.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That rare time and place where a Google Fiber subscriber
| was watching YouTube Red original programming.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure there is one. There are some potential wrinkles
| like the way Amazon Prime offers add-ons like Starz. But even
| that is analogous to the cable world where you had premium
| channels like HBO. There's also the potential for some
| content to just go a la carte only sales through a purely
| distribution platform but I have to believe that ship has
| mostly sailed.
|
| ADDED: But per another comment, things are better than the
| cable world, much less the pre-cable world that I actually
| grew up in. So some combination of fragmentation and
| consolidation is fine for me.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I know how to solve this!
|
| We'll just bundle a bunch of them together, and offer a slight
| discount over the cost of paying for them all individually.
| Maybe offer the most niche ones as add-on packages.
|
| We can even put in some ads in exchange for the convenience
| and...
|
| Oh wait, what were we doing again?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Cable was bad because of forced ads, forced bundles, no on
| demand, and long term contracts. None of those are seen in
| the streaming industry. This "streaming is cable 2.0" meme
| doesn't make sense to me.
| luhn wrote:
| As a Packers fan living in California, the NFL thing
| particularly bothers me. It is impossible for me to legally
| stream all the games. The only option to watch every Sunday
| game is NFL Sunday Ticket, which has a streaming option but
| it's not available for my address--They force you to buy
| DirecTV satellite if it's available in your area.
|
| Contrast that with the NBA, where for a surprisingly reasonable
| $15 a month I can stream every game on YouTube TV.
|
| Apparently DirecTV's exclusive NFL contract is expiring, so I'm
| hoping next season will come with new streaming options.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm getting most (all?) of what AMC has through Hulu and
| Netflix.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Don't forget WhatTimeIsItRightNow.com
| echelon wrote:
| > Don't forget WhatTimeIsItRightNow.com
|
| That's the problem with Hollywoo. Too much fragmentation as a
| result of everyone chasing after the power vacuum created by
| streaming. Every small outfit thinks they can win.
|
| Consolidation will happen as clear winners emerge and
| failures continue to materialize.
|
| (I have that sticker on one of my old laptops. Also a
| "Hollywoo" sticker on one of my current laptops. I love it
| because my startup is in that space.)
| mkaic wrote:
| reminds me of my favorite game show: "Hollywoo Celebrities:
| What Do They Know? Do They Know Things? Let's Find Out!
| with J.D. Salinger"
| coredog64 wrote:
| Who pays Amazon for Prime and then only uses it for video?
|
| Prime-affiliated services (Prime Video, Amazon Music, etc.)
| exist to make Prime more sticky and keep you in the ecosystem.
|
| Walmart is doing something similar with, IIRC, Paramount+.
| zargon wrote:
| Anyone who wants to watch Prime Video content and doesn't use
| other Amazon services. You can't pay for Prime Video
| separately.
| ghaff wrote:
| That doesn't even count all the various Amazon Prime add-on
| services like Starz.
| eikenberry wrote:
| > Want to watch the old Newhart show?
|
| You mean the Bob Newhart Show? If so you can find it on Hulu.
| MBCook wrote:
| No, his second big show, "Newhart".
|
| Plus I don't know if it's the case with Bob Newhart, but some
| old shows on Hulu (like Taxi) are missing tons of episodes.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| AMC's current streaming problems are emblematic of its inability
| to create and popularize content that enough viewers want to
| watch. But this has been happening for the better part of a
| decade now, even before streaming hit critical mass.
|
| This is an interesting history of how AMC essentially invented
| prestige TV (outside of HBO) with _Mad Men_ , followed it up with
| the mega-hit of _Breaking Bad_ , and then the monster that was
| _The Walking Dead_ , but failed to continue its success
| afterwards (and also touches on why _TWD_ became a creative
| disappointment relative to the prior two). Subsequent original
| series like _Halt and Catch Fire_ were also not marketed
| successfully, though I heartily disagree with his take that the
| title was bad. Any machine code reference in the title means your
| show is worth a watch:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhTJhMYsD60
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Late last month, James Dolan, the company's chairman, made
| clear how troublesome that was for the company.... It was a
| surprising admission for Mr. Dolan, _whose family controls AMC
| Networks_._ (emphasis mine)
|
| I think this is just another case of a cash cow getting nuked
| by incompetence through nepotism. His daddy is a billionaire
| and his claim to fame is _not_ investing in satellite
| television. He went from trust fund rehab [1] kid to media
| executive.
|
| Edit: [1] there's nothing wrong with going to rehab but most
| people don't go from rehab to CEO of Cablevision.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| How the f did James Dolan become CEO of AMC? You're vastly
| underselling his shittiness as a person and businessperson.
| He also bought a chain of electronics stores right before the
| industry all but vanished, then bought a chain of movie
| theaters right before the industry all but vanished, and is
| possibly the worst sports franchise owner in North American
| pro sports, destroying a hugely storied team in the
| basketball capital of the world, banning fans and former
| players from the arena for criticizing him, and also firing
| one of the most legendary play-by-play guys of all-time for
| criticism.
