“Netflix effect” is back as studios license old shows to competitors again

DannyMac@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 155 points –
“Netflix effect” is back as studios license old shows to competitors again
arstechnica.com
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When distribution was solely through radio waves owned by networks it made sense to license to a network. Now you can sell directly to consumers. Why do producers go through mediaries and bundle shows? I don't get it. If they want to make money from Band of Brothers, they could put it on their Web site at a reasonable price and charge consumers directly.

Because then you're also taking on the administration of content delivery and payment for the same. That all takes time and money to spin up and market - which a bunch of networks have done, making their own streaming platforms. I'm willing to bet that a good number of those "second tier" direct to consumer streaming platforms aren't making as much money as the networks had hoped, while also adding a lot of administrative overhead. So they're moving back to just licensing the content to Netflix and Hulu and Amazon.

Digital purchases still exist for a ton of movies and shows.

The issue is that most people don't actually want to pay a non-trivial amount of money to buy a season of a show that they'll watch one time.

As far as I know, series are still released on DVD/Blue Ray. Are you expecting for each production company to have their own content delivery network, maintain their own servers and everything else needed to run a video streaming plataform?

.... Yes, that's what I expect. Do you think these are mom and pop shops?

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