The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by atduskgreg on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:16AM (#37337501)

They explain that the benefit to the companies is the tax write off. The part they don’t explain is how little money shows like these generate that they’re worth less than the potential write off. The big semi-open secret in streaming right now is that viewership is a lot lower than people think and much less correlated with show “quality” (where by “quality” here I mean production cost). This is why the whole industry is introducing ad-supported tiers. Look for that to be paired with shows that are radically cheaper to make and payout less to talent in residuals, ie. reality TV. The last decade of streaming has been a big bubble. The economics are fundamentally unchanged from 2008 basic cable so as these services try to actually become profitable expect the content to look a lot more like Toddlers And Tiaras than Westworld and expect to watch a lot more ads.

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Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by fullshark on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:23AM (#37337612)

The streaming boom was what, the last decade? Whenever Netflix started spending on House of Cards? Billions spent on prestige TV shows to acquire market share and they all have seemingly no cultural relevance at all. None will be remembered or cherished 10+ years from now I think. Pretty insane.

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Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by paulmd on Thursday August 31, 2023 @02:39PM (#37341850)

even the ones that did have cultural relevance (like game of thrones or house of cards) have been pretty well "culturallyl liquidated" at this point. ain't nobody going back for a rewatch of game of thrones, or at least not past about season 5.

it's funny, a couple years before the show was finished (during the first time when they stalled out for a year) my sister gave me a box set of the blu-rays, at first I was a little bummed because I'd inevitably end up with a couple mismatched DVDs/not in the box set, but it turns out that stallout was also the point where the show started imploding.

I like to joke that after she gave me the set they never finished the show, haha what are the odds!? /s

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Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by sharemywin on Thursday August 31, 2023 @10:49AM (#37338029)

The thing is people learn and if streaming sucks they will just stop watching all together eventually. the algorithms probably don't predict that kind of behavior.

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Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by throwaway03635 on Thursday August 31, 2023 @11:28AM (#37338743)

My guess is that it's only going to get worse as each streaming service builds up their exclusive library.

As prices and interest rates go up, people will become more concerned about getting value for their money. Having 5 different streaming services will be an increasingly difficult sell.

> "viewership is a lot lower than people think and much less correlated with show quality"

That doesn't surprise me. Many are probably just turning on the TV due old habits, and keep it on in the background while staring at their phones.

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Re:The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanish... by atduskgreg on Thursday August 31, 2023 @11:53AM (#37339178)

“Second screen content” is one of the biggest buzzwords right now amongst streaming execs.

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