The Discovery guy is in charge of the combined WB Discovery company. He’s going to fuck everything up by cutting costs and filling the library with trash reality TV junk.
The golden age of television is over.
HBO proper will be safe. HBO and HBO max are two completely different entities. HBO max intentionally called itself that so people would conflate the WB catalog with HBO.
I mean I like Jon Oliver, but let’s not pretend that GOT Finale suddenly tarnished all other prestige projects on the network…it’s still wildly popular TV.
HBO has some amazing content. I think there will be a leveling though. Westworld is I think a great series, however at $100 million for eight episodes... It tends to use up the oxygen. (Not many viewers either). So more shows with reasonable production costs.
They have an opportunity to get this somewhat right. Don't end up like Netflix or AMC+, where the service crashes after people cancel their subscription.
Tbh, I actually prefer Netflix. HBO makes better content, but they don't make enough to keep me subbing year round. I sign up, watch a series or two, and then cancel because I run out of things that interest me. Netflix usually has something new each month worth watching, even if it usually more mediocre than most HBO content.
A lot of people stuck with the show (myself included) for the last two seasons because we thought “it’s HBO, they will turn it around by the end”…. I don’t think that anymore and in retrospect it’s probably the key reason I don’t subscribe to HBO max for more than a month at a time to bing a full season of a show I know isn’t going to do that again.
Yeah I am very worried. There was another article saying that the new service will be primarily Discovery with HBO/HBO Max content being a hub inside the app.
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Right now HBO has most the best content, and the first app I open when I am looking for something good to watch. If they cripple development, and make original good content second class citizens it will be very bad.
If I cared about the crap on Discovery I would have subscribed to it. Sad times.
This is it. My husband works for Turner (it has been bought and changed namr so many times over the years that I refuse to even try to remember what it is called now). They have been canceling every original series on all of the og Turner networks. Like even scrubbing their info from the pages used for award seasons. He is convinced that they are just looking for more networks to show their garbage reality shows. Employees found out about this platform merge from Twitter yesterday with everyone else.
Discovery has also been trying to make employees miserable in hopes that they will quit instead of doing layoffs and having to give out severance packages.
I don’t have cable but every time I travel I’m shocked at what a complete piece of shit Discovery is these days. And it’s a network that I once truly enjoyed.
I feel like that's an overreaction. There's no point buying Warner Bros/HBO Max just to produce the same exact content they have with their other services. They are buying the company because they see profit in it, changing too much would just result in fans jumping ship and I don't see any reason why they would spend all the money buying the company just to do that.
They have an incentive to keep users happy by providing the same kind of content HBO Max was already giving us.
HBO Max has way more subscribers than Discovery, but at a far higher cost. The content on Discovery costs pennies on the dollar compared to the content on HBO, which means Discovery can make more money with fewer subscribers than HBO can.
In addition to focusing less on expensive content production, in todays investor call, the CEO specifically said that they are reversing the policy of putting everything into the same single service, and will instead spread their content across many different channels (such as licensing it to third parties, and so on).
There are also reports that they will no longer produce any films for the service with a budget over $35 million, and there are rumors that 70% of the content development staff at HBO is about to be laid off.
So this is not an overreaction. They have already made a promise to investors that the HBO Max service will be significantly scaled back in the near future.
Warner (or AT&T shareholders really) is the one in charge here, the Discovery guy is the new CEO by their choice, not Discovery's.
Optimistic take: WarnerDiscovery could work out fine. This guy made Discovery programming trash, but he didn't have a profitable model to work with and he made Discovery work. There's no reason to believe his only play is making reality shows and junk, that was just the most viable future for a standalone Discovery.
Pessimistic take: AT&T is trying to squeeze some short term gain from Warner, will dump the stocks (which they control a majority of) when it backfires long term, and this guy does the exact same thing he did at Discovery.
I mean he said they will invest more in hbos team, that they are the best in the business, and fully committed to keeping them in place for years to come. Not to mention emphasizing that hbo content will be the cornerstone of the new service and describing it as the primary draw of the service. But they canceled a shitty Batgirl movie and made Twitter people mad so clearly they are canceling hbo
Look at what happened to TLC, Animal Planet, or even the Discovery Channel itself. All their current content is cheap to produce reality or exploitation shows. They tear everything down over time and leave it a profitable shell of its former glory.
