This is the healthiest the television industry has ever been. There are no “big 4 networks” controlling distribution. There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money, and boom. Disney, Netflix, CBS, etc., have just become umbrella organizations for studios producing content. They can compete directly with each other, and consumers and pick and choose what they want to spend their dollars on.
Contrast with music, where I have a single subscription and get access to everything I want without having to think about it. The question of what I want to listen to is separate from the question of what service I want to use. I can pick a service based on price and features instead of juggling a bunch of different ones.
Personally, Netflix has more than enough content for me to watch, so that's the only video subscription service I still pay for.
I certainly don't like the subscription model, but that's a personal choice. I just don't watch a lot of episodic television content; at some point I grew tired of the drawn out plotlines and endless filler, and during the TV era, I became especially dissatisfied with the constant advertising. Even with ad-free streaming models, I find that I'm just not interested. So when that one show comes out that I do very much enjoy, it's hard to justify signing up for a streaming service; it feels like I'm paying for access to a lot of other crap that I'll never consume.
Only because of the obsolete centralized planning model the law creates for music streaming, which long predates the capability for direct music distribution to the customer. It undermines competition, shifting power to the distribution system. But competing over whether your streaming service offers this or that feature doesn’t create competition on the part that really matters: content. It lowers the incentive to invest in quality music that breaks out of cookie cutter molds, it would be bad for consumers in every respect but on cost. (It is notable that whole television has never been better, mainstream music probably has never been worse.)
Imagine if software licensing had to all be cleared through a centralized board at rates set by judges. It would be what app developers hate about the App Store times ten.
The inconvenience of having to pick and choose is the cost of having a real market. We don’t order all our food through a central food clearing house. We order from different restaurants, who have different payment models, different menu formats, different delivery rules, etc. If all restaurants were legally required to be in Uber Eats that wouldn’t be better, it would be worse. It would give all the power and profits to the middle man, rather than the restaurants.
Disney, Netflix, Amazon, HBO, Spotify etc. divide content between them and if you want to watch four shows, listen a music and read an ebook, you may have to subscribe 7 or more content delivery system.
People should be able to pay for the individual series or even episodes. The only reason why you need to create account to consume content is to make payment easier.
Isn't this already a thing? iTunes and Amazon both allow you to purchase individual episodes or season passes.
You could look at any app’s library in a similar way, where there’s only a small set of “good stuff” while the rest is old junk. If they collude to spread the good stuff around all the apps, then you are artificially forced to subscribe to all of them if you want to see that stuff.
Yes, that is their prerogative as content owners, but nobody likes it and you feel like you’re getting robbed instead of feeling like you’re living in an amazing future that’s giving you good value. And it costs more so not good for consumers.
That does sound a lot like Amazon is a relevant monopoly here.
before we had the big 4 and everyone had them at their home. now you have big 3 and everyone have one or another. or at most 2.
and this is untill the big one dominate (like google did with search). which is the end game for all of them.
the true solution is payments direct to the content creators, and the hosting providers being a cost for them.
Content wise: I recently cancelled my Netflix again because despite a flood of new shows, all feel incredibly generic and formulaic. I like shows across genres, from teenage romance to sitcom to thriller, and I am looking forward to watching e.g. Narcos new season when it hits, there are also great one-offs like Maniac.
I just don't believe in the strategy of flooding their platform with their own content at this volume. Or rather, the type of content. If I remember correctly, plots and artistic decisions are made by committee, and it just shows very hard how plots are made to be subtly educational, not offend, just a lowest common denominator of what the data says.
Not sure it works. After finding myself browsing through too many evenings in a row, I always cancel until something I know I want returns for a new season, then resubscribe for a month.
Altered Carbon, Love Death Robots, Russian Doll, all recent standout Netflix originals.
Heck even their Anime is on point, and I am not the largest fan of Anime cliches. Castlevania was incredible, and Ultraman was above average.
Flavorful Origins is the best food show I've ever seen.
But then again, I only watch ~4-6 hours of TV a month, so a trickle of high quality content is just fine.
They’re impressing the hell out of me recently here, especially with the announcement that they’re helping produce another season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
I don’t think Netflix has something for everyone these days, but they are really hitting certain niches out of the park and will be just fine as long as they keep this core subscriber base. Especially hard sci-fi that almost everybody else has given up on.
A 5-episode series of Black Mirror every year isnt going to cut it. I honestly dont know why they dont release an episode a week. Its pure laziness on their part, imo. Make the consumers happy. stop pushing out random junk that doesn’t stick and double down on what works.
I find myself doing this with my Hulu subscription. They have a built-in hold function that pauses your account for up to 12 weeks. Since I typically watch shows in bulk (or binge), only having the subscription active one out of every four months works well.
The next step I'd like to take would be to only have a single streaming service active each month.
This is an extremely important point, needs to be backed up with some citation.
It's the exact condemnation of "the suits" making decisions in cable's heyday. FWIW, I've heard the opposite, that Netflix has an almost completely hands-off approach -- the Netflix execs find creators and give them a budget, then move on to finding their next creator. I don't know if that has any more truth, but I'm inclined to think so.
