And another one to the list:
Netflix is on an impressive streak lately with their non English content. Any of these latest successful series has more viewers than the competition has subscribers.
I don’t really see how short term anybody but Dysney can compete. Building the infrastructure to fund and produce globally like this took Netflix years at crazy investment rates, and it looks like it worked.
I think it depends on what your ambitions are. For example, I don’t think HBO has dreams of overtaking Netflix, but they can still have a great product in HBO Max. Amazon is doing fine.
The ones I don’t understand are Paramount+ and Peacock. It feels like they’ll be forced to consolidate at some point.
Comcast already looking at ways to boost Peacock. Always was a bit of trying to have it both ways with some of these having their own service buts till licensing stuff out.
It’s also a question of how much trust one can put in the numbers. There aren’t any independent rating services, after all, so Netflix can pretty much report whatever kind of numbers they like (as long as it’s within their subscriber numbers), or has that changed?
Not to say that the show isn’t very successful, but I’m not sure whether I’d be all that bothered about Netflix’s supposed viewing numbers if I were a competitor. As long as the internal numbers on their own service are looking strong (in terms of subscriptions retained, new subscribers, own viewership numbers, etc), I don’t see why they should worry.
These articles came up from a recent article on Forbes when I googled:
Netflix: 209 million subscribers (+8% from 2020)
D+: 116 million subscribers (+101% from 2020). 174 million for all three Disney services (D+, Hulu, ESPN+)
HBO+HBO Max: 67 million subscribers. Though HBO Max is apparently still not rolled out in many European countries, so there’s probably room for growth there.
Investments planned:
Disney will invest $30.5 billion in content, the most of any media company. NBCUniversal will invest $18 billion, followed by Netflix at $17.4 billion, Warner Media at $16.7 billion and ViacomCBS at $15 billion.
So it definitely doesn’t look like the others are giving up anytime soon, even if there is a gap to close.
There are independent analytics firms, like Parrot. Any journalist can pony up $50/mo to keep these companies honest.
For the public companies, the threat of being charged with lying in SEC filings also goes far.
Not all international subscriptions are the same. The price of streaming services in third world countries is considerably smaller.
Yeah, Netflix can’t just say whatever number they want. Now they can define the numbers differently. For example, I think I heard Netflix counts you as a “viewer” if you only watch for a few seconds. I don’t think there’s any standard way to measure.
They are measuring hours watched now, as linked above.
Yes. And when they were counting a view as two minutes watched, they provided a conversion rate to their old metric of 70% watched. I haven’t seen the conversion rate from two minutes watched to total hours watched, but it should be there.
Google and Disney are picking up the righteous battle right where Google/Roku left off. All Disney properties, including ESPN and ABC, are set to expire off the YouTube TV service in four days pending a breakthrough in negotiations. Given that 98% of my use case for YTTV is basketball (between an NBA League Pass and the nationally broadcast games on TNT, ESPN, and ABC), this represents a substantial diminishment in my. . . need for them :)
The usual corporate claptrap below, ugh.
Hi Randy,
In order to make 85+ channels available to you on YouTube TV, we partner with content owners. From time to time, our partnerships need to be renewed to ensure we continue to offer a strong lineup at a competitive and fair price.
We are now in negotiations with Disney to continue distributing their content on YouTube TV. Our deal will expire on Friday, December 17, 2021. We have not yet been able to reach an equitable agreement, so we want to give you a heads-up so that you can understand your choices.
Disney is an important partner for us. We are in active conversations with them and are working hard to keep their content on YouTube TV. Our ask of Disney, as with all of our partners, is to treat YouTube TV like any other TV provider — by offering us the same rates that services of a similar size pay, across Disney’s channels for as long as we carry them.
We welcome a renewed agreement provided we can reach equitable terms with Disney. However, if we are unable to reach a deal by Friday, the Disney-owned channels will no longer be available on YouTube TV starting December 17, and we will decrease our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 (while Disney content remains off of our platform).
We would love every member to stay with our service, but we give you the flexibility to pause or cancel your membership at any time. If you want to continue watching some of Disney’s content, consider signing up for their own service, The Disney Bundle, which they offer for $13.99/month and which is subject to its own terms and restrictions.
We will share any further updates on this webpage as we seek a resolution for you, our members.
Thanks for your patience and for being a YouTube TV member.
Sincerely,
The YouTube TV team
Yeah, if this happens I’m dropping Youtube like a bad habit.
Yeah, I guess the next time I need live TV for sports, I’ll have to go Hulu LiveTV or Fubo TV.
Ugh, my $250 NBA League Pass is tied to YTTV, so I’m pretty much locked in. Just have to pirate ESPN/NBA games on my PC if they don’t get this settled.
Dumb question: why not just keep YTTV and get the Disney Bundle and pay $1 less than before?
That seems like very unusual corporate claptrap to me, honestly.
I mean, this is pretty good stuff, as corporate emails go. Still a pain in the ass as the whole point is to have everything in the same place, of course.
Cuz the Disney bundle doesn’t, afaik, include live ABC broadcasting, where a chunk of the playoffs in particular wind up. Also unsure if you can watch ESPN 1 content live on there; never researched it more.
I recently got ESPN+ for the 20-20 cricket world cup, and it was great for that. $8 let me enjoy the whole world cup.
But I don’t think they have ESPN1/2 content on there. Not the broadcast channels. But they do have some events.
Yeah. My concern is nationally broadcast NBA games, which afaik you basically need live ABC/ESPN for, or a willingness to hit up pirate streams. The other 2-6 games on each day will still hit YTTV via League Pass temporary access to the local sports network broadcast. It’s a very specific use case that gets totally torpedoed by this issue :-(
I still find it crazy you guys can’t get network TV OTA or free online.
Getting stuff “free” online is super easy, what’s difficult is doing it legit. All these companies seemingly desperately want us to stop paying them and pirate everything.