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> Amazon.com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion including debt, said people familiar with the matter, a pact
by RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
> Amazon.com Inc. is nearing a deal to buy the Hollywood studio MGM Holdings for almost $9 billion including debt, said people familiar with the matter, a pact that would turn a film operation founded in the silent era into a streaming asset for the e-commerce giant.
What surprises me is that at $9 Billion, why hasn’t it been acquired by now?
Right now, video streaming is pretty much a solved problem, and it is content that differentiates one service from another.
If you are an Internet giant, $9 Billion seems like a pocket change to get access to a huge catalog.
- andrewstuart 5y agoGood point - you'd think Netflix would have been buying this stuff up.
- agustif 5y agohow many originals can they pump out at 9B though?
- Kye 5y agoOwning proven stuff is probably a more reliable investment than hoping one of your darts in the wall develops the cultural cachet of any of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_franchises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_f... How many Netflix productions come even close for all the tens of billions they've poured into it? Reliable names mean customer retention.
- agogdog 5y agoHonestly that doesn't seem all that great for $9bn.
- jonny_eh 5y agoAs attractive as catalog content can seem, it's not the reason why new customers join, and stay with, a streaming service. New content is King.
- echelon 5y agoTell that to the owners of The Office. Peacock making anything new and relevant?
- sushid 5y agoIs Peacock the embodiment of streaming success? For every Office and Friends there are 100s of duds that people just don't care much about after the final season.
- jonny_eh 5y ago> Tell that to the owners of The Office. Tell that to Netflix, which hardly lost any subscribers when they lost their most popular catalog show.
- dageshi 5y agoThe biggest IP is Bond and the Broccoli family own 50% of it and have creative control over the movies (and whether or not it can be a tv series). I imagine that's the complication, you buy MGM but don't really have full control over the crown jewel so to speak.