Could there be a worse news regarding where content production is headed? Netflix production is trash and all they care is about metrics like viewers who have watched at least x% of certain content. Cuz if they have, and they accumulate y minutes of viewing, they are unlikely to cancel. This is to the point that they are exclusively making dumbed-down content that can be good background noise while viewers scroll through Instagram feeds. They have little taste, or any motivation to bring good stories out.
HBO might not be perfect, but at least its development process still begins with the story and the enthusiasm of the showrunner.
HBO cancelled Perry Mason, one of the better done noir detective series. That was kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I still get it free because of my AT&T subscription, but I can't argue that Netflix has really come out with anything really worth watching either - Department Q and Mindhunter are only two that I think of that were decent.
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.
I agree so much with this. And I immediately think about how I have an ongoing Netflix subscription and I have it because after having cancelled due to the complete shit trash they produce, my dad asked me about how to see the Tyson vs Jake Paul fight and it was then that I knew I was cooked.
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!
It's so annoying that you totally _have_ to subscribe to this trash product because society is literally forcing you. I know you definitely don't like it but you feel like you have to watch it or you're wasting the money they forced you to spend.
Keep up the good fight and I hope you make it out safe.
I highly recommend the website "youtube.com" there's a lot of content on there that's excellent. I am never for want of something to watch, it sort of seems like an absolute golden age of content production to me.
I'm trying to watch long form cinematic content, not a 10 minute diy video for turning my toaster into a flamethrower with three minutes of ads and "smash that like button" interspersed.
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'm rather curious why they even want HBO. Yes HBO has had far, far more quality programs over the years, but it's not like Netflix hasn't had ample time and infinite money to do the same if they wanted to.
Would be a sad day. I typically equate HBO content with focused quality, and Netflix content as the opposite.
Wow if Netflix buys hbo there isn’t really anything more left in the market to compete with them. On the plus side users don’t have to worry about paying for multiple services.
Except there's still Paramount, Disney and Hulu, and even if you get them all, there's no guarantee you can stream what you want to watch due to some bullshit regional distribution rights restrictions, which makes no sense in the digital era...
HBO is destination television - it's the taste that Netflix lacks and so desperately needs.
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.
Westworld... the show you can't watch on HBO anymore. Taste? Like what they just did to one of the best shows ever, Mad Men? HBO today (Or Max, or HBO Max, or whatever their branding of the day is) is not the HBO it was before David Zaslav got his hands on it.
> Disney? Meh - they've got Andor and that's really it.
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.
ESPN comes with your Disney+ which also gives you Hulu
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.
Netflix could have built many franchises by now but instead burns them all in season 1 or season 2 and makes slop on purpose (i.e. explain what you are doing while you are doing it for the people not watching directly, etc). They also just had the most successful franchise launch of all time -- Kpop demon hunters. The brand is apparently worth about 10 billion right now, and they bought the film and the rights from Sony for <20 million.
If they purchase HBO, I assume HBO will regress to the baseline that is Netflix content, not the other way around.
It will be Netflix and Disney as the prominent players with Apple and Amazon representing the high end prestige TV and lowest common denominator content, respectively.
All this deal making drama, thats been going in media for a while now hides the fact that Content Supply has vastly overshot Demand to levels that make no sense in any other industry. Cost of tools/production/distribution have all massively dropped over the last 2 decades.
Needs a more sustainable story or oscillations and chaos are going to keep increasing.
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.
I agree with the glove fit bit, while at the same time thinking that we're at the next level of siloed bubbles. All aspects of your world, tailored to how you already think, including TV series/movies/etc.
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)
Don't get me wrong - I might have poorly communicated my intent.
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.
And there will be more of it. Really of what value is HBO, if generative AI and video generation get better, and better, and better.
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?
I'd wager that it would accelerate rather than decelerate the growing insignificance of US entertainment.
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.
It's interesting that despite their being a huge crop of talented, rich, and famous Hollywood actors, writers, producers, and directors, they can't figure out how to make movies and TV and distribute them without going through all these enormous conglomerates that they seem to truly despise.
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.
That's like saying Ford should by Yugo. Why? They are small and insignificant and might not be around very long as they are making things people don't like.
Could there be a worse news regarding where content production is headed? Netflix production is trash and all they care is about metrics like viewers who have watched at least x% of certain content. Cuz if they have, and they accumulate y minutes of viewing, they are unlikely to cancel. This is to the point that they are exclusively making dumbed-down content that can be good background noise while viewers scroll through Instagram feeds. They have little taste, or any motivation to bring good stories out.
HBO might not be perfect, but at least its development process still begins with the story and the enthusiasm of the showrunner.
I prefer Netflix to Oracle-ied Paramount.
I don't want Ellisons to own more than they do. Netflix is boring, Ellisons are evil.
Trash ? The Diplomat has as good a production value as any.
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.
If they get bought, Apple could be the only lead for quality content.
HBO cancelled Perry Mason, one of the better done noir detective series. That was kind of the nail in the coffin for me. I still get it free because of my AT&T subscription, but I can't argue that Netflix has really come out with anything really worth watching either - Department Q and Mindhunter are only two that I think of that were decent.
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.
HBO died many years ago when ATT fired all the executives that had the taste and vision to make HBO what it was.
They probably had some half decent stuff in the pipeline, but by now, I imagine there is no influence from the HBO of yore.
