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I don't understand how they do the math with streaming. In a way, you can say that everyone who is an HBO subscriber has already paid for the Matrix Resurrecti

I don't understand how they do the math with streaming. In a way, you can say that everyone who is an HBO subscriber has already paid for the Matrix Resurrections. Obviously you don't have to watch it immediately, since it's now part of the streaming service catalogue, so unlike a movie theater where all people who intend to see the movie must watch it before it leaves the cinema, all HBO max subscriber can just think: cool new matrix, I should watch that eventually, and continue being happy subscriber even if they don't watch it yet (like me). So for me, this is building a catalogue. I'm sure they have things like immediate conversion, how many subbed and The Matrix Resurrection was their first thing they watched, etc. But basically, I think it's a very different formula, and it's probably a lot harder to figure out what success means and how important The Matrix Resurrection is to HBO Max's growth and continued subs.

csours 5y ago
I'm not sure how anyone does the math with streaming. Netflix is still able to raise money for production though.
3minus1 5y ago
I agree it's interesting. It seems like they lose money when an HBO subscriber would have bought a ticket but streams it instead. On the other hand they make a lot of money if someone signs up for HBO to see the Matrix, and ends up continuing their subscription for months/years.
maxerickson 5y ago
It's available for a while, not part of the catalog. I looked it up, it's available for a month for ad-free subscribers. It'll probably be available again in a year or two also of course.
js2 5y ago
To add to the complicated accounting, I have AT&T as my ISP ($70/mo for 1Gbps symmetric service) and one day last year or two they just started throwing in access to HBO Max.
wmf 5y ago
WB new releases are only on HBO Max for a month. If you watched Matrix 4 within that month they can attribute some fraction of your monthly fee to it.
mewse 5y ago
I think the key point is that streaming companies don't think of it as "our customers are paying us a subscription fee and then our catalog is free to them", but rather as "our customers are paying us a percentage of their subscription fee for each thing they watch". In terms of figuring out their own cash flow, most of these sorts of subscription services divvy up the subscription fee from each customer between everything that customer consumed from the service during the month. So if you've paid a $10 monthly fee and then only watch one movie, the company interprets that as you paying $10 to watch that movie. If you watch two movies, then you've paid $5 to watch each movie. (maybe with a skew favouring the longer movie or the newer release, depending on their own business logic) That approach would make it pretty easy for them to figure out a reasonable internal estimate of how much money a particular movie has earned the company via their subscription service. Although that's all fungible internal money and who knows how they'd want to report it, if at all.
- manquer 5y ago
  It doesn't matter how they gauge the success internally. They never share viewership numbers to the producers, and they don't pay by the actual viewership , they buy the property and do internal P&L on success of the buy as you say. From the producers perspective it only matters how much Netflix paid for a movie.
  - mewse 5y ago
    Hi. I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick, here. This conversation is about a company that's released their movie to theatres and is simultaneously streaming it via their own subscription streaming service, and trying to figure out how to account for money earned by the movie when some of that money may or may not be coming in via subscription fees on the streaming service. In that specific case (the one being discussed in this thread), the 'internal' numbers should be fine to use since they're all happening inside a single company -- both the royalties on theatrical ticket sales and the streaming subscription fees. There's no "sharing viewership numbers" with external parties implied in my comment above, and Netflix is not involved in this situation in any way.
lukifer 5y ago
Streaming services truly flip the "economic calculation problem" [0] on its head: the stakeholders would supposedly gain more reliable information on the value of different IP licenses if we all made purchases a la carte. As it is, they have little idea which program I'm hate-watching ironically, vs what's good enough to convince me to stay on the service (Midnight Mass), vs what I'd pay for exorbitantly out of pocket if I could (OA season 3). Yet clearly market forces have spoken: the desirability and convenience of the "club goods" model is strong enough to overwhelm any advantages of the transaction model; and the streaming services clearly believe their usage data and analytics are good enough to give them reliable correlations with subscriber acquisition and retention, so they can decide what to license and produce. (While telemetry surely helps, it's worth noting that HBO made this model work for decades based solely on surveys and brand cachet.) See also: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-of-walmart https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
- philistine 5y ago
  TV networks have been doing this for coming on a century now. You're right, it's a problem, but one the industry is accustomed to operate within.

csours 5y ago

I'm not sure how anyone does the math with streaming. Netflix is still able to raise money for production though.

3minus1 5y ago

I agree it's interesting. It seems like they lose money when an HBO subscriber would have bought a ticket but streams it instead. On the other hand they make a lot of money if someone signs up for HBO to see the Matrix, and ends up continuing their subscription for months/years.

maxerickson 5y ago

It's available for a while, not part of the catalog. I looked it up, it's available for a month for ad-free subscribers. It'll probably be available again in a year or two also of course.

js2 5y ago

To add to the complicated accounting, I have AT&T as my ISP ($70/mo for 1Gbps symmetric service) and one day last year or two they just started throwing in access to HBO Max.

wmf 5y ago

WB new releases are only on HBO Max for a month. If you watched Matrix 4 within that month they can attribute some fraction of your monthly fee to it.

mewse 5y ago

I think the key point is that streaming companies don't think of it as "our customers are paying us a subscription fee and then our catalog is free to them", but rather as "our customers are paying us a percentage of their subscription fee for each thing they watch". In terms of figuring out their own cash flow, most of these sorts of subscription services divvy up the subscription fee from each customer between everything that customer consumed from the service during the month. So if you've paid a $10 monthly fee and then only watch one movie, the company interprets that as you paying $10 to watch that movie. If you watch two movies, then you've paid $5 to watch each movie. (maybe with a skew favouring the longer movie or the newer release, depending on their own business logic) That approach would make it pretty easy for them to figure out a reasonable internal estimate of how much money a particular movie has earned the company via their subscription service. Although that's all fungible internal money and who knows how they'd want to report it, if at all.

manquer 5y ago
It doesn't matter how they gauge the success internally. They never share viewership numbers to the producers, and they don't pay by the actual viewership , they buy the property and do internal P&L on success of the buy as you say. From the producers perspective it only matters how much Netflix paid for a movie.
- mewse 5y ago
  Hi. I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick, here. This conversation is about a company that's released their movie to theatres and is simultaneously streaming it via their own subscription streaming service, and trying to figure out how to account for money earned by the movie when some of that money may or may not be coming in via subscription fees on the streaming service. In that specific case (the one being discussed in this thread), the 'internal' numbers should be fine to use since they're all happening inside a single company -- both the royalties on theatrical ticket sales and the streaming subscription fees. There's no "sharing viewership numbers" with external parties implied in my comment above, and Netflix is not involved in this situation in any way.

lukifer 5y ago

Streaming services truly flip the "economic calculation problem" [0] on its head: the stakeholders would supposedly gain more reliable information on the value of different IP licenses if we all made purchases a la carte. As it is, they have little idea which program I'm hate-watching ironically, vs what's good enough to convince me to stay on the service (Midnight Mass), vs what I'd pay for exorbitantly out of pocket if I could (OA season 3). Yet clearly market forces have spoken: the desirability and convenience of the "club goods" model is strong enough to overwhelm any advantages of the transaction model; and the streaming services clearly believe their usage data and analytics are good enough to give them reliable correlations with subscriber acquisition and retention, so they can decide what to license and produce. (While telemetry surely helps, it's worth noting that HBO made this model work for decades based solely on surveys and brand cachet.) See also: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-of-walmart https://www.versobooks.com/books/2822-the-people-s-republic-... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

philistine 5y ago
TV networks have been doing this for coming on a century now. You're right, it's a problem, but one the industry is accustomed to operate within.