What all of this boils down to is that mergers generally hurt everyone except the CEOs. This is why America used to have robust anti-trust laws that prevented greedy capitalists from gobbling up too many businesses, reducing competition, and slashing jobs just so they could make more than the insane amount of money they already have. Unfortunately, those laws have been eroded more and more since the Reagan era. Wrong. Diversity is the natural state of humanity. If you hire fairly and without bias, you automatically get a diverse group, because talented and capable people naturally exist in every gender and ethnic group. The artifical filters are imposed by the people who perpetuate institutionalized white male privilege, who favor those who fit into the traditionally dominant group rather than hiring fairly. Part of the way institutionalized discrimination perpetuates itself is by propagating the lie that uniformity is the automatic default and diversity is the artificial construct. Which carries with it the unspoken bigoted assumption that only white men are capable of succeeding without artificial help because everyone else is inferior. Good point.
As per Variety this morning, the Magnolia Network, which is owned/operated by Chip and Joanna Gaines is being folded into/merged with HBO Max beginning September 1st.
Reality content is--without question--highly profitable and has been for more than three decades. There's no getting around that. He appears to be prioritizing that which has the greater chance to be profitable, as opposed to niche productions that do not bring in the revenue WB is looking for. No corporation can survive if it continues to invest in low-appeal productions which are not expanding viewership, or in the case of certain movie projects, appear to lack the ingredients for the kind scale or energy of desired superhero films. You write this as if studios and/or networks and/or services from the days of vacuum-tubed TVs to cable to streaming all have not cancelled, pulled or ceased production, and as if its an entitlement. Hardly $10. Miller would take issue with your labeling his treatment as misogynistic, and at present, no one knows what the fate of the Flash movie is, so anyone else implying "It's misogyny!" have no basis for the charge as of this date.
Rational post. Always. Any company either sets or follows profitable trends, whether said trends are internal or external. WB/Discovery is cleaning house to shed what they know does not work (i.e., setting profitable trends), or is projected to lack the kind of subject essence audiences are looking for. Well, we see changes at Netflix already happening, and there were some rumors about Paramount+ going in that direction. Still too early to tell.
So, Magnolia moving to HBO is a BIG sign that HBO is NOT going away. That's one worry down. But it is a reality series, so definitely keeping alive the concern that scripted content is going away.
This is funny: Leslie Iwerks, a documentary filmmaker with such credits as 2007's The Pixar Story and 2019's The Imagineering Story, asked to license clips from the 2021 version of Justice League for a history of DC. In response, Iwerks was told that the 2017 version of Justice League is the only one there is.
I think Netflix's Hollywood level movie a week approach was probably too expensive (and the movies weren't that good) so if they cut that down to once a month I wouldn't mind. But, if they start vaulting all their underperforming movies (90% of them, pretty much) then that's absolutely horrible. There will literally be absolutely no way for anyone to see those movies ever again.
I thought that Netflix started increasing production on original content because Paramount, CBS, Warner, etc were consolidating their content on their own streaming platforms. I really think this is a case of mutual cooperation being more beneficial for everyone overall--having streaming companies to distribute content and other companies to produce that content reduces the number of channels out their competing with each other and theoretically gets more potential eyes on the product. Most people can easily subscribe to two or three channels. At my house we have four: Amazon (and I would be a prime member without the streaming), Disney+, Crave (HBO/Warner plus other content), and Netflix. Annually, that is still a lot less money than a cable bill.
Everything I've watched on a streaming service that I might want to watch again is backed up on hard drives since I know it can all disappear tomorrow. Same for all the games I've bought on Steam.
Earnings Call Statement is out: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...-discovery-reports-first-earnings-1235192127/ Lost $3.4 Billion last quarter.
So what do we think about the moves now? They are losing an existential amount of money. Obviously changes needed to be made, the only question is whether they are making the right changes, and whether they are making the said changes the right way.
Consolidate, focus on less projects, and find financial streams for resources. Possibly sell off assets. More importantly, reduce liability otherwise be leveraged right out of business.
Still waiting for reports from the call. So far all that I've seen is confirmation they're merging HBO Max & Discovery+ into one service, which we already knew, with no details.
Related: Paramount lost 1.8 billion. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...t-stock-analysts-streaming-losses-1235192656/