Cordkillers 421 - HBO Min (w/ Chris Mancini)
Why is Warner Bros.-Discovery removing SO MANY shows from HBO Max? Plus, YouTubeTV will get 4-way picture-in-picture and how did House of the Dragon fare in viewers? All that and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Chris Mancini ( https://www.whitecatentertainment.com/ ).
This week on It's Spoilerin' Time: Star Trek: Lower Decks (301), What We Do in the Shadows (408), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (102)
When we return on September 12, 2022: Star Trek: Lower Decks (302-303), What We Do in the Shadows (409-410), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (103-104), Rick and Morty (601-602)
CordKillers: 421 - HBO Min
Recorded: August 29 2022
Guest: Chris Mancini
Intro Video
Chef's Table: Pizza
Primary Target
HBO Max Has an Inventory Problem
- Variety's Cynthia Littleton has an opinion piece that sheds some light on why Warner Brothers Discovery is removing so many shows from its catalog. This goes beyond Batgirl. It's pulling shows from the service, including old episodes of Sesame Street, and cutting orders for some new shows.
- People have wondered why it would save them money to not offer a show on a. Service that they still continue to run. Isn't it just a file on a server? Don't they want people to stream more so they stay subscribed?
- It's not the cost of storage. And it's not the cost of bandwidth. At least that's probably not a significant part of the cost.
- It's the cost of deals.
- When a streamer offers a show, the typical deal doesn't pay more per stream. This isn't Spotify. For the right to make it available there are some base fees, including residual fees for actors, writers, producers and directors. It also includes music licensing and other royalties. These often get covered when a show is a hit, because they may seem small in comparison to the show's success. But the majority of the thousands of shows on a service don't get streamed much, sometimes at all, in any given month. But the residuals still get paid.
- Not every show costs a lot to make available, but they all cost something. And HBO Max combined with Discovery is going to have a lot of content in its library. Littleton estimates the lowest-performing 30% of HBO Max's active library probably costs a few tens of millions of dollars a year in licensing.
- Warner Brothers Coo David Zaslav has made it clear he wants to turn a profit. So it's an easy call to look at shows that have virtually no viewers and yank them. Some recently removed shows had no views in the past 12 months.
- The harder task is gauging which shows that get some views are compelling enough to keep people subscribed and which shows aren't worth it. Hence HBO Max removed 200 episodes of Sesame Street, but not all of Sesame Street. They just removed the ones they figured most people won't miss.
How to Watch
YouTube Shorts are coming to smart TVs
YouTube TV update will reportedly let you watch four channels at once
- Protocol reports that at an internal event for smart TV makers, YouTube employees presented something called "Mosaic Mode" coming to YouTube TV. It will let YouTube TV subscribers watch four live channels at once. Sony's PlayStation Vue offered a similar feature as did TVs that relied on over-the-air channels with something called Picture-in-Picture. But for some reason it has never really caught on.
- I am interested in why picture-in-picture seems to be an intermittent feature rather than a must have. But it also makes me wonder. Are getting to the point where TV services, web cable replacements or streamers like Netflix, are going to start competing on viewing features, not just on content?
What to Watch
HBO calls House of the Dragon its biggest premiere ever, with nearly 10 million US viewers
‘House Of The Dragon’ On HBO Up 2 Percent From Premiere
‘House Of The Dragon’ Becomes Most-Watched European HBO/HBO Max Premiere In History
‘House Of The Dragon’ Renewed For Season 2 By HBO
HBO Releases ‘House Of The Dragon’ Opening Credits, Keeps ‘Game Of Thrones’ Theme Song
- I saw some folks wondering if anyone would watch House of the Dragon, since the conventional wisdom is that Game of Thrones ended poorly. Well the numbers are in.
- House of the Dragon racked up 9.986 million viewers across cable and streaming on Sunday night alone, marginally the biggest premiere yet for HBO. And episode 2 of House of the Dragon rose 2 percent from the premiere to get 10. 2million.
- In Europe HBO said it was “by far the biggest launch and the number of viewers exceeded all expectations." Though it didn't report a number.
- Suffice to say, people watched. And Warner Brothers was pleased as Friday they ordered season 2.
- And further daring the naysayers, House of the Dragon will use the same theme music as Game of Thrones, along with a clockwork-style opening that reveals the emblems of individual members of House Targaryen.
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Drops New Trailer Before September Debut
- Amazon is going head to head in the fantasy TV realm, dropping another trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, set to premiere September 1st with two episodes, then weekly after that.
‘Pinocchio’ Jumps Into Live-Action in First Trailer for Disney+ Remake
- Disney Plus released a trailer for the remake of Pinocchio which mixes live actors like Tom Hanks with live-looking animation for Pinnochio and other characters like Jiminy Cricket. Comes out September 8th.
FanDuel Readies Launch of Cable Network Focused on Sports Betting
- Sports betting service FanDuel is launching a cable TV network. Yep. You heard me right. A cable TV network, not a streaming service-- though it will have a streaming version called FanDuel+. FanDuel TV will launch on the TVG channel (which right now focuses on horse racing), so it's not a huge launch.--really it's just rebranding an existing network with expanded content. And it sounds like they'll push to watching on your phone too, since there will be all kinds of interactive elements, presumably including betting through FanDuel. It's like a Home Shopping Network, but for gambling.
