4 ms·

HBO Max Removes 256 ‘Looney Tunes’ Shorts, Three Seasons of ‘The Flintstones’

33 points by shscs911 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
drumhead 4y ago
Making your premiumn streaming offer less attractive isnt really signalling your confidence in its sucess.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Or people like the idea of this content but wouldn’t actually watch it. Yeah we’re in the era of streaming companies competing while watching net profits. Everyone’s offer is going to get less attractive. Netflix is going to crack down on shared passwords here soon, for example.
  - fortyseven 4y ago
    Why is HBO running out of hard drive space or something?
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
    [dead]
- gumby 4y ago
  I'm sure they have stats that allow them to figure out how much this matters. If you aren't spying on your customer's usage you should't be in the streaming business.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
Abandoned art should enter the public domain (this is exactly what happens with intellectual property in the engineering R&D space).
- eesmith 4y ago
  ??? This isn't abandoned art. > The “Looney Tunes” and “Flintstones” content was licensed to HBO Max from Warner Bros. under an intra-company deal. Those licensing agreements expired at the end of 2022 and HBO Max did not renew them, as it seeks to reduce content expenses. Warner doesn't seem to be abandoning those episodes.
  - xsmasher 4y ago
    HBO is owned by Warner Bros/Discovery now. Seems like it would make licensing easier. Unless they're going to "rent out" their valuable properties to other streaming services, and only keep the dregs on HBO Max?
    - filmgirlcw 4y ago
      No, it's more like they don't think the current price was worth renewing on HBO Max and could use that money for other content. But they'd be willing to license it to someone else (probably less than what HBO Max was paying, but that's still weirdly a win) if possible. Under AT&T, the whole idea was to keep basically everything created or owned by Warner Bros. under the HBO Max brand, no matter how much more they could be making if they licensed Friends or Big Bang Theory or whatever to Netflix or Disney or Apple or whoever. Because they saw that as an incentive to get subscribers. Now that subscriber growth has largely flattened (at least in the US), they are rethinking that idea for properties that don't bring them a lot of subscribers or that don't have a lot of views. Other streamers probably have zero interest in picking most of this stuff up because they have all gone all-in on producing all of their content in-house and have their own budget struggles, but they could do international licensing or license to FAST (free ad supported streaming television) services in a roll-up. Or they could just not have the content on streaming if they are going to have to pay for it. Vault it up. Which is a real shame, of course, but this is why some of us have continued to buy physical media or iTunes downloads.
- yrro 4y ago
  Define 'abandoned'? The copyright owner is within their rights to 'rest' their property for a period to increase its value.
bhouston 4y ago
This is being done to reduce licensing costs? I figure that just having a lot of shows sitting around on a streaming service is relatively cheap right?
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Depends on the content, and sometimes you have to say no as a negotiation tactic so value gets set. These were probably just very low viewership while being very culturally relevant. People care that they’re gone but not so much that they’d actually watch.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Wouldn't more people cancel or not signup if the perceived value goes down regardless of viewship. Viewship is an easy metric to collect but it ignores perceived value. Netflix has all of the star treks. I may rarely watch a show but if they removed them one of the reasons to have the subscription ceases to exist. People will pay to have content available even though they have no time to actually watch it.
    - wcfields 4y ago
      > Viewship is an easy metric to collect but it ignores perceived value At a previous analytics job we were working for our client, one of the larger streaming platforms as were trying to quantify value, and more importantly attribution. Attribution was huge and was still being worked out by the data scientists and then re-worked by marketing C-Levels at the platform. By the time I left, If you signed up for the service and immediately watched "Big Movie" as your first watch, or you finished >50% of "Big Movie" within the first of signup then "Big Movie" was the attributed thing that got you in. This helped drive decisions (or helped "justify" in retrospect) for day-and-date movies (play on the platform + in theaters same-day), or to take what would have been a theatrical and put it only on streaming.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    The viewership could still have been relatively high and the streaming service could still decide not to renew if it was considered too expensive and there was a wish to cut costs. The deep weird, interesting part of this negotiation is that it is happening "inside the same house": the incoming new management of HBO Max coming from Discovery have made it clear they are looking to cut a lot of costs and care a lot more about that than the value of the content they are cutting, while presumably the old guard still left at Warner Brothers are negotiating for the value of their more expensive to produce (compared to Discovery's niches) content. From the outside we don't have a lot of details of these negotiations, including whether or not this was highly viewed content on HBO Max. We just see Warner Brothers Discovery punching themselves in infighting, and it is very odd and kind of interesting from this distance.
lakomen 4y ago
The problem is HBO max is worse than HBO Go was. Content is less visible and harder to explore. The player is worse. Region restrictions are greater aka worse. I have unsubscribed from HBO max because the content was boring. I'm absolutely not interested in superhero stuff. Then there's a LOT of gay content, which I'm also not interested in. And finally depressing dystopian fiction, which I also don't like. And the drug stuff is also degenerate. Nothing interesting. In fact none of those pay2streamNotOwn services are attractive. Back to piracy for me. At least I can watch what I like when I like, don't have to be online to do so, can copy everywhere.
- martinflack 4y ago
  The player (on a Roku at least) definitely needs work. You can't say "I watched this" (perhaps elsewhere) and mark an episode watched. Frustratingly, if you accidentally play two seconds of an old episode it insists that you need to watch it for auto-selection to work. You can't mark an episode as "go back here and forget I watched from here onwards in the series so I can rewatch" - useful if you want to review again, or if you fell asleep in front of the TV. I don't know how they leave these things out. As far as content, I still find things to watch on HBO Max. White Lotus is interesting.
egberts1 4y ago
Just unsubscribed HBO two weeks ago. Dull content, non-familial audience, and extremely hard to use HBO app within LG TV WebOS and ATT/Artemis TV WebOS. HBO basically missed the market target (me).

