Nobody Cares about TV and Film

[danielravennest]

The news this past week about Netflix is that they are going to to hike prices again, start putting ads on everything, [long list of reasons deleted] Any way you look at it, the most simple, and optimistic explanation, is that they are dumb. I hope they are dumb.

There was a news story today that use of BitTorrent is up. This is the direct result of fragmentation of streaming. You used to be able to watch most stuff by subscribing to Netflix. Not any more. Now there are a dozen streaming services. People don't want to subscribe to all those different services, so they are going back to pirating. This also explains the drop in Netflix subscribers.

The book business has avoided this problem. There are many publishers, but any bookstore can order any book in print if they don't have it in stock. Nowadays *used* book sellers list their inventory on Amazon and other book services. So it is pretty easy to get any out-of-print book. For the really old and obscure stuff, the Internet Archive has digitized much of it.

Give people *one* place to subscribe to all the content at a reasonable price, and they will do it. See Spotify and Apple Music for examples.

 

[Cali Souther]

There was a news story today that use of BitTorrent is up. This is the direct result of fragmentation of streaming. You used to be able to watch most stuff by subscribing to Netflix. Not any more. Now there are a dozen streaming services. People don't want to subscribe to all those different services, so they are going back to pirating. This also explains the drop in Netflix subscribers.

The book business has avoided this problem. There are many publishers, but any bookstore can order any book in print if they don't have it in stock. Nowadays *used* book sellers list their inventory on Amazon and other book services. So it is pretty easy to get any out-of-print book. For the really old and obscure stuff, the Internet Archive has digitized much of it.

Give people *one* place to subscribe to all the content at a reasonable price, and they will do it. See Spotify and Apple Music for examples.

Reminds me of cable... when it first came out - they didn't have commercials. Then, they got greedy and made you pay for it AND added commercials.

This really sucks, and you said it so well !!! --- who wants to pay for 15 different streaming services, when you only want to watch one show on each? ! ? !

 

[Caete]

Something to conaider that will be the next shoe on this Netflix mess.

The price hike announcement was less than a month from the earnings call. So many people cancelling over it, won't be in that 200k loss (that they blamed on half a million Russiana being blocked).

My subscription, from the days of DVD only, ran out a few days after the news of losing subscribers.

I expect another loss in Q2.

That 200K loss was when they were projecting a 2.5 mil increase. They are now projecting a 2 mil loss next quarter.

The problem is saturation. There are so many streaming services that consumers do not have the funds nor time to subscribe to them all or watch them all. So people are doing the rotating subscription model, pay for a month, cancel, move to the next channel.

It is the same issue cell phone providers faced. At some point there's not a lot of fresh customers to get, so you have to switch your business model to customer retention and hop you can poach more from your competitors than they do from you. Raising rates without substance to warrant the hike is not the way, nor is having a lot of shitty shows that are more preachy/agenda driven than actually entertaining.

 

[danielravennest]

That 200K loss was when they were projecting a 2.5 mil increase. They are now projecting a 2 mil loss next quarter.

The problem is saturation. There are so many streaming services that consumers do not have the funds nor time to subscribe to them all or watch them all. So people are doing the rotating subscription model, pay for a month, cancel, move to the next channel.

It is the same issue cell phone providers faced. At some point there's not a lot of fresh customers to get, so you have to switch your business model to customer retention and hop you can poach more from your competitors than they do from you. Raising rates without substance to warrant the hike is not the way, nor is having a lot of shitty shows that are more preachy/agenda driven than actually entertaining.

The next step will be consolidation. Either all the streaming services will lease out their content to one place, or they will start buying each other up. Warner's merger with Discovery points to the latter solution. It will settle down when we are down to 2 or 3 mega-services, at which point monopoly issues will prevent more.

 

[Noodles]

The problem is saturation. There are so many streaming services that consumers do not have the funds nor time to subscribe to them all or watch them all. So people are doing the rotating subscription model, pay for a month, cancel, move to the next channel.

Yeah definitely.

We signed up for Peacock+ recently to watch Yellowstone but set rhe cancelation the next day. There just, isn't anything else there that feels remotely compwlling to watch. At least Paramount + has all the old CSI and related shows.