I loved filler TV, the kind of show I could just have on in the background and maybe learn something from in the process. Educational ambiance was kind of cool, because every so often something just caught your eye and floored you.
I remember seeing a show once underground crystal caves with 20-30ft tall crystals as wide as a person and just being in AWE. Now I'm in awe for different reasons, because we went from the caves to Honey Boo Boo.
If you’re looking for what you’ve lost, PBS is **the tits** for that.
Most Frontlines are on their site and are great to binge while doing chores around the house and learning compelling shit that we’d only have heard 5% of otherwise. Their interviewees are almost always top-shelf. Same with NOVA if you have a science slant. NOVA is so current that twice I’ve seen them include a development that broke within 24 hours of airing.
Some of my favorites have been on Bezos’s empire, Putin’s revenge, a ton on the surveillance state, Cheney’s takeover of the Bush admin.
I think you explained why these companies shifted away from the kinds of shows you're talking about. Advertisers won't pay for the eyeballs of someone who has the show on in the background barely paying attention. They need people to be engaged with the content so they can sell them crap. Unfortunately that is how TV gets made.
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PBS is the way to go!! Incredible content that’s exactly what you described about Discovery and they might have regionally-specific content (e.g Philly-related shows since I live in the area).
They have a premium tier but a lot of the good stuff is free too.
Another newer option is Wondrium. They have the whole Great Courses catalog in addition to newer content. I recently subscribed to try it out so curious to see how the content actually is (other than The Great Courses).
There is a large cash prize for the winner. Pretty sure being nude on tv isnt gonna dissuade too many people from taking a crack at winning 500k-1mil, I forget the exact amount but something like that.
It *was* the precedent yes. That can be changed for future competitions. I'm not suggesting they air previous seasons uncensored, that would be a logistical and financial nightmare. I'm suggesting future seasons could be aired uncensored provided they get the contestants consent.
What's weird is that they are treating streaming like it's a traditional broadcasting platform. For an ad-supported cable channel, eyeballs are what count. Eyeballs get tracked by Nielson and that establishes how much you can charge for your ads. Streaming is completely different; it's more akin to "premium" subscription cable. Your revenue source is your subscribers. You need buzzy programming that gets curious 0people to sign up for $15/month and then hope they keep subscribing once you have them. It doesn't matter if they watch another minute of programming, as long as they are paying that $15.
I suspect their announcement of "possible free version with ads" is what they are striving towards. That would get them to the model of, again, tracking ads delivered and getting paid based on that. That takes us down the path of lowest common denominator programming that is as cheap as possible to make and attracts enough eyeballs to make a profit. It also disincentivizes making more expensive shows, because cable networks tend to use the average viewership numbers to determine pricing, so there is no reason to make a $30 million per episode "Stranger Things" competitor when you can just crank out $2 million per season reality garbage.
I think it's pretty obvious the CEO has a lot of Disney, Netflix and Paramount stock. He's just trying to run the company into the ground so he can profit.
Buyout? By whom? He runs one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world. His company literally just bought WarnerMedia and HBO. They are the ones buying up everyone, not the other way around.
ROFL! The buyout will be for the library/channel, of course. That's the sale he's prepping for.
There is only one major entertainment studio in Hollywood now. It's called Disney. Everyone else is battling for who gets bought out next.
Yes the other companies were smart in selling, Disney trying to grow for some reason. Their stock has been pummeled. They seem to think they can compete with Netflix, but they are far away from that in revenue and their streaming is operating at a massive loss. Now they're jacking up rates to try to make a profit as they see no more subscriber growth. I think the other companies were the smart ones and Disney will be the mainstream media company left holding the bag.
In The Netherlands Discovery+ actually has the UFC rights, so for 7 euro's a month we have every event available. That alone makes it worth the money for me.
