4 ms·

“The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” - Ted Sarandos in 2013 Seems Netflix won that race.

• raverbashing 10mo ago
  After that complete fumble of HBO becoming "Max" they were at their last legs
  • justin66 10mo ago
    The "Max" fiasco was pretty much the strangest branding mistake ever. Not just an obvious mistake but it was honestly kind of a mystery that anyone would even be tempted to do that.
    • NoMoreNicksLeft 10mo ago
      "HBO or Cinemax... um, I wonder which name I should keep."
    • tempoponet 10mo ago
      Remember when Netflix almost split its brand with "Quickster"? It was the dying DVD by mail service, but the whole debacle did nothing but confuse people.
      • xp84 10mo ago
        True, although Netflix knew the DVD business had no permanent future anyway, so they really didn't care. If they'd picked a less silly name like "DVDflix" or something, it wouldn't have become a viral story, but either way it wouldn't have changed NFLX's fortunes.
• theandrewbailey 10mo ago
  As I was reading the announcement, that quote popped into my head. I came here to say exactly that.
• paxys 10mo ago
  Thing is that Netflix didn't really succeed at that goal. HBO was and still is the gold standard for premium cable content. Netflix instead decided to go for the bottom 70% of the market, and the quality of their shows reflects that. In fact the very reason for this purchase is that they desperately need help on the creative side. Netflix is what it is today because all the studios trying to compete with their tech was an even bigger disaster than Netflix competing on content.
  • triceratops 10mo ago
    I don't think the Netflix vs HBO comparison is fair. HBO was always one channel in a home. They produced a limited amount of high-quality content. You watch it a few times a week and network TV reality shows or whatever other trash the rest of the week. Netflix wanted/wants to be the only channel in cord-cutting and cord-never homes. When that's your goal you have to produce mostly crap and some good stuff.
    • hulitu 10mo ago
      > and some good stuff which is mostly inexistent on Netflix
      • triceratops 10mo ago
        That's a matter of opinion. Other people all over this thread have shared what they think are good Netflix shows and movies.
        • Fricken 10mo ago
          It's the opinion of Netflix execs, who have expressed envy over how much money HBO is still making off of decades old IP. Not a lot of Netflix content has legs like that, but I suppose that's about to change with the WB acquisition.
          • triceratops 10mo ago
• bee_rider 10mo ago
  Why would anyone want to be old HBO? Writing good scripts is hard and not rewarded.
  • nielsbot 10mo ago
    The rewards aren’t necessarily monetary.
    • xp84 10mo ago
      I'd wager that those non-monetary rewards are not what drive any decisions in the Netflix C-suite.
      • nielsbot 10mo ago
        fair. i guess i was thinking more about the creative types.
      • appletrotter 10mo ago
        Probably a bit, at least some execs might want to have some cool shit on their resumes