Warner Media/Discovery joint venture; thoughts and discussion

Jeez, if you're just going to license out everything, why bother having your own streaming service...

...Wait, hold up, I—

Max Streaming Service To Shut Down in December 2023, Deadline Reports

You got me there for a second.

It's not outside the bounds of possibility some of the streaming services will fold again, aren't basically all of them losing money? And Disney Plus training people to see new releases on it is thought to be one of the cause of underperforming box office for its films.

Edited by dcutter2 on Jul 6th 2023 at 4:27:34 PM

Honestly, that’s pretty likely. My dad says they’re probably gonna consolidate a few or fold and sell off the good content.

Just as long as WB doesn’t get sold to Uni, that’s fine. It’s probably just doomsaying anyway.

I'm going to be honest—I don't think content producers like Disney and Warner should be allowed to own their own streaming services to begin with. That's how it was with movie theaters (companies couldn't own their own)—at least until the Paramount case was gutted recently. I have antitrust-related concerns with the current setup—while this would never happen, ideally I'd like to see streaming services and content producers separated by law. I could potentially also see an argument as well for separating content-producing and streaming divisions of companies like Netflix.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jul 6th 2023 at 11:34:26 AM

Miraculous, this doesnt mean Warner is going to be coming to his rescue. In fact I still bet Warner was one of the Studios that rejected him. And more animation from Del Toro is ALWAYS GOOD.

I don't think he was dismissing Del Toro and saying the director needs "saving", just musing that if the heavy pre-release praise for The Flash really was the result of bribery on the part of Warner Bros., it could potentially act as a sort of leverage for the various creatives. Ergo, Del Toro could get a film out of it.

Now whether or not that pre-release buzz was just people thinking the movie was great or Warner Bros. being sneaky (and if it was the latter, whether or not it was a one-way deal or a favor they can cash in later) is a whole other matter. Personally, I think it was the former. Not like the movie was panned by critics and audiences upon release.

Edited by RacattackForce on Jul 6th 2023 at 12:51:56 PM

They didnt but still said "Oh Warner is going to have Del Toro do something for them." To which I disagreed.

Its another case of laws falling behind the times, yeah.

Wait, so is discovery+ still a thing? It was killed in my country. Had to rely on cable channel.

Which sucks, since despite all of Zaslav's shit, it had some programs I really want to watch like those documentaries.

Edited by Ookamikun on Jul 7th 2023 at 4:51:51 PM

It still exists in the United States, at least.

Does place a bleak picture on it as it doesnt look like it grew as a result of the fusion, instead it looks like a loss.

That GOT and TLOS seasons arent coming soon enough to justify Max for a lot of people.

Cartoon Network and WB Animation staff have filed to unionize; the effort was sparked by the recent reorganization.

Well, with all the dick moves by the bosses, this is one hell of a chance for it.

They hadn’t before? >.>

To be honest it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't unionized until now.

In yesterday's earnings call, WBD said they saved US$100 million because of the WGA strike, although they do hope the ongoing strikes end soon.

"We want the strike to end."

"So you're going to start paying us and stop burying our work so nobody can ever watch it again?"

"...Not that desperately."

I am reminded of when the Learning Channel (which was under Discovery which was led by Zaslav so its relevant) demonized all a divorced husband on every media outlet for speaking out he doesnt want his kids to be messed up by reality tv. News flash he was right.

Im looking into how deep Zaslav’s pit of screwing over workers and artists is and the Learning Channel is an eerie ground zeroes to modern Hollywood when you look across its work environment and incidents.

Edited by M1gamiTensei on Aug 3rd 2023 at 12:00:39 PM

Max has lost 1.8 million subscribers since it was renamed from HBO Max.

WBD is playing this off as expected churn due to The Last of Us season 1 ending, and streaming revenue somehow grew by 13% so I dunno.

Are you ready for breaking news interruptions on your streaming shows?

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cnn-live-streamed-news-max-1235703599/

Here's the relevant part:

CNN Max is likely to evolve over time. Among the features the company will try out are ways of alerting Max viewers to breaking news while they are watching something else on the service, whether it be an HBO series, a Turner Classic Movies selection or an old episode of Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.”

<cue Tracy Morgan meme here>

As long as there is an option that turns it off and lets me exit out of breaking news easily, I see a bit of benefit? Especially with climate disasters rolling everywhere.

But considering Zaslav wants CNN to turn into a Fox News, I can easily imagine it being abused. I'm watching Babylon 5 dealing about discrimination and then CNN breaks to them hosting Trump.

I said this on another board, but if this interrupts children/family programming, you'll see LOTS of complaints.

I think it depends on what exactly it is. If it's a little icon that pops up in the corner like "breaking news" and then you hit a button to see what it is, that's more tolerable. If it's a whole-ass chyron showing up with a headline, that's less so.

Well, they have announced that they are not going to greenlight Pibby… damn.

Honestly, this plus the cancelations and write offs makes me wonder if Zazlav is ever going to make more animation, because everything animated coming out was ordered before he came on. Like maybe a new season of Harley Quinn or Fionna and Cake will help allay my worries… but I don’t know with this guy.