Cordkillers 399 - Max with a Big X (w/ Naaim Siddiqi)
HBO Max and Discovery will become one! Baseball, tennis, and soccer are streaming more games this year. Plus trailers for Better Call Saul and Obi-Wan. All that and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Naaim Siddiqi ( http://twitter.com/kuhan ).
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Picard (201-202), Raised By Wolves (206-207)
Next week: Picard (203), Raised by Wolves (208)
CordKillers: Max with a Big X
Recorded: March 14 2022
Guest: Naaim Siddiqi
Intro Video
Is It Cake?
Primary Target
HBO Max and Discovery Plus Will Be Combined Into One Platform
- Discovery's board approved its merger with Warner Media, and it looks like the deal will finally close sometime in April.
- Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels told a conference "we believe in a combined product as opposed to a bundle." So they intend to merge Discovery Plus and HBO Max. ... Eventually.
- That merger might take a while -- "hopefully not in years, but in several months" he says. "Between the two direct-to-consumer products, by the time we close, close to 100 million people are going to be affected as we make those changes. So that will need some very, very detailed and disciplined planning.”
- So until they work out the details... "we’re working on getting the bundling approach ready, maybe a single sign-on, maybe ingesting content into the other product, etc., so that we can start to get some benefits early on"
- Discovery Plus is $4.99 a month or $6.99 without ads.
- HBO Max is $9.99 or $14.99 without ads.
- So what do we think? New price? New name? Smart move? Bad move?
Funimation Content Has Officially Moved to Crunchyroll
- Back on March 1st Crunchyroll got access to Funimation's library so both anime services are available in one. That include's Funimation's subsidiary, Wakanim. Funimation and Wakanim subscribers get 60 days of Chrunchyroll Premium for free. Crunchyroll is not changing its price.
How to Watch
Apple TV Plus announces Friday Night Baseball
- The migration of sports to streaming continues
- Apple is launching a 24/7 baseball stream in Canada and the US of highlights and replays along with a Monday-Friday show called MLB Big Inning that streams live with look-ins to games in progress.
- And every Friday Night, Apple TV Plus will have two exclusive MLB games available without blackouts in the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the UK."
- Deadline says Peacock is close to signing a deal to bring Sunday baseball games to subscribers during the day.
- HBO Max has a deal to air about 20 US Soccer matches- half of them exclusively starting in 2023.
- And Samsung has an exclusive to carry Sinclair Sports' T2 on the Samsung TV Plus platform. It's a tennis Chanel for matches not carried on The Tennis Channel.
Major League Baseball In Final Innings Of Talks With NBCUniversal For Sunday Games On Peacock In Sport’s Latest Streaming Foray
Samsung TV Plus to Stream T2 From Tennis Channel in Sinclair Deal
HBO Max will soon begin streaming US soccer matches
FITE’s FAST Channel Will Roll Out On Numerous Platforms, Local Now, RadTV, Roku Channel, Sports.TV, and More
- Anthony also sent along this story of a martial arts FAST channel, FITE, that is going multiplatform on "Roku Channel, Samsung, Tubi TV, Pluto TV, Redbox, PLEX, Vix, Univision’s PrendeTV, XUMO, LG, LG Marketplace, Local Now, RadTV, RAD!, Sports.TV, Viva Live TV, Select TV, Zingo, Giniko USA, Glewed, KlowdTV, and numerous SVOD players." Sounds like they have a tech partner who can submit to all of those backends at once. Which way will FAST go: Pandora or iTunes?
What to Watch
Disney Plus's 'Obi-Wan Kenobi" arrives May 25th and released its first trailer. What did we think?
'Obi-Wan Kenobi' Offers Classic Greeting Ahead of Show's Disney Plus Debut
‘Better Call Saul’ Final Season Trailer: Bob Odenkirk Finally Breaks Bad
- Better Call Saul released a trailer for season 6, the final season. The season will have 13 episodes with the first seven coming starting April 18th and the last 6 starting July 11.
The Boys season 3 trailer promises more people exploding and boy bands
- The Boys Season 3 comes to Amazon Prime Video with three episodes of the 8 episode season on June 3rd. A new trailer came out for that too.
Eyes On
Naaim: Dimension 20
Tom: Pachinko
On the Lookout: Drive to Survive S4
Front Lines
NBCU Terminates Hulu TV Deal so It Can Keep Current-Season Shows for Peacock
- Comcast owns NBC and Comcast still owns a small percentage of Hulu but Disney owns most of Hulu and NBC owns peacock so it was only a matter of time before Comcast moved NBC shows from Hulu so they would be exclusive to Peacock. That time is specifically late September. Hulu will continue to have rights to some catalog shows from NBC for a few more years. Expect Comcast to sell its stake in Hulu sometime in January 2024. Disney says it will use the money it won't be paying Comcast to invest in originals for Hulu.
Hulu Adds Unlimited DVR At No Extra Cost For Live TV Subscribers
- Speaking of Hulu, its Live TV service now offers unlimited DVR in the base package. The base package used to be 50 hours and you had to pay a $10 a month fee to upgrade to unlimited. Customers who are paying for the increased DVR will see their bill lowered.
