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America has never had so much TV, and even Hollywood is overwhelmed
- staticelf 10y agoHmm, big money that pours into small companies/studios in hopes that they will become the next big thing, I wonder where I recognize that from..
- oblio 10y agoI dub thee: HollYwoodCombinator.
- teddyh 10y agoMaybe “HollYCombinator”, to avoid trademark issues.
- mseebach 10y agoIf anything, I'm pretty sure the Hollywood financial model predates (Silicon Valley) venture capital by around a half century. (Indeed, the idea that you can fund a nascent business at a deep discount in return for a share of ownership in the hope of large returns is as old as money)
- satysin 10y agoCan somebody modify the URL and remove the #comments from the end. It is annoying for it to jump right to the comments.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 10y agoDecrufting of URLs generally would be a Good Thing.
- ranebo 10y agoI think it's being consumed though, and it's not just Hollywood/America. I've noticed that streaming apps have completely changed my parents (Australian) viewing habits. The ability to sample something then quickly change if desired, has them experimenting constantly. This experimentation has them binge watching a new Scandinavian/French series every week.
- TheAceOfHearts 10y agoA bit weird, once the article loaded it automatically scrolled me to the end for some reason. The article strikes me as a bit unfocused. Although I only skimmed it. I've personally grown a bit tired of most TV shows and movies. I still consume my fair share of media, but I've slowly been shifting my focus more towards book series (or more specifically, audiobooks). I'm not interested in watching TV shows that don't have an overarching plot or direction, with the major example of this being Lost. So far my experience has been that you tend to get a more cohesive story. If you've grown weary of watching TV, I'd suggest trying out audiobooks. You can even listen to em while you're out walking about, driving, or eating alone. I've had an Audible subscription for a few years now, and I seriously love it. Maybe I still have really shallow tastes, but so far I've found that if you pick up any book with a few thousand ratings and 4 to 5 stars, it'll probably be really good. With that said, I'm a huge sucker for movie adaptations and I'd probably watch the adaptation for most of the books I've read. Even though they'll often butcher huge parts of the story (totally understandable, different mediums), it's really enjoyable to contrast your own imagination with that of the creative staff in the production. The most recent example of this for me was The Martian. My mental image of the main character was consistent while I read the book, but when I watched the movie I realized I hadn't accounted for the fact that he was starving.
- mrighele 10y ago> A bit weird, once the article loaded it automatically scrolled me to the end for some reason. It's because the link has the #comments anchor. The submitter probably didn't realize this.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoI second the audiobook suggestion. It is really something that fills the gap between radio and television, and sometimes better since I fiddle with things as listening to television anyway. If someone wants to try out audiobooks and doesn't mind older books that are in the public domain, there is this youtube with hours of listening: https://www.youtube.com/user/rt20bg/featured https://www.youtube.com/user/rt20bg/featured
- planetjones 10y agoIt always amazes me that humankind can find enough ideas to produce original content. Sure most of the plots have similar themes but this year I have watched Gotham, west world, daredevil, Jessica jones, the fall and currently designated survivor. Yet I am not bored and each series has something captivating about it. Something will have to give on the financial side I am sure, but perhaps on the creative side there is an infinite supply.
- Rexxar 10y agoI have an other interpretation : we just don't need a lot of purely original content. Something slightly different is enough in order not to be boring. Even exactly the same thing is not boring, a lot of people watch films/series more than one time.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoThe problem with "originality" is that if you dig down deep enough, there's few basic narrative structures, and everything is just their instantiations. I'd say that it's enough for a story to not be an obvious copy of some other story your audience likely seen before, and then your story itself must be good enough so that the setting feels "natural", believable, consistent.
- icantdrive55 10y agoI've basically used t.v. as a substitute for people. Yea--I know it's pathetic, but I've been single most my life. In college, I literally couldn't study without that t.v on. I can't even fall asleep without it on now. I'd turn it on, and not even know what was on, but lately--there's been some shows that suprised me. West World is one. As a kid, the movie West World was my favorite movie. Future world was second. I watched those two movies so many times.
- _h_o_d_ 10y agoI understand this too, as it'sa place where social errors can't happen and we can escape. However, there are ways to undo these habits, which will allow for much more connected IRL life.
- gaur 10y agoAm I the only one who is slightly grossed out when people use the word "consume" to talk about media?
- the_duke 10y agoAaand most of it is mind numbing garbage. Which is apparently what the masses yearn for (and always have).
