Subscribers was the metric because that is revenue and market share. Nothing much else beyond cost matters because subscribers are paying the bills.

The problem with your proposed model is that you are cannibalizing viewers. There's a lot fewer people willing to pay $8/mth for getting content 18 hours early than people willing to pay $8/mth for exclusive content. Without the exclusive content, the value of the platform is diminished. Same thing with licensing to Netflix. It's no longer exclusive then and there's even less reason for me to pay for the platform.

Disney's big mistake was trying to compete with Netflix instead of licensing to them. With licensing, there's no risk. It's free money. They could partner with them to develop original content like Mandalorian under license. Netflix foots the bill and gets the content, Disney gets a small cut and maintains the rights after a certain period. Everybody wins

Quote:

---

This right here is why we struggle with streaming platforms.
So often, we want to just turn on the tv, and not have to figure out what we want to watch. I don't watch much tv, but my wife talks about how she misses the days of turning on a tv, and just having the TV on, without having to necessarily pick something we want on in the background.

---

That's what I used to do with baseball. I loved having it on. Now no one can watch that either. Streaming really made a mess of that.

Yeah, I get all that, but with people on this site you never know how literal to take them, when they use words like "mafia."

Iowaggie said:

---

It wasn't that long ago that I thought companies like Sony and FOX were foolish for not getting into the streaming game like everyone else. Fox went the way of a FAST tier with Tubi, and I think Sony has done OK just being a content provider to the companies. Maybe they did all right on that end, or maybe I don't know.

---

For a while you could watch Seinfeld on Crackle, which was Sony's FAST offering. Pretty sure I did several run-throughs of NewsRadio there as well. I don't remember who bought Crackle a while back, though.

that is a very fun wiki read, thank you.

vulture locked me out, so I'll have to trust yall.

Quad Dog said:

---

Still crazy to me that exclusivity and subscribers was a higher priority than actually turning a profit.

---

Many businesses don't make profits in their initial growth phase.

Exclusivity is part of the product. Try starting a business and growing it when your potential customers can literally get your product for free somewhere else, or they can get it bundled with other people's stuff. Why would they ever come to you?

Where do you think profit comes from if not revenue? Subscribers are revenue and market share. If you aren't growing your subscriber base as a streamer, you aren't growing your business, so subscriber growth is what investors look at all business growth. The strategy is to grow and establish market share, and then focus on profitability once you have established a healthy revenue stream.

The Netflix model was working well until the studios decided they would be streamers and Netflix decided they needed to be a studio in turn. That's when the race to produce content was on and everyone had to create enough original stuff to justify a subscription instead of licensing existing and future content.

David Happymountain said:

---

Also, don't forget: Streaming series which make into to production but never take off are just another way in which the Hollywood mafia launders money. They have been doing it for years in the TV and movie business, so all the streaming content is just another outlet for them to illegally move money around in plain sight.

---

Hmm... reminds me of "The Producers"

kyledr04 said:

---

Quote:

---

This right here is why we struggle with streaming platforms.
So often, we want to just turn on the tv, and not have to figure out what we want to watch. I don't watch much tv, but my wife talks about how she misses the days of turning on a tv, and just having the TV on, without having to necessarily pick something we want on in the background.

---

That's what I used to do with baseball. I loved having it on. Now no one can watch that either. Streaming really made a mess of that.

---

I discovered that Apple TV has a really great daily summary of all the MLB games.
However, I got frustrated watching it with the new pitching rules so my excitement faded out.

TCTTS said:

---

Yeah, I get all that, but with people on this site you never know how literal to take them, when they use words like "mafia."

---

I only use mafia when I refer to the Gay Mafia. Unfortunately my well connected gay friend moved out of state.

Bruce Almighty said:

---

I've heard over and over again on this board that shows made for the "lowest common denominator" are crap. The downside of that is everything becoming niche.

---

And that goes beyond just the logistics/profitability of streaming. As the agent in the article said, "It's hard to develop hit sitcoms when the people selling, pitching, buying, and programming them don't seem to like them. They don't seem to like what the audience likes."

Creating and making a new "Modern Family" or "The Goldbergs" may not get you on the cover of Vanity Fair, but it darn sure pays the bills for the rest of your life. And there is still an audience out there for those types of shows.

Nvm

Quad Dog said:

---

I get all that. I just thought these older, established businesses like Disney, Universal, Paramount to be smarter. Netflix falling into that trap makes sense.

But that was the trend of the late teens and early 20s. No one had to make a profit, just show growth potential and have subscribers. Uber, Snapchat, Twitter, Netflix, Door Dash, etc. all never really made a profit and were subsidizing user costs to keep them low with venture capitol money all just to grow their subscribers. Sooner or later it was time to pay the piper, and that time is now for all these companies.