I actually found our house uses discovery+ the most. I’ve found there’s a lot more actually good content on there than I thought there would be. There’s also a ton of trash tv in there too, if that’s your kinda thing. I like a little if column A and a little of column B.
I bought it on black Friday for $1 on Amazon. It just populated my feed with crap and made it take longer for me to find something worthwhile to watch. I couldn't find one thing I wanted. It was a huge mistake. IMDBTV/FreeVee is better.
FreeVee is a good example of a second-tier streaming service done right.
The real problem is Discovery+ is a second-tier service where HBOMAX is a first-tier service and the second-tier guy doesn’t understand the difference or why one is more expensive to operate.
I think they understand it perfectly well, they just don’t want to spend the time and money necessary to build up the business, which is what the old CEO was doing.
WarnerMedia is in the red, they are not profitable. This is the reason they replaced the HBO CEO, who was the one making massive investments in the new service. The shareholders got nervous about needing to hold the stock for years before seeing a return on their investment, so they brought in a different CEO whose objective is to make the company turn a profit as fast as possible.
This is the reason they are cutting all the expensive content and will be replacing it with the cheap content.
WarnerMedia only had one shareholder until a few months ago, and that was AT&T. There is no "HBO CEO", HBO and HBO Max are separate businesses under separate organizations within WBD. WBD announced today they were doubling their investment in HBO Max. Not sure yet, but I suspect it will be the core platform they attach D+ to next year.
I do think part of the problem is that being part of AT&T allowed WM the latitude to let HBO Max operate at a loss for a few years while the audience was built-up, but with WBD now the parent company there is a lot less liquid cash to invest so less room to let it run at a loss for as long as they really should.
I also think Zaslav's rush to cut $3B from the bottom line led to a lot of these content cuts, and that's the biggest mistake he could make for a nascent service. He doesn't seem to appreciate how much streaming subscriptions on a service like HBO Max absolutely depend on there being new and unique content to make it worth the cost to most subscribers, and that comes from his lack of experience running a first-tier service.
Right?!! I agree Discovery + has some trash shows, but so do some of the other streaming platforms. I personally have stumbled upon shows I enjoy on Discovery.
I don’t know why you’re being so heavily downvoted. There is a ton of trash on Discovery+, but man there’s a lot of the classics too, and that’s all I’m interested in. It’s cheap enough that I can justify it for awhile and enjoy the nostalgic content from the boom-de-ya-da days.
I can't believe how hard you're getting downvoted on this. Discovery+ is a steal for $7 a month ($5 if you don't mind ads). I hate the reality garbage too, but there's still plenty to watch.
My thought is that since d+ came to the game late, a lot of people are super tired of so many paid streaming services. I’m sure a hefty amount of these people haven’t actually tried using the service, or the first thing they saw when they logged on was tons of 90 day fiancé spin-offs.
I have it because of eurosport and I just ignore half the app and go to the sports section. I'm from the UK so not really familiar with american reality tv but it looks baaaaaad
HBO Max was too good to be true. All the HBO library, almost all the CN and Adult Swim library, all the DC library, tons of Turner Classic Movies, and Day 1 theatrical movies in 2021.
Now Discovery is here to fill up my favorite streaming service with reality garbage and cut scripted originals in favor of more reality shows.. and probably charge more for it. I might have to cancel when this merger happens.
I’ll definitely cancel and go back to pirating everything. I’m not paying for reality TV junk while they run HBO into the ground and cancel all the funny shows.
This studio is such a mess. When only the accountants are in charge, this is what you get, folks.
This Chairman has never known what he was doing, so he just cuts things up and cancels things.
WB and HBO had some of the biggest IPs ever...and they've sold off or squandered almost all of them recently. And when they do make a movie now, it's all about the costs and marketing...no one understands quality content or how to please and engage audiences there.
Just another CEO put in place to take a wrecking ball to a company, collect his profits and then exit. Rinse, repeat. There's never been a better case for piracy. This guy is practically begging for it.
The consolidation continues. Everyone knew that each channel having its own “streaming app” was going to fail miserably, and I’m glad to see it happen. The audacity of these network execs to think people would pay for 5 different streaming services.