- telesilla 10y agoThere is some lovely stuff out there, but you have to be open for trying something that's not above the fold, which tends to be targeted towards the mainstream. If you have netflix, there is for example a charming mini-series about real-life modern-day Chicagoans. I found it just delightful but it was something I saw by chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_(TV_series)
- croon 10y agoI love Joe Swanberg and really wanted to like that show, but couldn't. It just wasn't funny, and it didn't scratch my drama itch either. I guess I just don't like the comedians-acting-serious-and-not-being-funny genre. I had the same issue with Togetherness, and numerous others I'm not getting off the top of my head. I think they to me just fall flat somewhere between funny and warm, and succeed in neither. For counterexamples, Louie was both funny and "real", and his subsequent shows Horace & Pete as well as Better Things are not really funny, but just genuinely good, and have substance. But as always, YMMV.
- telesilla 10y agoGoes to show, horses for courses.. I loved Horace and Pete dearly, mostly for what they were trying to do, and I watched it as if it were live theater or an old 60s british sitcom, where budgetary concerns meant they had to focus on intent. But back to your point: YMMV. A strong part of me thinks a realistic recommendation engine will never work: the human brain doesn't know if it likes something until it encounters it, given environmental, emotional and cultural cues at the time.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
- Throwaway23412 10y ago>The networks are gambling big in a risky industry where only the most prominent shows survive. While top-rated hits can garner millions of viewers, FX research found that the bottom 20 percent of shows averaged around 380,000 viewers, a daunting prospect for networks that depend on big audiences for ad revenue. Only the prominent shows survive in the ads business model that currently governs these networks. If an Amazon or Netflix show gets 380,000 viewers and this show convinces the majority of those viewers to keep their subscription, then the respective streaming giant has already accomplished their goal. That's another $3.8M (or whatever the average subscription amount is) in monthly subscription revenue. They're not beholden to advertisers. A typical "Black Mirror" viewer might not overlap with a typical "Marco Polo" viewer or a typical "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" viewer, but, as long as each viewer has a reason to stay subscribed, Netflix doesn't care if said shows were to have a low average number of viewers.
- zephod 10y ago$3.8B? The average subscription amount is slightly less than $10,000/month...
- Throwaway23412 10y agoApologies for my crappy math. Already edited it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- chx 10y agoYeah but that means you only a very small budget for that show. Perhaps $100k per episode perhaps even less.
- Throwaway23412 10y agoIndividual budgets for individual shows sounds like a big TV network convention. Netflix isn't selling ads against each show; their subscription revenue is shared between all their content. I just read elsewhere that experts estimated that "Fuller House" attracted over 10M viewers. Even if every single one of those viewers cancelled their subscription after binge-watching the show, Netflix might have made nearly $100M in one month from that show. "Fuller House" probably funded several shows that you or I love.
- tshibley 10y agoSo much of the history of T.V. shows has been dictated by the cable bundle, which force you to pay a network whether you are interested in it or not. And while I think that ultimately this content bubble will pop (or at least fizz out), in the end the average consumer will be left with a much leaner media offering that is more targeted to what they actually want to pay for.
- nstj 10y agoOne can binge on cheap food from Blue Apron subsidised by VC money and cheap TV from Netflix subsidised by cheap public capital. God bless 0% interest rates.
- draugadrotten 10y agoThe romans knew: panem et circenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses From outside America it is easy to see what's really going on with your abundance of food and TV.
- emodendroket 10y agoOh please.
- sametmax 10y agoThat's probably what romans would have said though :) Thing is, not only this is stating the obvious, this is also true outside of america.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoNo, that's NASCAR. And tailgating. :)
- hbosch 10y agoWhere are you from, and how do you breed such high horses?
- tdb7893 10y agoAmericans themselves are the ones consuming large amounts of food and TV. I think how much of both we have is more capitalism than conspiracy.
- emodendroket 10y agoBlue Apron food is not really cheap and you can't really "binge" on it given the portion sizes.
- hackaflocka 10y agoDepends on the definition of TV. YouTube is the new TV. And that's 1000x the number of "traditional" channels.