---

I think what made them jump into streaming was Netflix was and still currently is profitable. They saw how much money Netflix was making off of content the studios owned. Once Netflix started producing their own shows and movies, the studios realized they helped create a competitor rather than a partner. Same with Amazon's Prime Video. Imagine if blockbuster started making their own movies back in the 90s? Each studio thought their catalogue had enough marque properties that could get people willing to pay for it and "just how hard is it to make a streaming platform?" Sure, they could have bumped up the streaming rights fees and let Netflex worry about how they would pay for it. Studios could let Netflix take the fall for being the bad guy that charges customers way too much just like how we blame the cable company for their prices, but I really think it was Netflix becoming a producer that pushed them all over the edge. I'm still not sold on the idea that these streaming services are all losing money. I think they assign a lot of writeoff and show cancelations as losses to the streaming service when in truth all they have to pay for on the service is getting it setup, server fees, and a HUGE PILE of marketing costs.

superunknown said:

---

Iowaggie said:

---

It wasn't that long ago that I thought companies like Sony and FOX were foolish for not getting into the streaming game like everyone else. Fox went the way of a FAST tier with Tubi, and I think Sony has done OK just being a content provider to the companies. Maybe they did all right on that end, or maybe I don't know.

---

For a while you could watch Seinfeld on Crackle, which was Sony's FAST offering. Pretty sure I did several run-throughs of NewsRadio there as well. I don't remember who bought Crackle a while back, though.

---

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. Yes, like the books

Bruce Almighty said:

---

The part in the article about everything being artsy in interesting. I've heard over and over again on this board that shows made for the "lowest common denominator" are crap. The downside of that is everything becoming niche. Shows like White Lotus is great, but wouldn't have existed 10 years ago. The problem with shows like White Lotus or Beef is that for every great one, there are 10 others that suck or even if good, is geared towards a very select group of viewers. The height of TV was 2005-2015, where there were great shows made for mass appeal, but I feel like shows like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sopranos, The Shield, etc aren't getting made anymore.

---

I'll disagree slightly with you. I feel like we are in the height of TV right now. There are lots and lots of high quality shows being put out. I love Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sopranos, Shield, etc.... but I feel like there are more shows being made right now that are on par with those. I also feel like these shows have mass appeal. Yes, there are plenty of quirky, niche shows, but there are also plenty of quality mass appeal shows.

Game of Thrones (I like House of Dragons also)
Succession
Yellowstone
The Mandalorian
Stranger Things
Ozark
The Crown
I'm sure there are many more I am missing

I do agree with you though that for every good, high quality show, there are 10 others that are garbage. The volume of new television coming out right now is absolutely astounding. It's not sustainable.

Josepi said:

---

Bruce Almighty said:

---

The part in the article about everything being artsy in interesting. I've heard over and over again on this board that shows made for the "lowest common denominator" are crap. The downside of that is everything becoming niche. Shows like White Lotus is great, but wouldn't have existed 10 years ago. The problem with shows like White Lotus or Beef is that for every great one, there are 10 others that suck or even if good, is geared towards a very select group of viewers. The height of TV was 2005-2015, where there were great shows made for mass appeal, but I feel like shows like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sopranos, The Shield, etc aren't getting made anymore.

---

I'll disagree slightly with you. I feel like we are in the height of TV right now. There are lots and lots of high quality shows being put out. I love Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sopranos, Shield, etc.... but I feel like there are more shows being made right now that are on par with those. I also feel like these shows have mass appeal. Yes, there are plenty of quirky, niche shows, but there are also plenty of quality mass appeal shows.

Game of Thrones (I like House of Dragons also)
Succession
Yellowstone
The Mandalorian
Stranger Things
Ozark
The Crown
I'm sure there are many more I am missing

I do agree with you though that for every good, high quality show, there are 10 others that are garbage. The volume of new television coming out right now is absolutely astounding. It's not sustainable.

---

We as an American society have never had access to more video entertainment options. Even if one isn't into the new shows, so many of the premium and FAST services offer a library of older shows, not to mention all of the availability on any cable or sat/linear service.


We have been so spoiled by the quality of shows that have been produced that it probably makes us a pretty finicky group. Long gone are the days (for most of us) that we are going to sit through 3-4 episodes of whatever new comedy or new drama that follows Cheers or Magnum P.I. that we used to give shows because of viewing habits (and laziness in changing the channel). Now, if Ozark or The Good Place don't hit in the first 20 minutes, many of us will give up on watching it.


Again, I'm OK with no new content being produced for a long time because of sports and the voluminous amount of quality content that I either want to watch or watch again.

