5 ms·

Maybe if Disney produced content people wanted to watch instead of letting the insane leverage their platform to elevate their voice, more people might be inter

by EricE 4y ago

Maybe if Disney produced content people wanted to watch instead of letting the insane leverage their platform to elevate their voice, more people might be interested in subscribing. Discovery, post merger, seems to be interesting in refocusing Warner back on creating quality content that people actually are interested in - what a concept!

dawnerd 4y ago
What? Disney+ surpassed Netflix in subscribers. https://www.axios.com/2022/08/10/disney-surpasses-netflix-global-paid-subscribers https://www.axios.com/2022/08/10/disney-surpasses-netflix-gl...
- kerbs 4y ago
  Yeah that was a weird comment. Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. It's absolutely dizzying to think how fast they are going to blow past Netflix with Disney+ alone. It must be stressful to be in leadership at Netflix right now. How do you compete? More Chaos Monkeys? It's clear the differentiator is no longer engineering but IP.
  - toyg 4y ago
    > It's clear the differentiator is no longer engineering but IP. That's been obvious for a very long time. It's why stuff like Stranger Things exists and is being milked. NF leadership have been playing that game for a long time now, they knew the time of reckoning would come; the question is whether they managed to build enough defences to resist the predicted storm and stay afloat in the long term.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. It's absolutely dizzying to think how fast they are going to blow past Netflix with Disney+ alone. Well. No surprise given how much buy-ups and mergers the regulators tolerated... Out of the list for popular franchises, Disney owns the top two (MCU/26 B$, Star Wars/10 B$) and has significant involvement in the third place (Spider-Man). Additionally, they own Avatar (which is the most profitable movie ever made), The Simpsons, Indiana Jones, the entire catalog of Pixar, the entire classic and re-made OG Disney IP and a ton of other stuff [1]. Of the really popular stuff, the only things Disney doesn't own are Harry Potter (which is a complicated dumpster fire not just given the tendency of JKR to set her own life work ablaze, but also IP-rights-wise [2]), the DC Universe (which hasn't managed to stay even close to competitive with MCU), Star Trek (which went off Netflix to Paramount+) and James Bond. The future of entertainment is scary - Disney needs to be broken up, or the government needs to step in and mandate that copyright holders have to provide fair and equal streaming rights to everyone, similar to the music industry (which managed to get the hint on its own, and now there's more than healthy competition in the market with OG Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal and a boatload of smaller ones). [1] https://ifilmthings.com/disney-owns/ https://ifilmthings.com/disney-owns/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22770469/harry-potter-streaming-hbo-max-peacock-abc-family-freeform-rights https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22770469/harry-potter-st...
    - kerbs 4y ago
      Yeah I'm ambivalent about if what they do is good. I do think that what they've done with Star Wars is better than whatever Lucasfilm did with the franchise between 1983 and when they sold. Should new Star Wars be a big part of what I watch? I enjoy them, but I'm undecided. MCU just feels like rubbish, but it prints money for reasons I just can't figure out.
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        Going to disagree on Star Wars. The prequels at least had a somewhat coherent story line (aside from the great Darth Jar Jar conspiracy) and artistic direction, the new sequels are... just WTF? It's still blowing my mind what went wrong there. It seems like they didn't have any sort of plan beforehand and just went with whatever they came up with, completely ditching decades of Expanded Universe lore. In contrast, the MCU is the perfect execution of "how to make a movie out of a boatload of source material". IMHO, them sticking to the lore well enough that the die-hard nerds don't have much to whine was the key decision that made the MCU what it is... but now that the MCU has gotten so absurdly large, it's going to be interesting if they can keep up with that attention to detail.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. Disney+ sure, but Disney is the Goliath in entertainment and has been around for close to 100 years!
- dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
  Not to say Disney+ is not successful, but the headline is false as discussed previously here.
- chomp 4y ago
  Disney+ did not surpass Netflix, go look at the earnings report. All Disney properties (Hulu, ESPN+, Disney+) lumped together surpassed Netflix. And some of those subs are potentially double and triple counted because of that.
  - stiltzkin 4y ago
    Also Disney was aggressive with good pricing and package with ESPN+, it was known from the beginning the price would change.
  - darth_avocado 4y ago
    Not sure if they included global numbers but for example, in India they have hotstar as a property which shows live sports and is huge, which bundles up with Disney+.
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      Global numbers. > in India they have hotstar as a property which shows live sports and is huge On the other hand, Disney did lose the rights to stream Indian Premier League https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-wins-tv-rights-loses-streaming-rights-for-indian-premier-league-cricket-11655223683 https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-wins-tv-rights-loses-str...
- neogodless 4y ago
  You have to word this carefully... Disney has more subscriptions than Netflix, when you add together the streaming services they offer. ("Subscribers" implies people, but that's much harder to count accurately.)
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > What? Disney+ surpassed Netflix in subscribers. False. Disney+, Hulu, Hotstar, and ESPN combined.
- drewg123 4y ago
  I signed up for the Disney bundle recently, mostly because it was free with my Amex card. So I'm counted as 3 subscribers (even though I've never bothered to sign into ESPN+), and I provide $0 revenue to Disney. I think the lesson is that it is easy to have great growth numbers when you give your service away, loose billions, and triple count subscribers.
optimalsolver 4y ago
So the people who took Discovery from science-focused educational programming to truckers and pawn stars are calling the shots? That doesn't sound good to me, but obviously they know what the people want.
- Arrath 4y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/4/23291037/hbo-max-warner-bros-discovery-merger-david-zaslav-chip-joanna-gaines https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/4/23291037/hbo-max-warner-br... I fear that all of HBO's good scripted content will get axed in favor of cheap to produce reality crap.
rideontime 4y ago
> letting the insane leverage their platform to elevate their voice Can you expand on this?
- mminer237 4y ago
  One notable recent thing that stood out to me is that the kids' show Baymax! had an episode where the plot was that a 12-year-old girl needed help shopping for menstrual hygiene products and got recommendations on what was most comfortable from a transgender man. Which is likely to be very confusing for most kids to say the least and was clearly added to score political points, not to make a better show.
  - libraryatnight 4y ago
    I had to go look up the scene, and it was Baymax asking for opinions and getting a bunch of opinions from everyone in the shopping isle including one from a man who says he always gets the ones with wings. That seemed to be it?
  - rideontime 4y ago
    Aha. So that's what GP was referring to as "insane"? Thanks for being explicit about it at least.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
32bitkid 4y ago
Legit question: who, exactly, classifies as “the insane” in this statement?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  I'm guessing they mean people who think transexuals should be treated with respect, included in society, and represented in media.
bastardoperator 4y ago
They have an estimated 137M subscribers and year over year growth, I'm sure they'll look into your suggestion though.