- WalterBright 10y ago> Much of that cash has flowed to the armies of decorators, drivers, caterers, painters and other workers who are irreplaceable behind the scenes. People always wonder what will happen to jobs that get automated. New jobs that cannot be automated will be created as labor gets freed up. For example, a significant entertainment industry cannot exist when 90% of the population needs to work on the farm to stave off famine.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoHow does that list prove your point? >> flowed to the armies of decorators Replaceable by better CG. >> drivers Replaceable by autonomous vehicles. >> caterers Do they even get paid much? >> painters and other workers who are ... mostly replaceable by better CG. If big studio will end up having to really cut down costs, they surely will.
- WalterBright 10y agoThe more automation has come to Hollywood, the more elaborate the movies become. (And more expensive.)
- kgabis 10y agoThe problem is that the number of jobs created might be lower than the number of jobs that got automated.
- dredmorbius 10y agoDoes it? The first round of labour replacement was based, mostly, on providing power to replace muscle, or in automating highly repetitive motion (cotton ginning, weaving, some forms of wood and metal-working). But the processing wasn't so automated that you could replace the mind of a worker who had to be there to manage the process. Per-worker efficiencies improved, yes. What we're seeing now is increasingly a replacement of skill and talent, especially at high levels of training, and at an ever-increasing rate. This has been under way for a while -- the first automated manufacturing and metalworking processes of the 1960s, increasingly back-office operations, etc. It's not entirely clear to me where labour has left to go. Moving off the farm into the factory was a net benefit. Moving from the radiology lab, or law office, or machine floor, or analytics desk, to dog-walking or yoga studio or elder-care maybe not so much. If we're all going into content-production, there's the question of how much content people can or will consume. Publishing in the US hit a peak of about 500 - 600k titles (by copyright office registrations) in the 1990s, of which about 300k were books. With online self-publication, the number's closer to 1-2 million according to R.R. Bowker, who issue ISBNs to new titles. That's a title per every 300 Americans. http://www.copyright.gov/reports/annual/2015/ar2015.pdf http://www.copyright.gov/reports/annual/2015/ar2015.pdf http://www.bowker.com/documents/isbn-output-report-2002-2013.html http://www.bowker.com/documents/isbn-output-report-2002-2013... There are counterarguments. Baumol's cost disease isn't just the observation that, despite all technological improvements, you still need four performers for a string quartet, but that the wages of those performers must increase despite the constancy of their output. (And yes, there are other factors at play: recording technology means their output can reach many more billions than in earlier times, Baumol and I are ignoring that for the moment.) There are a number of probable consequences -- that net production of such goods will decrease, that they will become luxury or status items, that labour cost will become an increasingly high-priced factor of inputs, and more. At heart remains the fact that an economy must provide for the upkeep and maintenance of its citizens, to the extent that's possible at all (hat-tip, Malthus), arguably that's the primary goal of an economy. Designing the resource and purchasing-power allocations to provide for this becomes interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease
- throw2016 10y agoI think Westworld is perfect example of a powerful new show with a large canvas that could struggle. The writing is delicate and nuanced, the cast a tour de force and the acting sublime. However the plot development of the AI by Nolan is a bit complex and layered which in many way makes it intriguing but also I think leaves casual viewers struggling to engage. A core fan base is already engaged but the numbers show that inspite of being clearly imho some of the best television in a long time it might not be renewed because its too expensive to develop. I personally think the weekly format is not friendly to this kind of complex show, viewers are not able to hold the strings together in their head or have no desire to keep track. At least 2 episodes a week or more can help alleviate this but that changes the economics and dynamics of how these shows are written and shot and in the interim there is room for HNs favourite word 'disruption'.
- izacus 10y ago> I personally think the weekly format is not friendly to this kind of complex show, viewers are not able to hold the strings together in their head or have no desire to keep track. At least 2 episodes a week or more can help alleviate this but that changes the economics and dynamics of how these shows are written and shot and in the interim there is room for HNs favourite word 'disruption'. Eh, people aren't as stupid as you make them to be. Remember, even an average housewife could follow the utterly complex web of a 1000+ parts of Santa Barbara soap opera. Asking people to follow a < 20 part show isn't anything special.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIndeed, I think most people are pretty smart when they care about something. Westworld has a tried-and-true bait for people - good cast, nudity and bloody shootouts. Seems enough to make at least some care and start saying that "it's the new Game of Thrones!", at which point they can be served a complex AI plot.
- throw2016 10y agoThat was not my intention at all. I didn't mean people are stupid in any way. I meant we are all more distracted, and the willingness to engage over long gaps requires some commitment and it's easy to lose track.
