Current Events > Didney+ set to raise to $11/month on May 2nd

(+) Yeah! (+)

That is unsustainable

I don't think any streaming service is actually making money.
Maybe Swearnet.

Yes, Netflix is profitable. It first became profitable in 2003 and has grown steadily since then, reaching a profit of $4.49 billion in 2022, a 12.2% decline from its record profit of $5.11 billion in 2021.

-make billions in profits
-not enough must raise price

That is unsustainable

making them as much money as they otherwise could be

-make billions in profits
-not enough must raise price

That is unsustainable

So apparently Disney has an ad version now that's cheaper. I think I have that one but yet I've never seen an ad play yet

I tried Hulu with ads back in 2015 and I couldn't stand it then.

Rather watch nothing than ads

That is.... Literally whay I said...

Another factor that made the cable programming business so good to Hollywood for the past few decades is that Disney, the former Time Warner and Viacom were able to jack up the wholesale price of their most-watched channels every four to five years in their contract renegotiations with cable operators.
When Netflix came on strong a decade ago and popularized the direct-to-consumer streaming model, Hollywoods major studios saw a big chance to cut out the cable middleman and build their own channel platforms. As it turns out, attracting subscribers one by one is a much heavier lift than leveraging the value of must-have channels against cable operators.

Seasoned showbiz watchers are predicting 2023 will be a hard year of restructuring, layoffs, budget slashing and strategic second-guessing for the biz. There will be cuts; there will be shutdowns of underperforming assets.

Consumers are spending more money than ever on home entertainment services. Thats been a success. The question is, why have profits collapsed? says Benjamin Swinburne, media analyst for Morgan Stanley.
The math on the costs of streaming versus earnings potential isnt adding up, which is why every major media and entertainment conglomerate ended the year with double-digit declines in their stock prices.
This is a very painful transition, from one model to the other and from one technology to the other. Its going to be a multiyear shakeout of the major players, says Swinburne. The reality is that everyone outside of Netflix is pretty early in the streaming game. Theyve gone into it guns blazing to build businesses. Pivoting from heavy investment mode to maximizing profits is not easy for any company, especially those with legacy infrastructure costs.

The history of the content business has been Produce once and sell it as many times as you can in different windows, says Perrette. Whats happened the last 15 years or so in the streaming business is that the belief became Produce once and monetize once. Somehow, in the streaming context, that got translated to Forget windowing, forget exploiting content on multiple platforms. The streaming business got into the content-warehousing business. For the economics of content, warehousing is not a good strategy.

The 2023 outlook for Big Media is grim, in part because the pay TV arena reached a milestone in the third quarter of 2022. The total volume of affiliate fees the money distributors pay content providers to carry their programming earned in the quarter by the largest publicly held companies, including Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast and Paramount Global, declined year over year for the first time in more than a generation. By Wall Streets measure, the collective dip was only about 2%. It may even rebound slightly in future quarters, but it was nonetheless a psychological threshold that set off a new level of alarm behind studio gates.
The industry has seen huge growth in streaming costs, but there hasnt been anything similar in the reduction of linear spending. Its been almost entirely additive. Thats why the industry finds itself where it is right now, Swinburne says. Investors are looking for a sense of urgency around costs in linear that hasnt been there in the past.

Yes but you're taking about Disney as a whole. Not Disney+ specifically. A lot of these corporations are suddenly realizing that aggressively chasing subscription numbers isn't really worth it.

Profit is there. Chasing subs not the issue. If they not making it, they are mis-managing.

Also apparently subs grew in NA and most sub loss was in india afternlosing rights to cricket lol.

Like why are they pumping up Disney+ with big budget TV shows and putting less emphasis on theatrical releases if a cricket licensing deal can ruin their momentum lol

They had like 234 MILLION paid subs in 2022.

Multiply that times 10.99 or whatever price.

Profit is there. Chasing subs not the issue. If they not making it, they are mis-managing.

Also apparently subs grew in NA and most sub loss was in india afternlosing rights to cricket lol.

I get Disney+ and Hulu no ads for free from Verizon so Im still good.

Disney+ lost $5 billion in the past year and quarter. The whole streaming thing is gonna be going downhill because it's not worth the insane costs they pour in. A lot of companies are basically starting to follow in Zaslav's footsteps.

They had like 234 MILLION paid subs in 2022.

If they had approached it like traditional TV, with standard length seasons and appropriately sized budgets, I think it would've been easier to manage budgets and expectations.

Instead everybody started pouring tens, if not hundreds, of millions into single shows that have like 6-10 episodes.

I think Didney specifically would have benefitted from an option to stream content like Didney Channel does. A Didney selected set of rotations of popular shows that you can throw on when you don't know what you want to watch and if something catches your eye, you have the in-line options to start the episode, or even entire show, from the start.

As is, I feel like there's too much content being blasted to you at once and the choice fatigue sets in.

I only use Didney+ for Star Wars and Marvel, but if I could throw something that Didney chose for me as background noise, I might be more interested opt-in. I understand the strain that could put on their servers though.