I'm sick of goddamned streaming services

At a guess, people complaining about how Netflix churns through interesting new shows 1. highlights that they *have* interesting new shows and 2. keeps people from focusing on their rising rates and adding commercials, which I would suspect hold more sway in potentially causing the general public to walk away. So Netflix may be less pressured to stop churning as a result.

I mean, when I was making budget cuts ml when they raised my add-on pricing through T-Mobile, their churn-and-burn mentality certainly played a part as to why I cut them first.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/20/com...noff-emphasizes-need-for-change-in-media.html

DirecTV and DISH merger is off...at least for the time being. Apparently DISH's debt holders don't like the terms. It sounds to me like the debt holders are playing a game of chicken. It's hard to believe that bankruptcy (where they could get wiped out) is more attractive than handing it over to DirecTV...but...

So, I have discovered that if you use the Firefox browser with the uBlock Origin plugin installed, you don't get ads on Prime Video (that, or because I almost never watch Prime Video, Amazon's hiding ads from me).

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...e-removes-important-scene-Wonderful-Life.html

Even as someone who doesn't care for that movie -- you don't do that!

I’m Tired of Pretending Physical Media Isn’t Still Better Than Streaming Digital

Apple TV+ is free this weekend.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/media/local-meteorologists-allen-media-weather-channel/index.html

Stream PBS and PBS KIDS Free on Prime Video

This was mentioned in passing on a Hollywood industry podcast that I listen to: The goal of all the streaming services is to jack up the prices for their ad-free tiers to the point where no one will subscribe to them. It seems that all of them have decided they can make more money by forcing their subscribers to watch ads.

Warner Brothers Is Mysteriously Dumping Obscure and Wonderful Movies on YouTube for Free

Disney+ Lost 700,000 Subscribers to Close Out 2024
But at least the service is profitable now, which has taken priority over growth

This could go in a number of threads, but I'm gonna stick it here. The Town podcast has an interview with the heads of the Director's Guild of America. They talk about things like AI, unionization, strikes, and the industry as a whole. What I found interesting is that "Peak TV" happened in 2016. What this means is that while there might be more TV shows (this is including streaming, OTA, and cable) than in the past, the total number of episodes being produced has been on a downward slide since 2016.

I think that we can all agree that it is better to produce, say 10 episodes, of good TV than 20+ episodes of TV that are mostly filler. But I didn't expect that even with all the additional series out there, that the total number of episodes available to watch would be lower in 2025 than they were in 2016.

https://bsky.app/profile/artologica.net/post/3lhuawysapc2i

I think it's less that the goal is to jack up the price of the no-ads tier until nobody subscribes, and more than they need the revenue from subscriptions to match the sacrificed ad revenue, and that's a tall order.

That does surprise me a little, though. In the nearest DMA to me, over-the-air TV advertising costs roughly $0.01 per viewer for a 30-second spot, or $10 per 1,000 impressions to put it in web advertising terms. If a streaming service gets paid a penny every time they serve me a 30-second ad, and I'm a heavy viewer — say I watch three episodes a day of a one-hour TV show, and they insert four breaks with four ads each into every episode, which seems to be typical for streaming — that's 16 ads per hour, 48 ads per day, and 1,440 ads per month. So to replace the ad revenue, they should only need to charge me about $15/month. Maybe a little more to deal with the fact that the technical and accounting back-end for managing millions of subscribers is a lot more complicated than managing a few hundred advertisers.

And plenty of people will pay the $15/month while watching a lot less. I have subscriptions at that price that I've gone months without using.

Match, and then add a little to represent them "selling" you the convenience of not watching ads. And then it probably gets into the realm of "if people are willing to pay this much, most of them will be willing to pay a little more, and then a little more . . ."

That assumes the goal is to provide a service over obscene profit, and as we've seen these companies truly do not care, and just keep raising their prices regardless. It is the continuation of enshittification.

Subscribers to Hulu just got this in an email.

I sincerely hope this has consumer lawyers drooling

This episode of The Town podcast talks about how much the streaming services are making. The guest is a consultant to some of the various streaming companies, and he agrees with us!!!! At least when it comes to how the streaming services should license their content: License out your back catalog to anyone who wants it, while still keeping it available on your platform.

According to him, everybody wins this way. Because what people tend to do with services that they stay subscribed to for the longest is pick ones that produces the most original content that they like. The ones they subscribe to for a month, binge a movie/series and then dump, are the ones that only occasionally have something that you want to see. Like, a movie adaptation of a book you liked, but once you've watched it, there's not really anything else on the service that you want to see. So, you dump the service.

If a company keeps their back catalog available on their service, while licensing it out to the other services, not only do they make money from people watching it on the other services, but it encourages someone who likes the original content of that service to "settle in," and watch the back catalog. Instead of deciding, "Eh, it'll be another six months before a new season of Star Bleck Wars comes out, I'm just going to cancel this until then. I'll pick up this other service so I can watch classic episodes of Sternfield."

Here’s Where You Can Still Watch Classic Looney Tunes Cartoons—and Why You Should

I hate that they zoom the 4:3 episodes to fill the 16:9 frame.

Same with some other shows (MASH, IIRC).