WB and HBO together have the franchises that Netflix has been trying to build. DC, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings (film + game rights - tv rights), West World, The Matrix, Mad Max, King Kong, all of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim.
What does Paramount or Hulu have? It's a lot of fluff on the same or even lower caliber than Netflix.
Amazon gives some good stuff away for "free". Apple has good shows, too.
Disney? Meh - they've got Andor and that's really it.
If whomever buys HBO also also buys A24, it's over. That's all I need.
Peacock says they have sports, but then doesn't actually show all of the matches and instead tries to prop up USA and Telemundo numbers. Many times I have to watch a match in a language I'm not fluent even though I'm paying for Peacock specifically as they have the rights. Can't watch USA as I cut the cord years ago, so I'm left with hoping I can find the right spot for my OTA antenna to be able to tune in.
If they purchase HBO, I assume HBO will regress to the baseline that is Netflix content, not the other way around.
Even less now that Taylor Sheridan has left for greener pastures.
Disney owns so much content, IP and nostalgia that they don't care much.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/walt-disney/earnings/
Meanwhile, Netflix is up $300B since 2019. And Netflix’s earnings are about to surpass Disney’s:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/netflix/earnings/
And Netflix has 13,000 employees, while Disney has 233,000.
And Disney is significantly more than just a single streaming service struggling to get content.
Their Direct-to-Consumer business (aka Netflix equivalent) posted a net profit increase 9.5x year on year (from 143 million to 1.3 billion) and has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/the-walt-disney-company-rep...
> has more than half the number of Netflix subscribers (196 million vs. 300+ million) in significantly shorter time than Netflix.
I don’t find this impressive. Streaming has been the future for over a decade, and Disney has long had more, and more popular content than Netflix. So why is it taking them so long to catch up to Netflix? They should have surpassed Netflix a long time ago.
Disney even sells sports.
Netflix started streaming 18 years ago. Disney+ appeared 6 years ago, and Disney didn't acquire Hulu (as part of 20th Century Fox) until 2019. Also, Disney+ appeared in the era of multiple streaming services, and IIRC didn't pull their content from Netflix until sometime after they launched Disney+. Netflix also didn't lose content from other big content distributors like WB until later.
To compare: in near-absence of any competition it took Netflix until 2021 (10 years) to reach 200 million subscribers. There's Hulu that was launched in 2007, but they were nearly absent outside of the US.
So Disney has streaming competition on all fronts, has gone through price increases etc., and still grows their streaming service.
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Netflix buying WB is not really a desperation move, but it is a question of survival. Netflix has very little content of its own, and has trouble licensing relevant content from studios that are now its direct rivals: Disney, WB, Paramount etc.
They were all happily presented on Netflix, and then pulled nearly all their content to launch their own streaming platforms.
Netflix has survived by dumping enormous amounts of money into producing their own content, and licensing foreign content. But that is clearly not enough to maintain momentum, or to keep subscribers interested in the service. With WB they get their hands on a lot of IP that they can inject back into the service.
I like this post about how The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Mad Max and Harry Potter are all valuable IP written by somebody that appears to have never heard of Marvel comics, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Simpsons, any Pixar film, Avatar, The X-Files, or The Bachelor.
Screw them. Likr, literally choosing to remove the show to make an example of it.
Should be:
> Except there's still Paramount and Disney/Hulu
Disney and Hulu are combining.
Needs a more sustainable story or oscillations and chaos are going to keep increasing.
Content has never overshot demand.
I would drown myself in content if it were good and abundant. It's not. It's lackluster and middling.
Content is scarce because it is expensive to produce. The wrong people get put in charge of projects (or tastes/reception is hard to gauge, and experiences hard to engineer). We wind up with a lot of expensive garbage.
There is a dearth of sci fi and fantasy. A few dozen titles get created, and half of it is garbage. I have money to pay to watch something every night. It just doesn't exist and isn't good.
I'd pay to watch original content. Original ideas don't get funded because it's "too risky". Which is a consequence of the big budgets, massive personnel and time investments, etc.
I see a film every other year or so where I'm not questioning the character arcs, the pacing. Where I'm fully enveloped and transfixed. That doesn't happen frequently enough. Where every note is perfect. It's rare and fleeting, and that's sad.
We're in the Precambrian times. Great content is nigh non-existent. There's a whole lot of "acceptable" and "good enough". But rarely anything sublime that steals away your brain for the rest of the day, forcing you to ruminate.
I want to live in a world where content fits my preferences like a glove and is constantly surprising and delighting me. Unlimited intellectual stimulation and adventure. I know that pinnacle can be reached eventually, just not with our current limitations. This scarcity trough.
No new ideas.