Eyes On:
Chris: Day Shift
Brian: The Rehearsal
Tom: The Orville, Prey
On the Lookout: Five days at Memorial
Front Lines
Netflix Turns 25, Cues Up Nostalgia Reel For Its Red-Envelope Days
Netflix Reportedly Targeting Ad-Supported Tier At $7 To $9, With Rollout Later This Year
- Netflix put out a video celebrating the 25th anniversary of its incorporation in 1997. Regarding Netflix's future, Bloomberg's sources say Netflix's ad-supported tier will cost somewhere between $7 and $9 a month, with a total of 4 minutes of commercials per hour. And while 2023 is still the launch date, a half-dozen test markets will get the service by the end of this year.
You should change your Plex password right now due to potential breach
- The makers of the media server Plex announced all users must reset passwords citing a “potential data breach." The Plex team discovered "that a third party was able to access a limited subset of data that includes emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords." Payment data wasn't impacted.
Peacock Will Get NBC Next-Day Episodes Starting Next Month After Reclaiming Rights From Hulu
- "Starting September 19th, NBC's in-season TV shows will no longer be available on Hulu for next day viewing. Non-cable subscribers will have to go to Peacock for them. Hulu will continue to offer past seasons of many NBC shows.
- This might sound like a small story but I think it may be bigger than we think. Hulu has had most of the network shows available for next day viewing for most of its life, though it never had CBS shows. NBC made up a big chunk of my personal Hulu viewing--I have a feeling this may throw people off of Hulu and they may not flock to the cock. "
U.S. Theaters Will Sell $3 Tickets for National Cinema Day Event, Set for Sept. 3
- Saturday, September 3 is National Cinema Day in the UK and US, and in celebration-- and to get people into theaters again on a holiday weekend, more than 3,000 theaters in the US will offer $3 movie tickets. Box office receipts were $52.7 million *total* this weekend, the lowest-grossing weekend since February. [30k of USA's 40k screens. I see AMCs, Regals, and Alamos as participating in Austin -bc]
Amazon And DirecTV Reach Multi-Year Deal For ‘Thursday Night Football’ Carriage In Sports Bars, Hotels, Casinos And Other Sites
NBC Could Give Third Hour Of Nightly Primetime Back To Local Affiliates
Broadcasters Boost Afternoon News in Bid To Thwart Streaming Rivals
NBCUniversal Agrees To Sell Controlling Stake In NBC Sports Washington, Calling It A “Unique Opportunity” To Divest
‘Star Trek’ Movie Loses Director Matt Shakman
T-Mobile Adds Apple TV Plus to Its Magenta Max Plan
Netflix Debuts First Trailer for Tyler Perry’s ‘A Jazzman’s Blues’
Jennifer Aniston, Jimmy Kimmel, Amy Poehler, Octavia Spencer to Join ABC’s ‘Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter’ Special
‘Resident Evil’ Series Canceled By Netflix After One Season
Nippon TV Seals Major Anime License Deal With Netflix
‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Teaser Shows the Dutton Family Gearing Up for Battle
- Amazon reached a deal to let DirecTV for Business carry Thursday Night Football for showing in bars
- NBC is considering giving the 10 PM hour back to local broadcast affiliates, meanwhile ABC and NBC have added an hour of national news in the early afternoon.
- Monumental, which owns the NHL and NBA teams in Washington DC, has agreed to buy the NBC Sports Washington regional network.
- WandaVision director Matt Shakman will not direct a Star Trek film, after all, and is in talks to Direct a Fantastic Four movie for Marvel.
- T-Mobile is making Apple TV Plus a permanent add-on to its top-level Magenta cellular plan.
- A trailer for Tyler Perry's "A Jazzman's Blues" is out, coming to Netflix September 23.
- Jennifer Aniston, Jimmy Kimmel, Amy Poehler, and Octavia Spencer will all be on Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter” which will premiere on Thursday, Sept. 22, at 9 pm EDT on ABC and will be available on Hulu the following day.
- Netflix canceled its Resident Evil series, which came out July 14.
- Netflix reached a deal with Nippon TV to stream 13 of its most popular titles worldwide on a non-exclusive basis.
- And there's a teaser out for Yellowstone Season 5 coming to the Paramount Network November 13.
Dispatches from the Front
It is hard to see how they can be successful, especially after AMC and other chains started their own subscription services such as AMC A-list.
- Clifford
nytimes.com/2022/08/23/business/moviepass-relaunch.html
Hi Team - I just got myself an early Birthday gift of the 4K UHD Discs of the Entire Game of Thrones collection. And I thought I would do an exercise to compare the quality between HBO's 4K Streaming version on the Apple TV and the Physical Media and I have attached photos of the same. I am not sure the photos capture the difference but when seeing it in person the Disc version just obliterates the Streaming version. I know there are a lot of technological challenges to streaming but do you think we will ever get streaming on par with Physical Media?
Thanks,
- Josh
Links
patreon.com/cordkillers
doghousesystems.com/v/rogue
World's Greatest Con
FreeTomNewsletter