'cuz flagamuffin and I were chatting.
Hey, this is almost exactly the question I was asking. It looks like Netflix ought to consider carving out a niche market in future instead of paying millions for the streaming rights to blockbusters which we can all get elsewhere. They could become a sort of digital Vulcan Video with added original content like House of Cards. Alternatively, of course, they could just raise their monthly fee a few dollars. Of the people I know who own Netflix, I don't think a single one would balk, and these are poor college students.
There's a couple problems for Netflix that I can see. First, House of Cards was released in bulk. What would stop potential consumers for signing up for a month to watch what they want to watch, and they cancelling until the next big thing is on? With HBO that's much more difficult, because most of their shows are serials that are released every week while in season. Sure you could wait for HBO GO, but everyone wants to watch while their friends are watching so they can chat about it. Therefore, to watch an HBO show requires a few month commitment minimum. Second, Netflix needs to raise their game significantly over House of Cards to keep viewers interested. That show is garbage, and I only finished the season, because my gf wanted to. That, of course, is pure opinion. But HBO is really good at producing universally loved content. I don't care for Girls, but I don't think its a bad show, just not my taste. There's a huge difference. Part of this depresses me. I wish Netflix and the studios could play nice in a way that everyone could make a fuckload of money and be happy. I would gladly pay $30/month for Netflix if they had a catalog of movies that was through the roof. I watch movies on Netflix a lot, but its always from browsing their content. I don't think that I've ever once searched for a movie that I felt like watching and had a positive result. That sucks, and there's no good reason for that to be the case. What do you think? Is this a case of movie bosses being out of touch with reality, and not realizing that there is tons of money to be made here? I think that studios should look at Netflix as delivery infrastructure, not as competition. Unfortunately, it looks like that ship has sailed, and right now, it's a lot easier to image more fighting and less cooperation.
Just a couple? ;-) I don't disagree, and am posting all the following because the discussion is interesting, not because I don't think you have valid points. The thing about Netflix is they don't have to release any data on what they do. They aren't Nielsen monitored. They can play cards very close to their chest. They have data on staggered release - any time they get a Starz Play miniseries (*Pillars of the Earth*, for example), they have release windows they have to follow. So they likely have data on what their subscribers do with staggered stuff vs. what they do with mass-released stuff (*Lillyhammer* was released all at once). And although I'm hardly one to credit Netflix with infallibility (Quickster, anyone?), I'll bet they have their reasons for doing it the way they did. Bearing in mind that HBO started with Oz, not The Sopranos, which is the show that really put them on the map. Also keep in mind that by the time HBO premiered Oz they'd been making original movies for 15 years. This is Netflix's second series. Not disagreeing with you - I haven't gotten around to watching House of Cards yet - just saying that it's not a permanent problem. Part of it should excite you. There was a two-week period last year where the most streamed film on Netflix was a Will Farrell movie, made for $80m... and the second-most was a little flick I helped some friends make for well under $1m. Hollywood requires massive distribution channels that are simply not available for any movie that isn't predicted to gross a quarter billion dollars - the only place for Indies to go, really, is Netflix. When they raise their game so that it's lucrative for, say, a $15m movie to go to Netflix, the quality of content is going to go through the roof. There's ample reason, lots of it quoted in the article. I think this is a case of the entire industry seeing the writing on the wall and keeping the gravy train flowing as long as possible. They're not stupid. They watched digital destroy the music industry same as everybody else. But they know that they're going to retire soon and then it won't be their problem. There's no real "middle" in Hollywood any more - there's the guys on top and there's the guys eating shit in the mud. What we're seeing is the guys on top putting their toes to the back of the heads of the guys eating shit because the longer they stay down there, the fatter their pensions get. The industry, as a whole, is doomed. No doubt about it. In my brief tenure in Hollywood I've seen a "low budget" movie go from $8m to $15m to $1m. I've seen a "micro-budget" movie go from $1m to $100k to $50k. Meanwhile a "big budget" movie has gone from $100m to $250m or more. The studio stuff is headed for the stratosphere, where it will fizzle out and vanish for all but the James Camerons of the world, while the indie stuff is going from Miramax to Troma. Same thing happened in music. It was exciting until everyone realized that the only thing left was the bottom.There's a couple problems for Netflix that I can see.
First, House of Cards was released in bulk. What would stop potential consumers for signing up for a month to watch what they want to watch, and they cancelling until the next big thing is on?
Second, Netflix needs to raise their game significantly over House of Cards to keep viewers interested. That show is garbage, and I only finished the season, because my gf wanted to. That, of course, is pure opinion. But HBO is really good at producing universally loved content. I don't care for Girls, but I don't think its a bad show, just not my taste. There's a huge difference.
Part of this depresses me. I wish Netflix and the studios could play nice in a way that everyone could make a fuckload of money and be happy. I would gladly pay $30/month for Netflix if they had a catalog of movies that was through the roof.
I don't think that I've ever once searched for a movie that I felt like watching and had a positive result. That sucks, and there's no good reason for that to be the case.