 

[bubblesort]

Yeah definitely.

We signed up for Peacock+ recently to watch Yellowstone but set rhe cancelation the next day. There just, isn't anything else there that feels remotely compwlling to watch. At least Paramount + has all the old CSI and related shows.

I got peacock, too, because it's cheap, but it's one of my main go-tos now, because I've been marathoning Cheers. Also, the way peacock makes content is a little different than other networks. If you look carefully, you will see what I mean. IMHO, this is probably how it happened:

A few years ago, they rebooted Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell is a show about a bunch of privileged white kids, though, so nobody wants to see that. So they made it more woke, by integrating Bayside with a bad neighborhood, and making the minority kids cool, and the rich kids the butt of all the jokes. There aren't that many jokes, though, and the issues are more serious, so the show came across as more of a drama. It kinda works like that, though, so they decided to take it a bit farther, and do Bel Air and Tiger King like this. In other words, they take funny comedies, and redo them as dramas. They still star comedians, usually, but the comedians are doing drama. It comes across as bizarre, but it's watchable. You know, it's good to see them try something different. Also, it's good to see woke comedians realize that they are better at drama than comedy.

They also did American Song Contest, and as a Eurovision fan I was excited about that, until they let a lip syncher go on to the next round at the start of the second episode, so I just stopped watching. The regular Eurovision starts on peacock on Tuesday, though, so I'll be watching that.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The problem is saturation. There are so many streaming services that consumers do not have the funds nor time to subscribe to them all or watch them all. So people are doing the rotating subscription model, pay for a month, cancel, move to the next channel.

I've watched Disney+ for a year, plundered every movie and show that I had any interest in watching, and now I'm letting my subscription lapse at the end of June. If I return, it will only be on the monthly plan for a 2-3 months to catch up on what they've added to the collection since my last sub. My Hulu sub is on hold, which will run out just about the time Disney+ goes away, and that too will be canceled after a couple of months.

I'm really on the fence about Netflix. We are waiting on the final episodes of Grace & Frankie, which have just been released, and after that, it's just not worth keeping at a higher price or with commercials. I pay for Paramount+ so I can avoid commercials on all my favorite broadcast shows, there's no way I would pay Netflix to see ads. Are they insane?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It doesn't seem to me at all surprising that, in these times of high inflation and pressure on household budgets, many people are seeing the Netflix subscriptions they took out when they were confined to home by lockdowns and by entertainment venues being closed as an economy they can make relatively painlessly.

 

[Khamon]

We finally watched the Eternals unspoiled (imagine that) last night. It was a bit slow in places but I liked it well enough. Does anybody know if a sequel is planned?

 

[Jolene Benoir]

The problem is saturation. There are so many streaming services that consumers do not have the funds nor time to subscribe to them all or watch them all. So people are doing the rotating subscription model, pay for a month, cancel, move to the next channel.

They are on to that and have been for quite some time. Many of them now force you to wait and watch episodes as they only release once per week. I currently have a number of shows that I watch but I must wait for their assorted release days to watch them (Picard, Better Call Saul, Fear the Walking Dead, This is Us and The Good Doctor). Others only release a portion of their seasons and make you wait for however long (Grace and Frankie, Ozark)

I have more subscriptions than I want (Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Disney +, Paramount +,AMC+, PBS Passport). What I try to do is pick them up for a year during their Black Friday promotions. I got Hulu for $1.99/mo for a year and AMC+ for the same IIRC. Occasionally I'll try out one of Amazon's channels for a few months during that time. They usually run them for 99 cents for a month or two. I tried the Britflix one this last year, mainly for the OG Doctor Who, but I don't keep those.

I rarely watch Amazon Prime as much of their stuff either got moved to other services or they locked it behind those channel paywalls, but I keep them for the shipping. I only pay for the ad-filled Hulu but I don't run it thru the app on the tv, I have my computer connected to the tv as well and run it thru a browser using UBlock Origin and bypass ads. I do the same for YouTube. There's no way I am going to pay $11.99/month to not see ads on YouTube.