(Not saying this is your intent, and yes I do indeed watch what I like. I am not immune to the very thing I worry about)
I want to be catered to and subverted. I want to see things I'm comfortable with and things that make me question everything I know. Things that make me deeply uncomfortable. The full range of experiences.
I just want it to be great and hit the notes in ways that leave me in awe.
This does happen with current media, but it's exceedingly rare. It's a combination of great writing, fantastic direction, unusual stories, phenomenal acting. The mood, set dec and DP, the pacing and editing. Everything lining up in a stroke of brilliance.
And what's funny is that when it happens, people tend to disagree or have differing opinions about it. It's deeply personal.
You know when something speaks to you.
Yet perhaps I am too jaded on this. There will be lots of niche content...
>
> I would drown myself in content if it were good and abundant. It's not. It's lackluster and middling
There is only an amount of time per day you can dedicate spending in front of a screen outside of work hours
Me, I’d need two or three more lifetimes to get through my probably-good list of movies and tv, just for single watches… but I’m up for just about any genre.
In 5 years, compute to AI generate video will be super cheap, both through algo being added to silicon for (C|G|T)PUs, and just general increase in compute. Every day, you'll likely see 1000s of TV series, movies, and shorts added to youtube, all with more complex, intriguing stories than the bottom 1/2 of HBO's mix. And the effects will pass or be on par.
I think this will do for movies and TV series, what the internet did to newspapers and magazines. There's really nothing left there, all the deep talent and investigation is pretty much gone.
There will probably be some real gems come out of this. Yet how will you actually find it, through all the "look at mine!" astroturfing and its kin on every site you visit?
HBO might not be perfect, but at least its development process still begins with the story and the enthusiasm of the showrunner.
I am a subscriber and my dad didn't like the fight but is happy to have been part of the experience of seeing it.
I want to in-principle not pay money into this trash. But "humanity" seems to like to want to witness this trash. And I and my extended family are included!
oh dear
Keep up the good fight and I hope you make it out safe.
For cultural context, it's enough to subscribe for one month, once or twice per year, to catch up on a few movies or episodes of popular series. If a series is good enough for longer viewing and subscription, then the product has earned its keep.
There wre a few YouTube channels I like but they are all educational where one guy talks to the camera about a thing. Is there decent fiction on YouTube? I haven't seen any.
I agree that the majority of stuff on streaming services is complete garbage and nothing is really "binge worthy" like it used to be. The one thing I used to love about Netlfix was going back and watching old movies like Chinatown or To Live and Die in LA. Those are all gone now, replaced with its own produced content that I just think isn't in the same league.
They probably had some half decent stuff in the pipeline, but by now, I imagine there is no influence from the HBO of yore.
Reportedly.
Today's "TV shows" are more like TV movies that where split in into 3 1 hour runs.
I mean, the last Stranger Things series, of all things, is the single most expensive production in history. More expensive than Marvel films, than both Avatars, than all of Games of Thrones, than Rings of Power per episode… It’s mad, for a quaint small-scale mild-horror story set in the 80s.
There is no way Mindhunter was simply too expensive.
Notice how Mindhunter didn’t “look” like other Netflix shows. The reason for that is they lit it like a movie. And that takes time and money.
I work in the industry. The reason Netflix shows look a certain way is because they are not given the time to do it differently and are shooting almost documentary style or at least much much faster than a regular “prestige” show. Now a good director DP duo can still make this look good, even though it’s hard to do 20 set ups (low budget speed) instead of 5-10 a day (high budget). But that velocity means you shoot at twice the speed. Which is huge considering film costs are people costs. Production is often the expensive segment of a show like Mindhunter.
Fincher likely wouldn’t have agreed to drop episode count or shoot them faster, so they didn’t continue.
Netflix feels like everything is cheap. Maybe Ripley was nice but thats it?
It even dwarfs the budgets of the biggest games ever and is roughly on the level of the upcoming GTA 6.
It’s completely mad! For a quaint small-scale mild-horror story set in the 80s. I get that it’s popular, but it would have been just as popular with 1/10 of the budget.
Exact numbers are often unknown, so I may be wrong for some of the examples above, but it’s in that order of magnitude.
But I agree that Netflix feels cheap. The Rings of Power felt remarkably cheap too. But it’s a lot more about the writing and the artistic merit than about actual production quality.
Better then to pump out a wide range of mediocracy to attract and keep as many subscribers as possible.
I don't want Ellisons to own more than they do. Netflix is boring, Ellisons are evil.
Well, it can be, that’s the problem :-(. But it would really, really suck.
- any merger they propose will be greenlit by the Trump administration, giving them an advantage. The seller prefers them because the transaction is far more likely to go through.