|
| Then there's bullshit like this:
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/inside-jim-dolans-
| fe...
|
| Apparently after tanking New York City's bid for the Olympics
| because he didn't want Madison Square Garden to have to
| compete with the new venues that would be built, he tried to
| do something similar in Inglewood, but had his lunch eaten by
| Ballmer because he let some underlings whose names he can't
| remember handle the details and didn't get the deal he
| thought he was getting.
|
| Dude could give Meg Whitman a lesson on how to fail upward
| better. She might be President by now.
| louky wrote:
| Yeah, I saw a reference to HCF cold, and was like wait - that
| can't be a reference to the assembly mnemonic! But it was, and
| a good show. Brought back memories from the 1980s-90s for sure.
| burnte wrote:
| HCF was an amazing show.
| er4hn wrote:
| Chiming in to add onto this. Fantastic show that is very much
| worth watching. I'd describe it as similar to Mr. Robot: Halt
| and Catch Fire uses tech to talk not only about the history
| of the tech industry, but also to say a lot about people.
| vogt wrote:
| It's this, as well as (IMO) an atrocious user experience in the
| AMC+ app. I mean it is truly very bad, both from an interaction
| perspective as well as performance. It doesn't even hold a
| candle to the major players in the streaming app space.
|
| Another thing, they have taken some transparently user-hostile
| approaches to rolling out content (like splitting Better Call
| Saul up multiple times) in order to drive signups. The
| streaming ecosystem is a defragmented mess right now, but AMC
| have nobody to blame but themselves here.
| willbes wrote:
| Their user hostile approach to Better Call Saul just shows
| why they just don't get streaming. I cancelled them almost
| immediately when I realized I couldn't watch Better Call Saul
| episodes that had already aired earlier in the season.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Mad Men and Breaking Bad are both masterpieces. They made them
| before the "streaming wars" and proved that non-major networks
| and studios could make good stuff. They just didn't figure out
| how to bottle that magic, and let it get away.
| remarkEon wrote:
| _Mad Men_ had Matt Weiner, who wrote on _The Sopranos_.
| _Breaking Bad_ had Vince Gilligan, who wrote on _The
| X-Files_.
|
| I suspect the common theme here for what makes good
| television is the creative staff in general and the writing
| in particular.
| [deleted]
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| This jives with my theory of what makes _bad_ TV: bad
| writing. It 's exactly why I've never revisited Lost, even
| though I loved the first few seasons. The suspense and
| mystery never paid off, and it was too important a piece of
| the entire show to bother trying again.
|
| Oddly, Battlestar Galactica has provided a pleasant rewatch
| every year or two for me for the past decade. It has good
| writing within each episode, and even though it doesn't
| hold up in the final season, the writing is overall
| satisfying enough that I don't avoid it entirely.
|
| I could probably write something really mean about
| Westworld here but I'll just instead say that it's really,
| really, really sad that they canceled it after season 1.
| I'm sure the writers would have built satisfyingly on the
| world established in season 1 instead of jumping off the
| rails and expanding into unnecessary niches of convoluted
| storytelling.
| Izkata wrote:
| > It's exactly why I've never revisited Lost, even though
| I loved the first few seasons. The suspense and mystery
| never paid off, and it was too important a piece of the
| entire show to bother trying again.
|
| I'm not gonna claim it was good or anything, but _Lost_
| was more than just the show - and a lot of the payoff for
| the island 's mysteries came from the ARG _The Lost
| Experience_ -
| https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lost_Experience
|
| > The narrative for the The Lost Experience was designed
| to be a parallel story line not part of the TV show.
| Considering the deep mythology to LOST, the Experience
| acted as a way to cover some background that could not be
| feasibly addressed in such depth on the main show. In
| particular, TLE developed the backstory to the DHARMA
| Initiative and its parent company, the Hanso Foundation.
| It also established some clues about the Island and the
| true meaning of the numbers.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Some people still think Lost was good after around the
| first 3 seasons. Like you, I gave up after that because
| it was pretty clear that the show would be nothing but
| red herrings and new distractions.
|
| When my parents tuned in to watch the final episode, I
| predicted that the ending would be bullshit and not
| resolve anything. That's exactly what happened. Yet so
| many people who watched the show all the way through are
| in denial to this day.
|
| > I could probably write something really mean about
| Westworld here but I'll just instead say that it's
| really, really, really sad that they canceled it after
| season 1.
|
| Funny, because by the end of Westworld season 1 my first
| thought was that it was just going to be like Lost. The
| "maze" gave me "hatch" vibes, and I noped out
| permanently.
| rossmohax wrote:
| Final season of Battlestar Galactica was a flop because
| of Hollywood screenwriters strike which lasted 3 months
| woobar wrote:
| Interesting. I liked the original run of the _Lost_. I
| 've liked it even more when I rewatched it a few times.
| For me the characters were the most important part of the
| show, and writers did a great job developing them. I also
| see a common thread about "good first seasons", but
| theses seasons were more about ever growing mysteries.