Inevitably with the services, there are one or two shows that I want to watch so I end up keeping it. I do like some that offer more than just one thing. I like Disney because it has Nat Geo stuff. I like Paramount because of Smithsonian and so on.

I blame companies like Comcast, Fox and Disney (original owners of Hulu). They joined together with the sole goal of taking everything they could from Netflix as well as Amazon. One might even call that collusion. They were the first to introduce a paid subscription with ads, they did the weekly show first with The Handmaid's Tale. Basically they worked together to force us back into a cable like situation. I dislike intensely that Disney was allowed to buy Fox and already was co-owner of Hulu. I am also tiring of their continuing milking of the Marvel and Star Wars universes. I begrudgingly am watching the shows but it is feeling oversaturated to me.

When I moved to Winona, I lost access to all OTA channels. In Mpls, I got about 50 channels. Here I get none due to the bluffs. At first I thought my antenna had been damaged during the move and got another one. I still got no channels, so I asked around and it turns out that unless you live at the top of the bluffs, you don't get any. Due to this, I rely solely upon internet services. I had enjoyed a few of those despite their ads like Antenna, H&I, Grit, Movie Channel. One thing I will NEVER EVER do is pay these services for live tv a la YouTube TV or Hulu TV. They want cable prices with ads on top of paying for internet connection. This and the lack of OTA channels means I will never have access to the main networks like CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, kind of forcing me to either Hulu or their individual service offerings. There was a company that broadcast all the OTA channels for free online but they, of course, got sued out of existence by the major players.

Netflix is feeling less and less useful to me, but I do hold a soft spot for them as the pioneer and think they tried their best by knowing what was going to happen and making their own stuff. That is hit and miss but at least they tried.

Piracy is rising again and it's no surprise at all. People will pay for services, but not this many piecemeal. One could try to go the route of subscribing once a show has finished its run, watching it then cancelling but if you have a number of shows you like, that's a whole lot of keeping track of exact scheduling. For me, once I decide which ones I wish to keep it will be off to the high seas. I will likely keep at least Amazon and PBS, long run. Then it will be a decision among the others, though it almost feels like Hulu and Disney will be kept for the sheer volume of shows. Grr...

 

[danielravennest]

We finally watched the Eternals unspoiled (imagine that) last night. It was a bit slow in places but I liked it well enough. Does anybody know if a sequel is planned?

This article discusses future effects, though nothing specific has been announced that I am aware of. Eternals isn't the first time a Celestial appeared in the MCU, and likely not the last. The end credits seems to set up a sequel of some kind.

 

[Beebo Brink]

I kept hanging on to Netflix for Grace &Frankie but hated the first episode of the set that was just released. Sigh.

 

[Free]

I kept hanging on to Netflix for Grace &Frankie but hated the first episode of the set that was just released. Sigh.

 

[Caete]

 

[Free]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Piers Morgan ratings dive as talkTV struggles to attract viewers

Flagship show audience down 80% after launch and rating agency detects ‘zero viewers’ for other key slots

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

Rupert Murdoch’s talkTV television channel has been rated as having “zero viewers” during primetime broadcasts, as the new television channel struggles to attract an audience despite signing up Piers Morgan as a presenter.

The News Desk, the channel’s hour-long political show hosted by Tom Newton Dunn, did not register a single viewer for half of its Tuesday evening broadcast. Although this does not rule out the possibility that some people were watching somewhere in the UK, it means the television audience was so small that it was not picked up by official rating agency, the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board.

The audience for Morgan’s flagship 8pm evening show also collapsed from an average of 317,000 viewers on its launch night to 62,000 viewers a week later – a fall of 80%.

Morgan, who tweeted gleefully about his first night television ratings, now insists he does not care about such figures. He told his social media followers that television ratings should be ignored: “Linear TV increasingly irrelevant to total eyeball potential for a global show like this, especially with younger viewers who don’t really watch TV any more.”

 

[Free]

If a TV show broadcasts in the woods and nobody is there to watch it...

 

[Khamon]

Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know, can you repeat the question?

 

[Free]

If bullshit tossed out by a network uncaring of how they affect society and assuming a viewership of brainless sponges has no audience...

 

[Free]