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‘South Park’ Nears $500M Deal for U.S. Streaming Rights

26 points by u-dissolve 7y ago

awinder 7y ago
“One company that probably won’t be bidding is Apple Inc., the people said. The tech giant has eschewed controversial programming that could damage its brand, and it’s wary of offending China, where it sells a lot of iPhones.” Did Bloomberg change the title or did the submitter editorialize? This is the only mention of Apple and yeah, Apple was never going to pick this up because it’s a TV-MA program and they’re not trying to go there with their streaming service. This is such a reach for Apple concern trolling.
- u-dissolve 7y ago
  I made the title that because it was the part of the article I was most interested in. I changed the title to "Apple won't bid on 'South Park' streaming rights fearing controversy and China" in order to better reflect that Apple doesn't want to hurt its brand with controversial programming, as you mentioned. I would rather make the title "Apple won't bid on 'South Park' streaming rights fearing controversial programming that could hurt its brand and China," but that doesn't fit withing HN's length limit. Edit: Apple has a history in cooperating with China's censorship, so it's not much of a stretch. If so, Apple wouldn't say that's the reason they didn't bid, for obvious reasons. Edit: I know that South Park's controversial/adult nature could be a factor in their decision. It says that in the article, and it's why I decided to change the title to include that. Edit: Alright, I suppose I am in the wrong here. I'll change the title to more closely match the original article.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    But you've completely misrepresented the facts. Apple isn't specifically turning down South Park because of controversy/China. They never said why and to be honest it could be just as simple as it doesn't fit in with the rest of AppleTV+. Which IMHO it really doesn't.
  - millstone 7y ago
    It ludicrous to think that Apple would be interested in streaming South Park under any circumstances. You might as well ask Nickelodeon to do it.
  - awinder 7y ago
    Don’t editorialize is an explicit guideline: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you get an upvote for being a cool dude/ette about it.
  - dang 7y ago
    Cherry-picking one detail from an article is editorializing. If you want to say what you think is important in an article, please do so not in the title but in a comment, where your view is on a level playing field with everyone else's. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20title%20level%20playing%20field https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
deleted 7y ago
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gtirloni 7y ago
I had a feeling Apple was pushing for encryption and privacy, to be a counterpoint to Google's massive data collection. However, seeing how they are handling China (one could say, how they must handle China given their dependency), I don't know if that will be a selling point anymore.
- u-dissolve 7y ago
  Google profits from advertising; Google collects data for advertising. Apple profits from iPhones; Apple conforms to censorship to keep their biggest (population-wise) customer. Companies are driven by money, not goodwill. Apple only pushed for privacy because it was a selling point.
andrei_says_ 7y ago
South Park is a litmus test and so is subordination to the Chinese party leadership’s egos. I wonder if we’re witnessing the shift of economic gravity center and if companies like Apple are running long term analyses of the costs of protecting their brand in one market at the risk of tarnishing it in another.
- millstone 7y ago
  South Park is important and has its place, but it's obvious that place could never be a family-friendly streaming service like Apple offers.
  - u-dissolve 7y ago
    Apple does not advertise their streaming service as "family-friendly." It's surprising that they didn't make a single bid on a show as big as South Park.
fstopmick 7y ago
Matt and Trey should launch TegrityFlix (TegrityTube?) and show only content that is banned in China, launching with an episode about "Tegrity VPN". I'd buy a subscription in a heartbeat.
dang 7y ago
The submitted title broke the HN guideline that asks not to editorialize. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Submitted title was "‘South Park’ Nears $500 Million bid for its US Streaming Rights, Apple won't bid".)

26 points by u-dissolve 7y ago

“One company that probably won’t be bidding is Apple Inc., the people said. The tech giant has eschewed controversial programming that could damage its brand, and it’s wary of offending China, where it sells a lot of iPhones.” Did Bloomberg change the title or did the submitter editorialize? This is the only mention of Apple and yeah, Apple was never going to pick this up because it’s a TV-MA program and they’re not trying to go there with their streaming service. This is such a reach for Apple concern trolling.

u-dissolve 7y ago
I made the title that because it was the part of the article I was most interested in. I changed the title to "Apple won't bid on 'South Park' streaming rights fearing controversy and China" in order to better reflect that Apple doesn't want to hurt its brand with controversial programming, as you mentioned. I would rather make the title "Apple won't bid on 'South Park' streaming rights fearing controversial programming that could hurt its brand and China," but that doesn't fit withing HN's length limit. Edit: Apple has a history in cooperating with China's censorship, so it's not much of a stretch. If so, Apple wouldn't say that's the reason they didn't bid, for obvious reasons. Edit: I know that South Park's controversial/adult nature could be a factor in their decision. It says that in the article, and it's why I decided to change the title to include that. Edit: Alright, I suppose I am in the wrong here. I'll change the title to more closely match the original article.
- threeseed 7y ago
  But you've completely misrepresented the facts. Apple isn't specifically turning down South Park because of controversy/China. They never said why and to be honest it could be just as simple as it doesn't fit in with the rest of AppleTV+. Which IMHO it really doesn't.
- millstone 7y ago
  It ludicrous to think that Apple would be interested in streaming South Park under any circumstances. You might as well ask Nickelodeon to do it.
- awinder 7y ago
  Don’t editorialize is an explicit guideline: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you get an upvote for being a cool dude/ette about it.
- dang 7y ago
  Cherry-picking one detail from an article is editorializing. If you want to say what you think is important in an article, please do so not in the title but in a comment, where your view is on a level playing field with everyone else's. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20title%20level%20playing%20field https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gtirloni 7y ago

I had a feeling Apple was pushing for encryption and privacy, to be a counterpoint to Google's massive data collection. However, seeing how they are handling China (one could say, how they must handle China given their dependency), I don't know if that will be a selling point anymore.

u-dissolve 7y ago
Google profits from advertising; Google collects data for advertising. Apple profits from iPhones; Apple conforms to censorship to keep their biggest (population-wise) customer. Companies are driven by money, not goodwill. Apple only pushed for privacy because it was a selling point.

andrei_says_ 7y ago

South Park is a litmus test and so is subordination to the Chinese party leadership’s egos. I wonder if we’re witnessing the shift of economic gravity center and if companies like Apple are running long term analyses of the costs of protecting their brand in one market at the risk of tarnishing it in another.

millstone 7y ago
South Park is important and has its place, but it's obvious that place could never be a family-friendly streaming service like Apple offers.
- u-dissolve 7y ago
  Apple does not advertise their streaming service as "family-friendly." It's surprising that they didn't make a single bid on a show as big as South Park.

fstopmick 7y ago

Matt and Trey should launch TegrityFlix (TegrityTube?) and show only content that is banned in China, launching with an episode about "Tegrity VPN". I'd buy a subscription in a heartbeat.

dang 7y ago

The submitted title broke the HN guideline that asks not to editorialize. Please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Submitted title was "‘South Park’ Nears $500 Million bid for its US Streaming Rights, Apple won't bid".)