PatAg said:

---

I think one of the big problems with streaming now, is it went from being awesome to have 1 (and at most 2-3) places to go to replace cable...to essentially being in the same situation as we were with cable tv but having to pay 6-7 different companies to get all the access as opposed to 1 lump sum.
We did at least get rid of having to lock into contracts, which is nice.

---

I'm in this situation, but has the model changed so much or has the consumer changed?

I feel like that old cable model is still there, but in the old days most of us just had cable with few of the extra add on channels, like HBO, the Movie Channel, Cinemax, Showtime, but now it's like we have cable plus about four or five premium "channels" that we now choose to pay for like Netflix.

Also I think we should compare the costs of the old model to include Blockbuster or movie rental charges in there that most of us don't do now or as much. I am guessing that the typical person probably rented three to 10 movies a month that is probably the equivalent of the cost of 1 to 2 streaming services now.

YouBet said:

---

And by the way, I saw today where Amazon is considering a new fee model for Prime with ads vs no ads like Hulu. Pretty close to killing some of these subs. At this point, most of them are just leeches on my budget with zero entertainment ROI.

---

Got an email last week that NBCUniversal was no longer going to provide the Peacock Network for free to Xfinity subscribers. They want $2.99 a month for 12 months and then they'll bump you to the "regular monthly rate," which is unspecified.

I'm sure I've watched a couple of things on Peacock, but it's not worth paying for.

TCTTS said:

---

100% agree with you on this. There's no doubt an unprecedented gluttony of crap to sift through, but these "I can't find anything to watch" claims are baffling to me. More than ever, there are so many great shows out there, to the point where I can hardly keep up, and never not satisfied. It's also weird to me seeing complaints that they don't make shows like Breaking Bad anymore when Better Call Saul - which features many of the same characters and is one of the greatest shows of all time in its own right - ended less than a year ago. Not to mention, every month I provide a thread with trailers and release dates for all the best, most notable shows airing over the next 30 days, and every time I wonder how I'm possibly going to watch all that TV. It's legitimately easier than ever to find stuff you might like.

---

On a related note, there has always been a very high ratio of "crap to good" shows. Thats not a new phenomenon brought on by streaming. People just still watched the crap shows because there were less option.

The other part of the other article I haven't seen anyone touch on, that is definitely only presented from the writer/show maker point of view, is episode count. There were a lot of quotes basically implying its a crime that a lot of shows have transitioned to 8-10 episodes in a season, vs 6 seasons of 25+ episodes. Thats probably been the single best development of the last 5+ years, to start emulating the prestige BBC shows in that manner. You don't need 15 episodes of filler just to have enough episodes to help you collect residuals down the road. That probably requires the entire pay structure to be reevaluated to account for less episodes though. Shows can have the higher episode count and be good as well, of course.

Big Cat `93 said:

---

dreyOO said:

---

Quote:

---

"It's hard to develop hit sitcoms when the people selling, pitching, buying, and programming them don't seem to like them. They don't seem to like what the audience likes," says the top agent. "I mean, I'm sorry, but people seem to really like Two and a Half Men, and none of my writers want to write that. They all want to write Barry. And you know who watches Barry? Nobody."

---

This is why I find myself watching old shows I had previously missed from a decade or so ago. Simpler times. Easy sitcoms and shows. Not everything has to be suspenseful art for people that just want to relax and veg out a bit after work.

---

Same here. I've been watching a lot of the original Magnum PI, a show I never watched when it was in production. I've even started watching Murder, She Wrote. (Some of the accents, though.)

The show I've watched the most of over the past year is The Rockford Files, which I loved as a kid. A definite nostalgia factor there for me. Plus, it was just a great show.

---

My dog, Oliver Thomas Magnum, watches season one Magnum PI episodes at nap time every single day. Every. Single. Day.

Give Hill Street Blues a chance. Hulu I think…

EclipseAg said:

---

YouBet said:

---

And by the way, I saw today where Amazon is considering a new fee model for Prime with ads vs no ads like Hulu. Pretty close to killing some of these subs. At this point, most of them are just leeches on my budget with zero entertainment ROI.

---

Got an email last week that NBCUniversal was no longer going to provide the Peacock Network for free to Xfinity subscribers. They want $2.99 a month for 12 months and then they'll bump you to the "regular monthly rate," which is unspecified.

I'm sure I've watched a couple of things on Peacock, but it's not worth paying for.

---

I always figured that was the plan for them. Offer it for free long enough to their cable customers so that one household member gets hooked on one of the shows so now when it comes time to charging for it you have to have a conversation about canceling it. At least thats how it happens in my house. I pay for peacock for the Premier League. Its now the off season so i should be able to cancel for a few months but my wife is in the middle of a few shows so I get to decide if its worth taking away her shows to save $20 over the course of 3 months.