For example, back in 2008, Netflix convinced Starz to make a deal for $30 million a year. When it came back to the table in 2011, $300 million wasn't enough for the network.
What do you think? Is this a case of movie bosses being out of touch with reality, and not realizing that there is tons of money to be made here?
Sorry, I wasn't precise. I meant there's no good technological reason. It sucks, because I could have exactly what I wanted if everyone could agree on the money. I think that everyone is underestimating how much consumers are willing to pay for content. If you have HBO and Cinemax, you're paying $20-25/mo, three times what Netflix charges. If there is better content on Netflix, obviously everyone is going to jump ship from cable. I totally agree that Neflix is awesome for Indie movies. Where I live there are very few theaters that show indies, so to all of a sudden have access to a lot of movies I would otherwise never ever hear about, let alone see, is awesome. I hope the powers that be at Netflix realize this and promote the shit out of that side of their business, perhaps even help fund it. Maybe with House of Cards Netflix wanted to make a splash, so that's why they went the $100m route. But hopefully long term they'll keep in mind that a good script is way more important than a high budget. Seinfeld was 90% shot in that one crappy set of Jerry's apartment, and it's one of the greatest TV shows of all time. (Obviously, it turned high budget after a couple seasons, because the actors commanded such a high price, but it certainly didn't start out that way.)There's ample reason, lots of it quoted in the article.
If you're paying Time Warner Cable $25 a month for HBO, Time Warner is keeping $13 of that. Thus does Time Warner have a disincentive to let you get HBO any way other than Time Warner Cable. And, should HBO upset Time Warner Cable, they've lost their primary outlet for getting their content to you. Netflix gets to keep it all. | If there is better content on Netflix, obviously everyone is going to jump ship from cable.| Yes, precisely. But right now, the cable companies get to charge you through the nose for bandwidth you aren't using - I mean, you've got 300 channels but you can only watch one of them at a time. They're making money hand over fist. There was a time when I was looking at becoming a cable TV company and instaling in nursing homes and the like. I'm certified by Blonder Tongue. I know cable plants. And while 1 seat of HBO costs $39 a month, 100 seats of HBO cost closer to $390 a month. It gets extraordinarily fucking lucrative to be a cable company very, very quickly. This is why everyone is scared shitless by Google Fiber - they're going to suck all the profit out of the entire sector for everyone. Great for consumers, shitty for the industry. Now, granted - it's an industry that deserves to die. But they are facing an existential crisis, and they are closer in demeanor to a wounded mastodon than a geriatric old man quietly sipping his morphine. 'cuz for now, if you've got Netflix, you've got cable. Period. That shit don't work over DSL and everybody with a phat enough pipe to sell you broadband is also selling you channels.
Very well put, and you're honestly one of, if not the, first person outside my immediate social circle to publish this opinion. I couldn't even make it past the first two minutes of House of Cards. I know my tastes run a little odd, but I'm not a fan of Kevin Spacey and the writing in that first sequence, where he offs the dog, is so incredibly thin and lame I didn't care what it was meant to set up. I also agree with your point re: Girls. There's a difference between "bad" and "not my thing".Second, Netflix needs to raise their game significantly over House of Cards to keep viewers interested. That show is garbage, and I only finished the season, because my gf wanted to. That, of course, is pure opinion. But HBO is really good at producing universally loved content. I don't care for Girls, but I don't think its a bad show, just not my taste. There's a huge difference.
Characters that people care about are an odd thing; it's no less subjective than any other aspect of fiction, yet people treat it otherwise. I've watched shows with the most uninteresting characters that get universal praise for their characters. I've found interest in characters people seem to hate. Here's the thing about House of Cards: it's fun to watch Frank be a slithering bastard and get away with it. He's good at it, and the show's well-written enough to really let you see how he works and how he succeeds. If you're not rooting for the bad guy, you're not rooting for anyone. I can understand not liking it, but I don't understand why you think it's garbage.
To pick on another Spacey movie, I compare it to the Usual Suspects. I would argue that movie is also garbage, despite the near universal praise it gets. Why? Because it's not at all interesting to watch an actor be nothing but manipulative on screen. Acting by nature is manipulative. Acting is pretending, so when you see an actor doing nothing but pretending to be someone else, its not extraordinary--it's just acting. In the Usual Suspects, we're supposed to be blown away that Verbal was making it all up, but it's a prewritten script so who cares? It is terrible by virtue of what it is, not by any fault of the actor. Lying is interesting in movies and TV when the lying isn't the point, but the underlying reason for the lie is. Being an unredeemable, manuipulative, vengeful jerk isn't motivation; its just lazy, uninspired writing. Walter White is a bad guy, but is the antithesis of Frank Underwood. He fundamentally cares about people, but also is sick of being pushed around. We can tell that he's either a bad guy who's been pretending to be good his whole life or vice versa. He's complicated. Frank is as simple as they come, and so is everyone else in that show. As far as I can tell, none of the characters has any depth beyond the makeup they're wearing. It's not about liking; it's about caring. There's a huge difference.