‘BTS Permission to Dance on Stage’ Concert Scores Blockbuster $32 Million at Global Box Office
- One possibility to bring new money into theaters is special events like concerts being streamed into the theater so fans who can't get to the venue can enjoy them. Korea's BTS streamed the last night of a three-day stint in Seoul to more than 3,711 screens worldwide on Saturday. It brought in $32.6 million, setting a record for event cinema. It ranked third at the box office in the US behind The Batman and Uncharted.
Disney Plus to Launch a Cheaper Tier With Ads Late This Year
- Disney Plus will launch an ad-supported tier for a cheaper price in the US later this year. It didn't specify what that price would be or when it would be available. The service is $8 a month right now and CEO Bob Chapek indicated it might get a price increase in September.
Will Netflix Ever Offer an Ad-Supported Plan? ‘Never Say Never,’ CFO Responds
- Netflix has staunchly poured cold water on the idea that it would ever offer an ad-supported version of its service. But with Disney getting into that game, Netflix is one of the last holdouts, the other being Prime Video which is really a loss leader for a shipping service from Amazon. However: Netflix keeps getting more expensive with recent price-increases in the US and UK. And now the Netflix line is softening. Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann told a conference “It’s not like we have religion against advertising, to be clear. But that’s not something that’s in our plans right now… We have a really nice scalable subscription model, and again, never say never, but it’s not in our plan.” So, you're saying there's a chance?
First trailer for Apple's 'They Call Me Magic' celebrates a basketball icon
Pete Davidson To Star As Fictional Version of Himself In Comedy Series Produced By Lorne Michaels
Apple Lands Doc On Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton
‘Bridgerton’ Season 2 Trailer: What Happens When Duty Is In Conflict With The Heart’s True Desire?
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Trailer: Anson Mount Boldly Goes Back to the Enterprise
‘The Afterparty’ Renewed for Season 2, Tiffany Haddish Set to Return
'The Flash' and 'Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom' Release Dates Delayed to 2023
HBO Max Orders ‘The Penguin’ Limited Series As ‘The Batman’ Clocks $301 Million+ At Global Box Office
‘Russian Doll’: Netflix Sets Season 2 Premiere
Disney+ to host all six Netflix Marvel shows and AGENTS OF SHIELD from mid-March
CNN Plus Streaming Service to Launch on March 29
-Apple released a trailer for the docuseries They Call me Magic, about Magic Johnson, coming April 22nd.
- Pete Davidson will star as a fictional version of himself in a show tentatively titled Bupkis, produced by Lorne Michaels.
- Apple got the rights for a documentary about Formula 1 World Champion, Sir Lewis Hamilton.
- Netflix released a trailer for season 2 of Bridgerton coming March 25th.
- Paramount Plus released a trailer for Star Trek: Strange new Worlds coming May 5th.
- Apple approved a second season of The Afterparty.
- Warner Brothers moved The Flash from 2022 to June 23, 2023, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom to March 17, 2023. But Shazm, Fury of the Gods moved from 2023 to December 16, 2022.
- HBO Max ordered a season of The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell.
- Netflix announced Russian doll season 2 will arrive April 20th.
- CNN Plus will launch March 29th.
Dispatches from the Front
I generally opt for the ad version because of our limited income. But I recently switched to the ad version of HBO Max in the middle of the season of Peacemaker, so I got a good comparison. I thought they said HBO originals wouldn't have ads, but I guess they really meant just that--not HBO Max originals. Suddenly Peacemaker was interrupted by a commercial, right in the middle of the show. It happened more than once in each episode. It was very annoying. I'm used to commercials, but Peacemaker was not created with natural commercial breaks and the difference was strikingly jarring. I'm not getting ads in The Gilded Age, which is an HBO original.
Based on this experience, I'm not sure I'll sign up for Disney+ with ads. The Marvel and Star Wars shows are not created with commercial breaks - - or do you think that will change? Disney+ isn't expensive compared to Netflix and HBO Max, so I'm not sure the price point needs a cheaper ad-supported version.
Your Boss,
- Beelissa
Hi Tom, Brian and Bryce,
I loved all of your ideas on how to improve the Oscars presentation! Where can we go to start a petition to have Tom and Brian plan the Oscars show for 2023?
Your Boss,
- Beelissa
Hi Tom, Bryce and Brian
I had to laugh when you guys were discussing how a vacation sign on could work for vacation homes, hotels ect.
A few years back I was on vacation at an AirBNB in Hawaii. The vacation home had a smart TV and my nephews wanted to watch some movies. Over the week we were there we watched a bunch of movies I got from VUDU. When it came time to go home, we were in a rush to get to the airport on time and I forgot to log out of VUDU. About three months later I started seeing a couple rental fees I didn’t recognize so I called VUDU support and they said yes you rented those films. It became evident that they were rented at the AirBNB in Hawaii! They were gracious enough to credit me for the films I didn’t personally rent but it could have been an expensive mistake. So I think you guys had a great idea for a password that expires at the end of your stay. I guess I am just lucky that no one else decided to use VUDU during those three months!
- Cliff
Team - I have a general question around Streaming App Usability. Do you also feel like throwing things at your TV when you open certain Apps (Cough Cough Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+). Why do companies not think these are important? For example, ESPN+ will push the content they want on you not the one you chose. For Eg. I chose to be informed only about Cricket and still need to navigate about 30 seconds into the App to find the cricket content. It is so frustrating every time. But unfortunately for Cricket in the US, there is no other option, but I feel this is so consumer hostile where you force what you want the customer to see rather than what the customer prefers.
Thanks,
- Josh
Links
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