33 points by shscs911 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

drumhead 4y ago

Making your premiumn streaming offer less attractive isnt really signalling your confidence in its sucess.

colechristensen 4y ago
Or people like the idea of this content but wouldn’t actually watch it. Yeah we’re in the era of streaming companies competing while watching net profits. Everyone’s offer is going to get less attractive. Netflix is going to crack down on shared passwords here soon, for example.
- fortyseven 4y ago
  Why is HBO running out of hard drive space or something?
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
  [dead]
gumby 4y ago
I'm sure they have stats that allow them to figure out how much this matters. If you aren't spying on your customer's usage you should't be in the streaming business.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

Abandoned art should enter the public domain (this is exactly what happens with intellectual property in the engineering R&D space).

eesmith 4y ago
??? This isn't abandoned art. > The “Looney Tunes” and “Flintstones” content was licensed to HBO Max from Warner Bros. under an intra-company deal. Those licensing agreements expired at the end of 2022 and HBO Max did not renew them, as it seeks to reduce content expenses. Warner doesn't seem to be abandoning those episodes.
- xsmasher 4y ago
  HBO is owned by Warner Bros/Discovery now. Seems like it would make licensing easier. Unless they're going to "rent out" their valuable properties to other streaming services, and only keep the dregs on HBO Max?
  - filmgirlcw 4y ago
    No, it's more like they don't think the current price was worth renewing on HBO Max and could use that money for other content. But they'd be willing to license it to someone else (probably less than what HBO Max was paying, but that's still weirdly a win) if possible. Under AT&T, the whole idea was to keep basically everything created or owned by Warner Bros. under the HBO Max brand, no matter how much more they could be making if they licensed Friends or Big Bang Theory or whatever to Netflix or Disney or Apple or whoever. Because they saw that as an incentive to get subscribers. Now that subscriber growth has largely flattened (at least in the US), they are rethinking that idea for properties that don't bring them a lot of subscribers or that don't have a lot of views. Other streamers probably have zero interest in picking most of this stuff up because they have all gone all-in on producing all of their content in-house and have their own budget struggles, but they could do international licensing or license to FAST (free ad supported streaming television) services in a roll-up. Or they could just not have the content on streaming if they are going to have to pay for it. Vault it up. Which is a real shame, of course, but this is why some of us have continued to buy physical media or iTunes downloads.
yrro 4y ago
Define 'abandoned'? The copyright owner is within their rights to 'rest' their property for a period to increase its value.