I agree so much with this. And I immediately think about how I have an ongoing Netflix subscription and I have it because after having cancelled due to the complete shit trash they produce, my dad asked me about how to see the Tyson vs Jake Paul fight and it was then that I knew I was cooked.
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
It's so annoying that you totally _have_ to subscribe to this trash product because society is literally forcing you. I know you definitely don't like it but you feel like you have to watch it or you're wasting the money they forced you to spend.
Keep up the good fight and I hope you make it out safe.
I highly recommend the website "youtube.com" there's a lot of content on there that's excellent. I am never for want of something to watch, it sort of seems like an absolute golden age of content production to me.
I'm trying to watch long form cinematic content, not a 10 minute diy video for turning my toaster into a flamethrower with three minutes of ads and "smash that like button" interspersed.
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'm rather curious why they even want HBO. Yes HBO has had far, far more quality programs over the years, but it's not like Netflix hasn't had ample time and infinite money to do the same if they wanted to.
Would be a sad day. I typically equate HBO content with focused quality, and Netflix content as the opposite.
Deep IP catalog. DC, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter,….
Wow if Netflix buys hbo there isn’t really anything more left in the market to compete with them. On the plus side users don’t have to worry about paying for multiple services.
Ha! I like how you don't say consumers will pay less... Just less companies asking for money.
Except there's still Paramount, Disney and Hulu, and even if you get them all, there's no guarantee you can stream what you want to watch due to some bullshit regional distribution rights restrictions, which makes no sense in the digital era...
> Except there's still Paramount, Disney and Hulu
Should be:
> Except there's still Paramount and Disney/Hulu
Disney and Hulu are combining.
Which may lead to greater piracy
HBO is destination television - it's the taste that Netflix lacks and so desperately needs.
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.
Westworld... the show you can't watch on HBO anymore. Taste? Like what they just did to one of the best shows ever, Mad Men? HBO today (Or Max, or HBO Max, or whatever their branding of the day is) is not the HBO it was before David Zaslav got his hands on it.
> Disney? Meh - they've got Andor and that's really it.
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.
> What does Paramount or Hulu have?
Even less now that Taylor Sheridan has left for greener pastures.
Paramount/NBC/Peacock/Fox/ESPN have live sports, which are the only thing left worth paying for, everything else can be skipped or pirated.
ESPN comes with your Disney+ which also gives you Hulu
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.
Netflix could have built many franchises by now but instead burns them all in season 1 or season 2 and makes slop on purpose (i.e. explain what you are doing while you are doing it for the people not watching directly, etc). They also just had the most successful franchise launch of all time -- Kpop demon hunters. The brand is apparently worth about 10 billion right now, and they bought the film and the rights from Sony for <20 million.
If they purchase HBO, I assume HBO will regress to the baseline that is Netflix content, not the other way around.
> Disney? Meh - they've got Andor and that's really it.
Disney owns so much content, IP and nostalgia that they don't care much.
Pretty sure their shareholders care. Their market cap is at pre 2019 levels ($190B). Their earnings are back to 2014 levels.
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.
It will be Netflix and Disney as the prominent players with Apple and Amazon representing the high end prestige TV and lowest common denominator content, respectively.
Couldn't do worse than Zaslav…
Only if they change the name several times only to revert back to the original
All this deal making drama, thats been going in media for a while now hides the fact that Content Supply has vastly overshot Demand to levels that make no sense in any other industry. Cost of tools/production/distribution have all massively dropped over the last 2 decades.
Needs a more sustainable story or oscillations and chaos are going to keep increasing.
> Content Supply has vastly overshot Demand
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.
> 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
There is only an amount of time per day you can dedicate spending in front of a screen outside of work hours
I agree with the glove fit bit, while at the same time thinking that we're at the next level of siloed bubbles. All aspects of your world, tailored to how you already think, including TV series/movies/etc.
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)
Don't get me wrong - I might have poorly communicated my intent.
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.
What are some good sci-fis in your opinion?
And there will be more of it. Really of what value is HBO, if generative AI and video generation get better, and better, and better.
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?
Without any concrete source. There's been talk as far back as Monday that Warner is 'warming' to Netflix, so...
An earlier submission actually gave a source post from earlier in the week: https://x.com/CGasparino/status/1995550583495737400?t=QC5bF_...
Earlier Bloomberg source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46156645
This is definitely the worst timeline
This is worse than Burger King buying Michelin and Nobu
Bait and switch... every time... the business world never changes
Please update title to what's on the page: Netflix becomes frontrunner in bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, sources say
I'd wager that it would accelerate rather than decelerate the growing insignificance of US entertainment.
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.
HBO the only definitively quality TV producer headed for enshittification.
It's interesting that despite their being a huge crop of talented, rich, and famous Hollywood actors, writers, producers, and directors, they can't figure out how to make movies and TV and distribute them without going through all these enormous conglomerates that they seem to truly despise.
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.
It's a symptom of a culture in crisis- how can you make popular tv shows if there isn't even a popular consensus for what reality is right now
HBO should be the one to buy Netflix
That's like saying Ford should by Yugo. Why? They are small and insignificant and might not be around very long as they are making things people don't like.
HBO is making things people don't like?
I think that the joke there was that Netflix is small and insignificant and HBO is big and buff.
More that Netflix is making things people don't like
> More that Netflix is making things people don't like
And yet, more than 300 million households around the world who pay a subscription every month
Making money is the only important measure of quality. Because hes a billionaire, Mr. Beast is our generations best filmmaker