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Wondering about the Dredd TV series

Started by JayzusB.Christ, 30 June, 2019, 01:32:51 PM

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IndigoPrime

Basically, they want to spend less money, yet have content that brings in massive audiences, and yet that's also somehow good. That doesn't seem a likely mix.

I was recently chatting to an industry person who reckon Netflix is basically fucked. I was quite surprised by this, but he had a point. They're now going to come up against the big guns, who are finally taking telly seriously. That's not a fun place to be – although arguably a better place than Spotify, which must have five years left, tops.

Frank


JOE SOAP

#17
I think it means spend big money on more commercial stuff (Stranger Things etc.) and not keep the model of make everything for everybody, or spend huge on 'arthouse' films with barely any marketing – Netflix aren't HBO.

Their biggest competitor will be Disney, who run on a model of owning big, 4 quadrant IPs and recycling baby-boomer icons. It wouldn't surprise me if Netflix return to the notion of releasing episodes weekly, instead of dropping a load, because trying to keep up that level of production is insane when the popular stuff tends to smother all other new releases.

The idea that you can perpetually run a TV/Film business purely by running-up debt every year based on the ideal of an unlimited, ever-growing subscriber base, was never a goer.

Netflix is not a public-service broadcaster and the subscription is not a license-fee so it's guranteed to go bust if it doesn't change.

Dandontdare

If Netflix (and presumably the other streamers) have a business model that encourages self-contained 1-3 season shows, then I'm all for it.

US Network TV has always worked on the formula of "keep grinding out a successful series until the lack of ideas becomes humiliating and makes it embarrassingly shit" (cf the eponymous shark jump) - I hope that they will become more 'British' in the approach of investing in amazing shows that aren't designed to be endless, but are just great, but finite, pieces of work.

wedgeski

Whatever the future for Netflix, they need to be applauded for the last few years where they've brought huge value for their subscribers (well, for me anyway). It's felt for a long time like a bubble that can't last, but its effects will probably be felt for some time.

JOE SOAP

They changed the industry in a way big studios always wanted but never had the gumption to do: cut out the middle-man — cinemas — and distribute directly to the customer.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Dandontdare on 05 July, 2019, 10:25:52 PMIf Netflix (and presumably the other streamers) have a business model that encourages self-contained 1-3 season shows, then I'm all for it.
Agreed, but they need to be more upfront about it. Santa Clarita Diet got caught in this shit. The people behind clearly stated the last episode was a launch pad for a concluding two seasons. Had they been told everything was ending with S03, they would have given us, well, an ending. (Personally, I thought it ended reasonably well anyway, with few dangling threads. Still, a quick edit to a couple of scenes would have been enough.)

Quote from: wedgeski on 06 July, 2019, 12:10:31 PMWhatever the future for Netflix, they need to be applauded for the last few years where they've brought huge value for their subscribers (well, for me anyway).
I agree. I'm broadly pro-Netflix. Despite the fucking UX disaster of the current interface, they've been broadly pro-consumer, and have shifted smartly from being a bargain basement DVD bin to churning out reliably good telly (along with, sadly, mostly shit movies, and buying in inexplicably bad IP, such as Lucifer).

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 06 July, 2019, 12:18:05 PMThey changed the industry in a way big studios always wanted but never had the gumption to do: cut out the middle-man — cinemas — and distribute directly to the customer.
They did for telly what Apple did for music. Netflix's problem, though, is it's not Apple – in the sense of having piles of cash to roll around naked on. I suspect when these companies fall, it's going to happen horribly quickly. Still, as I noted above, I suspect Spotify will vanish before Netflix (either in the sense of being eaten by a large corporation, or by basically running out of cash).

JOE SOAP

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 06 July, 2019, 03:21:40 PM
They did for telly what Apple did for music. Netflix's problem, though, is it's not Apple – in the sense of having piles of cash to roll around naked on. I suspect when these companies fall, it's going to happen horribly quickly.

They changed how we watch not what we watch. It's Disney and the other IP holders who own most of what we watch. I mentioned before they can't run a business on ever mounting debt to catch-up in an IP race that's all ready over, so it's either change, go bust, or sell up.

Frank

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 07 July, 2019, 02:08:46 AM
Disney and the other IP holders own most of what we watch. I mentioned before they can't run a business on ever mounting debt to catch-up in an IP race that's all ready over, so it's either change, go bust, or sell up

When the business news covers Netflix, they always conclude the insane levels of debt and spending were all about hoovering up subscribers so they became an attractive acquisition for one of the other tech giants*

The idea being that Zuck or Bezos can just buy a large installed user base and proven tech when they try to take on Disney in The Content War, rather than starting from scratch with a platform of their own. So Netflix** will eventually become a red dot in the corner of Facebook, like Messenger, or a bundled app with your $1000 phone.


* Facebook, Apple, Google or Amazon

** If the Netflix name survives at all it will be because of the cultural cache associated with the phrase Netflix and Chill, although once Gen Z are replaced with Gen A that's going to sound as cringey as Wassup! or stressing the word 'not' at the end of a sentence.

moly

Would be a shame if Netflix wasn't around,  around 90% of what we watch on television is from Netflix as they actually have series we enjoy in my house, stranger things, dark umbrella academy Etc, this sort of programme is ignored by uk broadcasting