by EricE 4y ago

dawnerd 4y ago

What? Disney+ surpassed Netflix in subscribers. https://www.axios.com/2022/08/10/disney-surpasses-netflix-global-paid-subscribers https://www.axios.com/2022/08/10/disney-surpasses-netflix-gl...

kerbs 4y ago
Yeah that was a weird comment. Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. It's absolutely dizzying to think how fast they are going to blow past Netflix with Disney+ alone. It must be stressful to be in leadership at Netflix right now. How do you compete? More Chaos Monkeys? It's clear the differentiator is no longer engineering but IP.
- toyg 4y ago
  > It's clear the differentiator is no longer engineering but IP. That's been obvious for a very long time. It's why stuff like Stranger Things exists and is being milked. NF leadership have been playing that game for a long time now, they knew the time of reckoning would come; the question is whether they managed to build enough defences to resist the predicted storm and stay afloat in the long term.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. It's absolutely dizzying to think how fast they are going to blow past Netflix with Disney+ alone. Well. No surprise given how much buy-ups and mergers the regulators tolerated... Out of the list for popular franchises, Disney owns the top two (MCU/26 B$, Star Wars/10 B$) and has significant involvement in the third place (Spider-Man). Additionally, they own Avatar (which is the most profitable movie ever made), The Simpsons, Indiana Jones, the entire catalog of Pixar, the entire classic and re-made OG Disney IP and a ton of other stuff [1]. Of the really popular stuff, the only things Disney doesn't own are Harry Potter (which is a complicated dumpster fire not just given the tendency of JKR to set her own life work ablaze, but also IP-rights-wise [2]), the DC Universe (which hasn't managed to stay even close to competitive with MCU), Star Trek (which went off Netflix to Paramount+) and James Bond. The future of entertainment is scary - Disney needs to be broken up, or the government needs to step in and mandate that copyright holders have to provide fair and equal streaming rights to everyone, similar to the music industry (which managed to get the hint on its own, and now there's more than healthy competition in the market with OG Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal and a boatload of smaller ones). [1] https://ifilmthings.com/disney-owns/ https://ifilmthings.com/disney-owns/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22770469/harry-potter-streaming-hbo-max-peacock-abc-family-freeform-rights https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22770469/harry-potter-st...
  - kerbs 4y ago
    Yeah I'm ambivalent about if what they do is good. I do think that what they've done with Star Wars is better than whatever Lucasfilm did with the franchise between 1983 and when they sold. Should new Star Wars be a big part of what I watch? I enjoy them, but I'm undecided. MCU just feels like rubbish, but it prints money for reasons I just can't figure out.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      Going to disagree on Star Wars. The prequels at least had a somewhat coherent story line (aside from the great Darth Jar Jar conspiracy) and artistic direction, the new sequels are... just WTF? It's still blowing my mind what went wrong there. It seems like they didn't have any sort of plan beforehand and just went with whatever they came up with, completely ditching decades of Expanded Universe lore. In contrast, the MCU is the perfect execution of "how to make a movie out of a boatload of source material". IMHO, them sticking to the lore well enough that the die-hard nerds don't have much to whine was the key decision that made the MCU what it is... but now that the MCU has gotten so absurdly large, it's going to be interesting if they can keep up with that attention to detail.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > Disney+ is huge, and it got there so fast. Disney+ sure, but Disney is the Goliath in entertainment and has been around for close to 100 years!
dvfjsdhgfv 4y ago
Not to say Disney+ is not successful, but the headline is false as discussed previously here.
chomp 4y ago
Disney+ did not surpass Netflix, go look at the earnings report. All Disney properties (Hulu, ESPN+, Disney+) lumped together surpassed Netflix. And some of those subs are potentially double and triple counted because of that.
- stiltzkin 4y ago
  Also Disney was aggressive with good pricing and package with ESPN+, it was known from the beginning the price would change.
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  Not sure if they included global numbers but for example, in India they have hotstar as a property which shows live sports and is huge, which bundles up with Disney+.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Global numbers. > in India they have hotstar as a property which shows live sports and is huge On the other hand, Disney did lose the rights to stream Indian Premier League https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-wins-tv-rights-loses-streaming-rights-for-indian-premier-league-cricket-11655223683 https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-wins-tv-rights-loses-str...
neogodless 4y ago
You have to word this carefully... Disney has more subscriptions than Netflix, when you add together the streaming services they offer. ("Subscribers" implies people, but that's much harder to count accurately.)
andsoitis 4y ago
> What? Disney+ surpassed Netflix in subscribers. False. Disney+, Hulu, Hotstar, and ESPN combined.
drewg123 4y ago
I signed up for the Disney bundle recently, mostly because it was free with my Amex card. So I'm counted as 3 subscribers (even though I've never bothered to sign into ESPN+), and I provide $0 revenue to Disney. I think the lesson is that it is easy to have great growth numbers when you give your service away, loose billions, and triple count subscribers.

optimalsolver 4y ago

So the people who took Discovery from science-focused educational programming to truckers and pawn stars are calling the shots? That doesn't sound good to me, but obviously they know what the people want.

Arrath 4y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/4/23291037/hbo-max-warner-bros-discovery-merger-david-zaslav-chip-joanna-gaines https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/4/23291037/hbo-max-warner-br... I fear that all of HBO's good scripted content will get axed in favor of cheap to produce reality crap.

rideontime 4y ago

> letting the insane leverage their platform to elevate their voice Can you expand on this?

mminer237 4y ago
One notable recent thing that stood out to me is that the kids' show Baymax! had an episode where the plot was that a 12-year-old girl needed help shopping for menstrual hygiene products and got recommendations on what was most comfortable from a transgender man. Which is likely to be very confusing for most kids to say the least and was clearly added to score political points, not to make a better show.
- libraryatnight 4y ago
  I had to go look up the scene, and it was Baymax asking for opinions and getting a bunch of opinions from everyone in the shopping isle including one from a man who says he always gets the ones with wings. That seemed to be it?
- rideontime 4y ago
  Aha. So that's what GP was referring to as "insane"? Thanks for being explicit about it at least.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

32bitkid 4y ago

Legit question: who, exactly, classifies as “the insane” in this statement?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TaupeRanger 4y ago
I'm guessing they mean people who think transexuals should be treated with respect, included in society, and represented in media.

bastardoperator 4y ago

They have an estimated 137M subscribers and year over year growth, I'm sure they'll look into your suggestion though.