Maybe it's a different company now but I'll ask, with all their content: the disney stuff, star wars, marvel, fox, etc.. If they put it all on Disney+ at $7 a month, are they not leaving money on the table? I can't imagine there won't be up-selling or limited availability of certain media properties or something. The author is right, if it's all there at $7 and the app is great and they are bold and aggressive, then I would think Prime and Netflix, etc. will be in a bit of trouble. On the other hand, if Disney acts like they always have then I expect there to be like 10% good stuff, an advertising machine for whatever movie is next in the pipe and then just some bunk filler content.
> Disney puts a blockbuster like Avengers Endgame on its platform the same day it opens in theaters.
Limiting distribution, sure... Though again they would be losing a lot of money to DVD/Bluray sales, etc. so again I doubt it:
> After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+.
We're getting to the point where you don't spend 10 minutes flipping channels; you spend 10 minutes checking different streaming apps. And the monthly spend is approaching parity. I spend $75 on streaming services a month.
Sometimes it is not a zero sum game. People won't sign up for Netflix. And Hulu. And Disney. And HBO. And Youtube. And...
But netflix going belly up would be a shame. I need the next seasons of "alternated carbon"!
Content isn’t free, and makers deserve to get paid.
Edit with sourcing: 64% of households making less than $15k have cable. https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2001/applia...
The lowest cable packages across the country are $22.57 https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/05/cut-your-ca...
Signing up for Hulu and Disney+ will give you all the content you’re looking for in the same price envelope sub $15k households are already willing to pay.
> It was one of the most-watched non-sporting events in TV history.
This is not even close to true.
Nearly 17 million people watched the Murder She Wrote finale in 1996. In the 1970s, each year, the highest rated episodes of All In The Family were consistently over 20 million. Seinfeld had 35 million once. 60 minutes has gone over 20 million many times.
Grace Under Fire, a mediocre sitcom most people here have never heard of, averaged about 20 million viewers for a full season in the mid 1990s.
I love when TV writers act like TV didn’t exist before The Sopranos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televis...
A small correction though, All in the Family was on average over 20 million households, and before every house had seven tvs that was significantly more viewers.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...
! 5/26/2019 https://www.forbes.com
www.forbes.com##.right-rail
For Chrome at least, I find this handy
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/html-content-block...
I run the media blocker nearly 100% of the time and only turn it off on the rare occasion when I want to watch a video.
Lol, considering Disney themselves not only bought the iconic franchise star wars, but they also bought marvel and even Pixar. If Disney is good at anything, it's identifying under-capitalized brands, buying them and then milking them for all they worth.
Their movies currently eventually make it to those, and that is mostly where I've watched them. Sure, they take some time to get there. They are currently just up to 2016, with Moana, Finding Dory, Rogue One, and Doctor Strange being where they are up to in Disney animation, Pixar animation, Star Wars, and Marvel, respectively. But none of their franchises are ones that I need to keep current with anymore [1], so I don't mind.
[1] I did subscribe to Netflix for a month a few months ago specifically to get up to date on Marvel, so I could see Endgame in theaters. That was a special case because I decided it would be too hard to avoid major spoilers in the two or three years it would take to show up on cable.
Yeah, so? Who said we need/want/will change what we watch?
>The problem is that no matter how much Netflix spends, it has no chance to catch up with its biggest rival…
Disney? Who the fuck cares for Disney? 8 year olds or parents buying a subscription for them?
>Disney owns Marvel, Pixar Animations, Star Wars, ESPN, National Geographic, Modern Family, and The Simpsons. Not to mention all the classic characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
So, mostly irrelevant stuff. ESPN has been going down for a decade or so, Mickey wont be making any revivals, and most people don't get Netflix to watch Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, or National Geographic.
These articles act like I want to watch the same movies 100 times, so of course I'll drop a service with a dedication to creating new content. It makes no sense, but it does sound a lot like marketing hype by an affiliate.
Netflix could loose half of their subscribers, take a massive hit, and still survive... guess that the press love the “X company is doomed!” approach...
Disney entering the streaming area is pretty big, but they still have solid roots in cinema areas. They can’t premiere the next Star Wars movie in streaming without cannibalising it’s ticket sales. Maybe they’ll obliterate other companies, maybe they’ll be successful alongside other players, or maybe it will be a bad move. We don’t know yet. It looks like an interesting offering right now, and probably will be successful, but I don’t get why they need to be so bombastic in their analysis...
Even if Disney+ enters the market and immediately dominates, that doesn't mean Netflix is dead. They'll have to (continue to) adjust and maybe their stock won't be competing with Amazon, but that's far from dead.
Netflix managed to turn a dvd-rental-by-mail service into the first majorly successful streaming service, and they are using that to pivot into creating competitive original content.
Netflix may survive, it may not, but this article was trash.
This typo might end up being the best prediction here.
The winner in all this is going to be Apple TV, aka cable-all-over-again.
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chart-every-company-that-...
If Disney is offering a service for a cheap 6.99 why do people stop using netflix?
Disney has content for kids and superhero fans. This is not a netflix replacement but replacing whatever was in place before.
Stock prices are popularity contests and Netflix may take a hit but Disney is undercutting the high prices on Disney/Marvel content it charges now and longterm it might be better if they merged with a studio offering more adult material.
"Netflix changed how we watch TV, but it didn’t really change what we watch…"
It changed what I watched. Netflix doesn't even offer most network shows in my country so I stopped watching a lot of those shows.