- danmendes 10y agoscroll to the sixth paragraph to get to the point. modern journalism...
- agentgt 10y agoA long time ago Hollywood studios used to literally own actors. The studios would have long term contracts with the actors. This lowered the cost of making movies while also increasing the speed. [1] I wonder if we will see something similar with the steaming companies. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system
- pryelluw 10y agoI wonder why they left out the elephant in the room: web video not from netflix, amazon or Hulu. There are thousands of YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and other types of channels replacing regular tv shows. What most don't realize is that TV is dead. It was replaced, not by netflix, but by YouTube and the rest of the online video portals. Even Snapchat aims to take away from the video content cake with its stories. Let me say it again: TV is dead. Entertainment has changed. People want a 2 way relationship with entertainers. They want to like, snap and follow. As technology makers we should take action and build escuche for that. Hell, musica.ly showed that there is a segment of the population who will pay attention to their peers in short self made music videos (this is the new mtv, btw).
- tyfon 10y agoI have not had a cable type connection with regular tv channels since 2012 or such. Why accept a forced programming on you at specific times when you can chose what you want to watch whenever you want. Even my 70+ father is making youtube videos about everything photos and watching/commenting similar channels of his own.
- mtberatwork 10y ago> People want a 2 way relationship with entertainers. They want to like, snap and follow. As technology makers we should take action and build escuche for that. I don't think your average viewer really cares that much about social media interaction when it comes down to it. No one is not going to watch Stranger Things on Netflix because they couldn't snapchat with the show's creators. People just want to easily access content on their own time (on-demand, on their devices) and without a lot of intrusive interruptions (ads). Netflix, Youtube, etc are successful because they achieve both of these, not because they are creating "2-way relationships with entertainers".
- pryelluw 10y agoMy post about is content created on the web in the form of text (which could easily be video if HN allowed embedded video responses). You replied to it. Two way relationship created. :) Note: I'm not being snarky, sarcastic or rude. Just proving a point in a friendly way. :)
- aikah 10y agoSome people say it's the "golden age" of TV-Shows. So much than even A list movie stars now play in series.
- mtw 10y agoI've never watched so many series - but I would really like more feature films. I'd pay $10/m for a service that delivers original films
- maldusiecle 10y agoMubi is worth considering. They don't produce their own films, but they tend to find films that are rare or unusual enough that they'd might as well be original.
- makecheck 10y agoThe future is still no “ad revenue”, at least in the traditional sense. They clearly sell rights for prominent placement of products in TV shows that have no commercials. It’s kind of funny sometimes (e.g. in The Punisher there was an interview scene with a prominently placed can of “Country Time” lemonade, and the thing magically rotated each time the camera moved so the full logo on the can was always visible). And this is fine; it’s silly but it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the show. Conversely, the aggressive nature of traditional commercials has been destroying regular TV. The commercials themselves are stupid of course but networks behave obnoxiously and desperately too. I recently decided to watch an old Star Trek: TNG episode (where I definitely remember how the episode went) and they did some serious editing to jam in as many commercials as they could! They honestly damaged the story line: at times, characters would directly refer to something that I know was in the original cut of the episode but omitted from the oh-god-make-more-room-for-commercials version. Hey, networks: when you start removing plot elements or making obvious edits that even break the background music, you are being desperate. When your ad for the next show is now taking up like 1/6 of my television screen and never goes away, you are being desperate. Don’t CRANK up the volume during commercials and make them go on and on and on for many, many minutes. And don’t disrespect the hundreds of people who work on TV shows by making it impossible to read credits.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoBoom & bust is the business model for TV/Film/Music unfortunately, but it is what it is. That's what creates opportunities for "new" things - shows, up and coming musicians, film stars, writers, directors, producers...on and on. Tastes change and the business and money go where they can get a return on investment - or a chance to do so. Risk vs. Reward. For context though, I saw a really well respected Executive Producer discussing how he invested in films (recently "The Revenant") and was getting critical acclaim and doing well. He was grateful for his partnership with Fox for distribution...then noted that revenue wise, Fox Studios for film was approximately $700 Million of revenue in a given year, whereas Fox News was $1.X Billion and Fox Sports was also $1.X Billion. In the big picture competition is extremely fierce and spread out even beyond the Sitcom-with-Kevin-James / NCIS-Your-Mom's-Backyard / Zombies-who-break-into-song-and-dance-numbers pieces that get cranked out year after year and don't stick.