| Second half of the run gave us great episodes like _The
| Constant_ , _LaFleur_ , or _Ab Aeterno_. Me caring for
| the characters is what made them great.
|
| And writing is what makes me care about these characters.
| The mysteries were fun and most of them resolved by the
| end of the show, but for me it is a lesser part of the
| show.
| citilife wrote:
| Justified and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was also on
| FX. As another example of small networks making great stuff.
| craig_s_bell wrote:
| Also 'The Americans'
| ghaff wrote:
| The Americans is the rare example of a very good show
| which never had a dip in quality throughout its run and
| absolutely stuck its landing.
|
| I think one of the things that really made it for me was
| Keri Russell playing a character that was _so_ different
| from a lot of what we were used to seeing her in.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| FX has always been a low-key prestige series powerhouse.
| They made _The Shield_ , after all.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Fox has pretty successfully positioned FX as a place for
| more ambitious shows that wouldn't survive on a bigger
| network. To the point where I'm willing to give a show a
| try just because their track record has been good.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Funnily enough Breaking Bad benefitted from Netflix quite a
| bit
|
| [0]: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/14/21312595/netflix-
| breaki...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The tragic thing is, according to the video's narrative, AMC
| has made some very good shows since _TWD_ - _HCF_ , _Lodge
| 49_ , and _The Terror_ , which were all critically well-
| received. Critics even liked the _Preacher_ adaptation. But
| audiences just don 't seem to care about AMC anymore besides
| _Better Call Saul_.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Lodge 49 was excellent. It was a shame that they dropped
| it.
|
| Also, while trying to remember the name of Jim Jefferies'
| very original show, Legit, I looked at a list of FX
| original shows and they really have had an astonishing
| number of high quality shows.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by
| _...
| tptacek wrote:
| The Terror and Lodge 49 are both great, but AMC also had
| Better Call Saul, which was incontrovertibly one of the
| best shows on television and, by the end, the acknowledged
| successor/extension of Breaking Bad --- which is just to
| say, until very recently, AMC _still had_ Breaking Bad as a
| going concern.
|
| Maybe it just shows to go you that the make/break for these
| networks isn't prestige content so much as broader business
| execution issues.
| eat wrote:
| It doesn't help that AMC+ provides possibly the worst user
| experience of any of the major streaming apps I've used. Constant
| crashes, failure to resume where I left off, and just straight up
| "not working" is a total killer when there are a dozen other apps
| I could be using to watch other (admittedly non-AMC) content.
|
| Feels like they were banking on exclusivity of AMC content and
| put not enough effort into the technical and UX aspects of their
| service.
| cragfar wrote:
| They also removed episodes mid season of Better Call Saul,
| forcing you to subscribe for multiple months.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Netflix could afford to stock-acquire a few of these legacy
| companies as they decline. It'd help solve their content problem,
| and shore them up in their fight against Disney and HBO.
| ghaff wrote:
| Very few are going to subscribe to a bunch of niche streaming
| services like AMC, FX, etc.--even as a fairly cheap Amazon Prime
| add-on as some of the other smaller services offer. Even most of
| us who have dropped live TV entirely pick and choose which
| streaming services we get over time. I know at the moment Netflix
| is starting to look of questionable value for me.
|
| As a broader principle, just because something (e.g. video
| entertainment) continues on in a different form doesn't mean
| there's as much money in it as there was.
| rcarr wrote:
| >I know at the moment Netflix is starting to look of
| questionable value for me.
|
| There's so much bland shit on Netflix but then every time I
| think I've had enough of it and I'm on the verge of
| unsubscribing they go and release something like Wednesday that
| smashes it out of the park.
| ghaff wrote:
| Wednesday's the best thing I've seen on Netflix for a while.
| But, yeah, they have just enough good exclusive content to
| keep around for now. I'm sort of in the same boat with HBO
| Max.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Streaming is in an interesting place because a lot of the
| big hits (at least from my POV) are now such lavish
| productions that like movies, their sequels do not
| necessarily arrive year after year. So _The White Lotus_ ,
| _House of the Dragon_ , and _Andor_ (of Disney+) are being
| filmed in 2023, and will not be returning until 2024.
|
| It's an interesting scheduling situation- so they're going
| to have to put out new content to fill the void in the
| meantime for the fans of such shows who have nothing to
| look forward to for an entire year, to keep them from
| unsubscribing.
| rcarr wrote:
| I agree that the production value for TV shows is
| insanely good now, it must cost them a small fortune. I
| don't know how they are keeping the budgets lower than
| their movie equivalents or perhaps maybe I don't know how
| movies justify their budgets given the quality of modern
| day tv series.
| ghaff wrote:
| They aren't necessarily. Rings of Power season one had a
| budget of almost $500 million. That's almost 3x what Top
| Gun: Maverick cost and twice what Black Panther: Wakanda
| Forever cost. (Yes, it's more hours of content but it's
| still in the neighborhood of blockbuster movie budgets.)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| FX is basically a prestige brand on Hulu now iirc, but your
| overall point is right.
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