- Netflix is interested exclusively in the assets and the studio, not in legacy assets like CNN. So Netflix is bidding for that alone. The Ellisons see themselves as recreating the Murdoch playbook. They already control CBS. Even if Netflix succeeds in buying HBO, the Ellisons can pick up CNN later and create a right wing news empire to rival Fox News.
HBO is a nice prize, especially with the prestige and popularity of its content library. But the Ellisons win no matter what.
For viewers and voters I don’t see a win here. HBO production gets Netflix-ified. Say goodbye to quality shows like The Pitt and prepare to welcome streaming-while-scrolling shows like Emily in Paris. And simultaneously you’ll have the Ellisons telling large parts of the population what they’re supposed to think.
Now people who own DVD / Blu-ray players are a rare breed.
At least that part of concern is not guaranteed
https://www.ft.com/content/1b51ca71-9a86-46f5-bdc4-cbd6831b7...
Assurances are worthless because they always are retracted after the sale is complete.
They’ll put Warner Bros. in every theater in the country, to no fanfare (no marketing budget), and pull them as soon as the qualifying duration is up.
It's why theres no subtext in shows anymore, and they hit you over the head repeatedly with obviousness.
So while TikTok leads the short form race to the bottom, I believe NFLX leads the long form version.
Let's not pretend that James "Avatar" Cameron is deep.
It’s not, but it’s also now 3 films in 16 years. That’s not a lot.
- they smell bad (stale junk food)
- they have oppressive lighting (mostly extremely dark but with garish turquoise and pink dazzle, accentuating the most confusing aspects of their architecture)
- the sound systems are thunderously loud (I'll be taking earplugs the next time I go to one)
- most of them are expensive
- most of them only programme big, loud, contemporary Hollywood offerings (which are simiarly horrible high contrast junk food only out to assault the audience); there's little appreciation for the art of cinema
They're like nightclubs, but without the dancing, social interaction, or resistance (a nebulous concept I'm not going into here).
You can say "this is what the market wants", but I wont't believe you. Such an argument is like saying social media (surveilled attention management) is what the market wants. The truth is much closer to "this is what the market can bear before it breaks".
I feel that these spaces should be celebrating cinema: specials, all-nighters, film discussion groups/clubs in their cafes, some kind of access for local film-makers... like to actually be a part of film-as-art, rather than a part of film-for-business. Some of this goes on (I've been to a few such events), but I have a hunch that there's appetite for much more. It's just a hunch though.
Many theaters are still 1080p (and its very noticable on a large screen). Even in 4k the vast majority lack HDR.
The new Tron movie, for example, will look much better on a large home screen than it did in most theaters.
So why would I pay them to sit in a room full of jerks on their cellphones and watch it in worse quality?
Only something like 20-40% of theaters are 4k, and less than 1% do HDR. 4k is really important when the image is that large, and the missing HDR changes the entire vibe of some films.
My problem is other people. People can’t make it more than about 15 minutes before they check their phone and start scrolling. Or if they aren’t checking their phone they are still using the screen like a flashlight to see the menu or their food. Or they eat like a noisy animal. The worst is people with glasses of ice they chew on. Every time they raise their cup it’s basically an ice maraca followed by the sounds of them crushing ice cubes in their mouth.
Even in theaters where phones are banned (Alamo Drafthouse) they generally don’t do anything about it.
Basically renting a really kick ass home theater that happens to access to the latest releases.
Most of the cinema experience at home (without the public).
The experience is better at home for many
So does Bridgerton. Adolescence is basically a single shot marvel.
Others - Stranger Things, Money Heist, Black Doves.
Not to mention their true crime documentaries.
Warner Brothers makes quality content. I think this is an almost perfect fit.
Money Heist is completely a soap opera.
Not saying that those aren't good productions but they aren't on par with what HBO used to deliver (True Detective, The Wire, Sopranos, etc.), notwithstanding the leap of faiths HBO take sometimes with stuff like The Rehearsal, and How To With John Wilson.
Netflix is very much formulaic, cinematography of Netflix shows is also quite bland/generified.
Game of Thrones feels like the last broad cultural simultaneous viewing kind of series.
Everything now is micro-niche algorithmic targeted single season shows with forgettable titles and actors.
One funny anecdote was overhearing the voice-overed NFLX shows my wife was watching in the other room and realizing they used the same handful of voice actors in a whole slew of series.
Thats why I think its a good addition. Its a step up from their usual quality. They are anyways paying 72B for the company. Netflix has distribution and Warner Bros delivers quality. I think its a perfect fit. I mean imagine Warner getting acquired by Amazon and folded into prime video - that thing where search returns episode names rather than the series. That would be like Rolexes being sold at the local Walmart. There's only two homes for quality content and thats Apple TV and Netflix. Thats why I think its a good deal.
Mindhunter was probably the last really good show they had. Squid game and dark winds are decent.