bhouston 4y ago

This is being done to reduce licensing costs? I figure that just having a lot of shows sitting around on a streaming service is relatively cheap right?

colechristensen 4y ago
Depends on the content, and sometimes you have to say no as a negotiation tactic so value gets set. These were probably just very low viewership while being very culturally relevant. People care that they’re gone but not so much that they’d actually watch.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Wouldn't more people cancel or not signup if the perceived value goes down regardless of viewship. Viewship is an easy metric to collect but it ignores perceived value. Netflix has all of the star treks. I may rarely watch a show but if they removed them one of the reasons to have the subscription ceases to exist. People will pay to have content available even though they have no time to actually watch it.
  - wcfields 4y ago
    > Viewship is an easy metric to collect but it ignores perceived value At a previous analytics job we were working for our client, one of the larger streaming platforms as were trying to quantify value, and more importantly attribution. Attribution was huge and was still being worked out by the data scientists and then re-worked by marketing C-Levels at the platform. By the time I left, If you signed up for the service and immediately watched "Big Movie" as your first watch, or you finished >50% of "Big Movie" within the first of signup then "Big Movie" was the attributed thing that got you in. This helped drive decisions (or helped "justify" in retrospect) for day-and-date movies (play on the platform + in theaters same-day), or to take what would have been a theatrical and put it only on streaming.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  The viewership could still have been relatively high and the streaming service could still decide not to renew if it was considered too expensive and there was a wish to cut costs. The deep weird, interesting part of this negotiation is that it is happening "inside the same house": the incoming new management of HBO Max coming from Discovery have made it clear they are looking to cut a lot of costs and care a lot more about that than the value of the content they are cutting, while presumably the old guard still left at Warner Brothers are negotiating for the value of their more expensive to produce (compared to Discovery's niches) content. From the outside we don't have a lot of details of these negotiations, including whether or not this was highly viewed content on HBO Max. We just see Warner Brothers Discovery punching themselves in infighting, and it is very odd and kind of interesting from this distance.

lakomen 4y ago

The problem is HBO max is worse than HBO Go was. Content is less visible and harder to explore. The player is worse. Region restrictions are greater aka worse. I have unsubscribed from HBO max because the content was boring. I'm absolutely not interested in superhero stuff. Then there's a LOT of gay content, which I'm also not interested in. And finally depressing dystopian fiction, which I also don't like. And the drug stuff is also degenerate. Nothing interesting. In fact none of those pay2streamNotOwn services are attractive. Back to piracy for me. At least I can watch what I like when I like, don't have to be online to do so, can copy everywhere.

martinflack 4y ago
The player (on a Roku at least) definitely needs work. You can't say "I watched this" (perhaps elsewhere) and mark an episode watched. Frustratingly, if you accidentally play two seconds of an old episode it insists that you need to watch it for auto-selection to work. You can't mark an episode as "go back here and forget I watched from here onwards in the series so I can rewatch" - useful if you want to review again, or if you fell asleep in front of the TV. I don't know how they leave these things out. As far as content, I still find things to watch on HBO Max. White Lotus is interesting.

egberts1 4y ago

Just unsubscribed HBO two weeks ago. Dull content, non-familial audience, and extremely hard to use HBO app within LG TV WebOS and ATT/Artemis TV WebOS. HBO basically missed the market target (me).