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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday September 18 2019, @10:06AM
from the obviously,-Sheldon-Cooper-was-the-better-negotiator dept.
from the obviously,-Sheldon-Cooper-was-the-better-negotiator dept.
Just one day after Netflix secured the streaming rights to Seinfeld in a deal reportedly worth more than $500 million, WarnerMedia’s HBO Max has gone one step further, acquiring the rights to The Big Bang Theory in a deal reportedly worth more than $1 billion.
The deal gives WarnerMedia’s HBO Max the exclusive domestic streaming rights for five years, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That means another streaming service could carry the show in global markets. The deal also extends the syndication deal between Warner Bros. Television and TBS through 2028.
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HBO Pays Over $1 Billion for "The Big Bang Theory" Streaming Rights
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New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:14AM (13 children)
You can imagine the execs "Fine, you don't want to pay $100 for cable channels you almost entirely don't want... well... we'll let you pay for ten $15 streaming services instead"
Also I'm not sure the middlemen are providing a useful service anymore... pretty close to being the case where it'll be cheaper and more convenient to pay the studios directly. In the old days in the 80s setting up a network meant buying microwave relay towers and satellite BW and early exotic fiber tech and crazy expensive capitalist stuff where middlemen made sense. Now a days a middleman can be replaced by a small expensive shell script generating a RSS feed or something like that, which is why we have WAY too many middlemen right now, soon to mostly disappear.
Also on a tangent, both those shows suck and exist mostly so dudes can watch ultra soft core PG-ish pr0n with their wimmens without her complaining (mostly). Like those reality TV game shows that boil down to "lets watch hot 20-something women in bikinis for an hour". The problem with that business model is in the 70s you could get millions to watch braless "Threes Company" sitcoms because it was that or the Gimbels Department Store Womens Lingerie Catalog, but now a days dudes just pick up the phone and browse the pr0n subreddits or 80 bazillion online pr0n sites. Why watch a shitty modern version of "Threes company" when you can watch a threesome on pr0nhub? So bye bye mass media and their streaming services. Can you really sell a billion bucks of ads based on Penny's boobs (or whatever her name is)? I mean they're nice, but not a billion bucks nice...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:35AM (2 children)
FTFY
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:05PM (1 child)
Admittedly, some stuff out there is getting pretty propagandistic and I could see going "PBS" and simply accepting PAC contributions while ignoring audience input could be the future...
Like in the paper publishing industry, theres a fine line between an advertising funded magazine full of complementary copy, and a mere catalog containing some editorial content. Like the ole playboy lingerie issue vs the ole victorias secret catalog...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:17PM
I was more suggesting folks would either say "fuck copyright" or "fuck watching it at all".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:44AM (4 children)
Nobody I know subscribes to them all. Most people pick a total of 2 or 3. After a few months - once you have binged everything you care about on service B or C, you drop that one and pick up service D or E for a few months. Lather, rince, repeat.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:03PM (3 children)
Doesn't customer service shit all over them at cancellation time, like cable or satellite radio services? I donno if I'm willing to spend three hours arguing on the phone with some dude in India named "Bob" just to watch crappy sitcoms for three months.
I mean, its not impossible, but does sound implausible.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:44PM (1 child)
That's what throwaway IDs and prepaid debit cards are for.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 18 2019, @06:17PM
Preach on, brother!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday September 18 2019, @09:25PM
No.
I just cancelled a streaming service last month (the kids and I are going through the Marvel movies, and they're all being pulled from that streamer in advance of Disney+). I went into "My Account", clicked "Cancel", clicked "Yes, I'm sure" and I was done.
I guess this is the upside of the gutting of call centres. But I also think that the streamers realise that people are going to have to come and go as more services arrive. If you can make it easy to unsubscribe, you're more likely to have someone come back later than if you made their lives hell by clinging on to them.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 18 2019, @12:58PM (1 child)
No need for those either. There are a couple of public services that broadcast for my entire need of movies, paid from taxes and (one, the SBS) a modicum of ads.
That's enough for me most of the time. For anything else, there's the movie theater, especially the independent [cinemanova.com.au] ones [rooftopcinema.com.au]
I almost liked the first season of BBTheory. Didn't want to watch it again when it came out on disc, wasn't interested to watch from season 2 onwards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:23PM
The Pirate Bay is still broadcasting from wherever the hell they do their thing. They may be "illegal" in every nation on earth, but you can't stop the signal, Mal!!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:23PM
So I need HBO Streaming for Big Bang, CBS Online for Star Trek: Discovery, Netflix for Orange is the New Black, and Amazon Prime for Carnival Row....
... The new middleman will be the one who works out a deal for a multi-pass using one logon and/or portal for all these services for just less than you'd pay individually for a huge streaming platform. In other words, new on-demand cable. (My Comcast box already allows me to do Netflix and YouTube, and not sure about the others....)
"Middleman" is just a term for someone who sits in between and either adds value or serves as a gatekeeper. They have always existed, even before television and radios were things, and it wouldn't surprise me if it is pre-Gutenberg as well. (Someone who buys feathers and/or birds and warehouses the feathers for selling en masse to copyist houses). They always will.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2019, @02:38PM
Or, you know, do something with your life that doesn't involve laying on a couch passively consuming an AV stream...
$1B for 5 years of domestic streaming rights (to a population of 350M, with 54M subscribed... https://www.statista.com/statistics/329288/number-of-hbo-domestic-subscribers/ [statista.com] ) 200M per year, ~$4 per subscriber per year, for one show.
Last time I had HBO was when I bought a house where the previous owners had HBO and the cable company didn't get around to turning it off for 3 months... that was 1992, and I don't miss it at all. I guess I tried a free trial of HBO go once, watched about 2 shows and dropped it too.
But - for all the people bitching that CERN or NASA or your local animal shelters could use the money better, it's all about the numbers, baby... 54 million domestic subscribers @ $15/mo is nearly $10B per year, domestic. The people have spoken. If 54 million people would donate even $4 per year to your favorite cause (that's one Starbuck's latte, per year...) your cause, too, would get this kind of funding. Instead, they chose to send their money to the people who give them the Big Bang Bundle.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday September 18 2019, @11:47PM
Wow!
That Soft-Core Porn Theory* is awesome. I mean it's a little mad, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
I had never thought of it before, but it kind of makes sense in a twisted sort of way. I don't actually find the actress who plays Penny particularly attractive, and certainly would not pay money to see her naked, but I am sure there are people who would.
* See what I did there?