My big takeaway of Adolescence is that it was an extraordinarily senseless thing that was done, yet had such a profoundly negative impact on so many people. It's scary that younger people who simply haven't yet matured enough to understand the impact of their decisions can do things like this which can never be undone (and I'm not just talking about the life they took).
And yet, more than 300 million households around the world who pay a subscription every month
Would be a sad day. I typically equate HBO content with focused quality, and Netflix content as the opposite.
Yet they've failed, I think it's a culture problem. Buy HBO and hopefully carry over the culture and skills to Netflix that way is pretty much they only hope. Netflix created a few good series, but it's also clear that they don't have the writing talent to produce the volume they want.
Netflix can produce absolutely beautify shows, but they're not well written. They also can't buy content, because a large number of the license holders have their own streaming platform. Buying HBO could get them access to the content they need, if the contracts and licensing carry over.
I am convinced they’re hyper focused on the wrong metrics, and don’t take long term retention into consideration.
Good for Bollywood, chinese and russian cinema, and so on. For me personally, I have trouble imagining that HBO would ever again be involved in something on par with The Wire, Sopranos or True Blood, and it's not exactly hard to keep them around on a hard drive somewhere.
Just start a studio and put out quality content exactly the way you want it and see if you can do better! It's literally never been easier! If the chucklefucks who run these streaming services can figure it out, some smart filmmakers should be able to put together a workable business plan while Clooney and Pitt rizz up some investors.
Since I was forced to get a subscription, thankfully I never gave those bastards my CC info. I just created an account and went to Target or Walmart and bought a couple of $30 gift cards and put the code in. When my account ran dry, that was it. The only thing I pay for now is YouTube premium. That's about all the content I consume online. I figured I'd help support my favorite creators rather than using an ad blocker.
Edit: I payed for Disney+ for one month because she wasn't current on Star Wars movies. That was my first red flag with her.
All I read here is, I bought some gift cards, binge watched a couple of decent series, and then moved on.
If Netflix just moves the HBO content to Netflix then that's one subscription less for a lot of people, so even if Netflix subscription goes up, many will still save money.
Amazon/Apple/Comcast/Disney/Netflix/Oracle are all in the business of selling video, plus they are competing for attention with Youtube/Tiktok/Reddit/HN/etc.
There is also Sony and Lionsgate and A24 not selling direct to customers.
Until recently watching HBO in the UK and Europe was not easy unless you’re prepared to watch it on Sky (in the uk anyway) so there’s money on the table for Netflix here in the form of eating some of Sky’s share. (HBO Max is coming to EU in Jan and UK sometime next year finally)
Secondarily adding HBO gives Netflix the opportunity to upgrade its production rather than downgrade HBO.
Having access to HBO/WB catalog on Netflix is going to add a lot of value imo.
I welcome this.
This is a very misleading sentence. HBO Max has been available in 14/27 EU countries since 2022, and by now it's available in 22/27 EU countries, 4 of the remaining ones are covered by Sky, with which they signed an exclusive distribution agreement valid until 2025 back in 2019 - even before HBO Max was launched in the USA.
I cancelled my Netflix subscription 7 years ago, 99% of their content is algorithmic drivel. Mindhunter, Dahmer, House of Cards were something I liked but nothing beyond that. I knew they were trash once I saw the sheer number of spinoffs they have just on Pablo Escobar. They had had one decent run of Narcos but then they just tried to extract every drop of juice out of that one persona. Most of Netflix dramas are just the equivalent of abhorrent and ugly graffiti. Their shows are Exhibit A in what happens if you give into algorithmic drivel and have no human touch to curate them.
HBO has some timeless TV classics that I keep rewatching every year even though I have watched them multiple times. Netflix can’t produce TV dramas like that, ain’t in their blood. Completely different DNAs.
Netflix does deserve all the plaudits wrt to their streaming experience though.
A win for both companies, Netflix with IP and WB with stability.
first time ever, I'm rooting for Comcast.
lol
I got really emotional when I saw them again for the first time in twenty years. They are just amazing, and it is so shocking they couldn't make it work in the industry.
But Spotify seems even worse. It feels like the parasites are even worse now, and they turn around and invest in military startups.
What's the alternative? This band sold out of merch last night, is that enough for them to survive, or dare I dream, thrive in the world of today?
If you are in LA, go see them next week on the 12th. They are releasing a new album and if the world makes sense their next show will be 10,000 people.
I agree that I wish Netflix had less lowbrow content, but they target a wide audience, and let's be honest, most people willing watch crap.
And seriously: go for a walk, read a book, play a game, or work on a hobby? TV shouldn't be your life, and it's long been one of the big societal problems.
ChrisArchitect•2mo ago
Earlier on a different site with an actual named source; and mention of the stock fallout from the hint.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141031
cheschire•2mo ago