Let’s go back to the ‘80s and that now quaint form of entertainment -- television. If you had a hit sitcom the studio would sell it into syndication to the highest bidders. If you happened to be a writer or actor or director who had a piece of the show you got insanely rich. The studios would get richer, but that’s fair. They also laid out all the money above the license fee to produce the show. And lots of shows fail and the studios lose money. But still, in success, everybody scored big.
Then the studios started launching cable networks. And of course they needed product. Let’s take MASH — an absolute cash cow in syndication. Owned by 20th Century Fox. The studio debuted FX. The studio decided to run multiple episodes of MASH. Its value in syndication dropped because no longer were local markets the exclusive provider of the show. 20th made less money on MASH. But they made more money on FX. They sold and kept all the advertising. Anyone who was a profit participant in MASH got screwed. As a result, Alan Alda sued 20th and won a hefty settlement.
The point is 20th was more concerned with their cable channel than one of their shows. This type of thing happens when giant conglomerates take over studios.
AT&T now owns Time-Warner, which included HBO Max. The future in broadcast platforms is streaming. And the competition is fierce. Once it pretty much was just Netflix and Hulu as a distant second. Now there’s HBO Max, Apple +, Disney +, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access, Peacock with more on the way. People aren’t gong to pay $14 a month to seven streaming services. Maybe they’ll pop for two. Each of these streaming services is owned by giant behemoths like Apple, Amazon, Viacom, Comcast, and Disney. They’ve spent billions to launch their services. In time some are going to go away or be swallowed up. At the moment, the race is on and the stakes are enormous.
HBO Max got off to a disappointing start. I don’t know what their expectations were but they didn’t meet them. So to give their service a shot in the arm, AT&T has decided to release all new WB movies on HBO Max. Now they’ll say they’re doing it for the fans. But that’s utter bullshit. They’re doing it to bolster HBO Max.
So what if you’re a profit participant in one of those films? Forget about the $100,00,000 opening weekend and your cut (once the pandemic is finally over). It’ll open at a tiny fraction of that. You get fucked. You see the pattern? And add this to that: the filmmakers who produced the 2021 slate of WB films were always under the impression their films would first be released in theaters. When you do a picture for Netflix you know it’s destined for the small screen. But not a WB project. So the rug was pulled out from under them.
Oh, and how’d you like to own AMC theaters?
I’m waiting to see if other conglomerates do the same thing. The theater experience is slowly coming to an end. Watching a film with lots of other people, all laughing or cheering or gasping or whatever enhances the movie experience. And that is going away other than big IMAX CGI superhero sequels. It’s a shame really. The entertainment industry has always been about money. But at one time the people in charge also loved movies. Today, they couldn’t care less. Which also means they couldn’t care less about YOU. Not exactly a "happy ending."
from By Ken Levine
Comments
Post a Comment