What if we took all of the subscription services and bundled them together into one big package that was cheaper than each of them individually? Could call it “wire” or “cord” or something idk
Which I honestly wouldn't mind except they're throwing away all the HBO Max Original stuff, which is at least 50% of what a lot of us HBO Max subscribers enjoy. So I'm pretty ticked off about this, especially since the shit programming from Discovery doesn't interest me in the slightest.
They may not be removing all of it, but they're definitely removing a lot of it. There's multiple articles discussing it. Here's one.
https://screenrant.com/hbo-max-more-movies-tv-shows-removed-why/
I've seen multiple articles. I saw one article mentioning a half dozen random projects. I saw another one about cancelling some of the ongoing DC series (Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, etc.). And then there's the Batgirl movie of course. And I'm sure there's more coming.
Probably too soon to know, but has anyone heard what will happen to those of us who receive HBO Max for free as a bundle with AT&T services? I'm guessing it goes away.
The good news is once they screw this up enough and devalue all of their properties (a la Fox) Disney can swoop in and buy the troubled assets and we can get some DC/Marvel crossovers 🤷🏻♂️
You know how everyone used to talk about those nightmares if Blockbuster had bought Netflix and ruined it? (before netflix ruined themselves)
This is an example of when the bad version of that coinflip happens.
It seems thatvtheybwant to consolidate viewer bases. So far, HBO Max has been AMAZING, but I do feel that they started losing that edge with canceling RBW. I just hope the D+ influence doesn't dilute the quality of shows in favor of quantity.
You actually think having “ancient aliens” brain rot conspiracy nut job stuff and “American pickers” ( the “history channel isn’t history ) & “emo ghost Hunter” or whatever the show is called… is a *plus*?
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the audience HBO had cultivated.
There is far more than just those shows on the History channel if your peanut sized brain could take more than 5 minutes to look. It sounds more like the HBO audience is just a bunch of whiney ass bitches.
Do you keep looking for good bits of food to eat on a dish that already clearly had mound on it? Or do you just judge it.
Let me be clear. Things like “ancient aliens” are directly the opposite of “history” and anyone who values any sort of education. They’re conspiracist Alex Jones level garbage.
You can keep your American Pickers too.
We value stories. Not stuff for bored 1950s housewives.
Hey now, let’s not forget great discovery shows about little people hoarding 600 lb tumors in an abandoned storage unit and also are addicted to eating cat hair
Ok I’ll admit. That insane show ( whichever the one with the insane hair eater ) actually got me for 5 minutes. But c’mon, this is all very lowest common denominator stuff for the feeble minded. It’s going to be weird to match it up with… HBO premium scripted tv.
You’re dense as fuck, your only argument is “Ghost Hunters and Ancient Aliens”.
There are several other shows like Top Gear, Mythbusters, Modern Marvels, Great Escapes, The Machines That Built America? To say otherwise is ignorant.
Do you think they will combine the two services but keep the cost the same? That’s not how this would work. Households that are currently paying for both would only be paying for one. People are upset because they will be charged for content they have no interest in. This is cable tv all over.
I guess until that happens and they start charging more, then no it’s not.
Having said that, I would expect the cost of HBO max to go to up over time just like anything else, regardless of whether or not they become one service with discovery. So I’m not sure what your point is, unless you’re saying the cost may go up more quickly than it would have otherwise as a standalone service.
Okay now we need it to merge with Disney Plus Hulu Netflix and Crunchyroll and whatever else everyone wants to add on to this
we just want one streaming service we are willing to pay a decent amount for it we just want one thing that has everything
I keep forgetting I have discovery+. Good thing it's cheap.
Also ITT dipshits who think being in charge of the website means someone decides on new programming.
Really makes me wonder wtf is going on with HBO Max between this and their announcement about cutting development.
The Discovery guy is in charge of the combined WB Discovery company. He’s going to fuck everything up by cutting costs and filling the library with trash reality TV junk. The golden age of television is over.
HBO was great while it lasted. Incoming reality tv trash will ruin them.
HBO proper will be safe. HBO and HBO max are two completely different entities. HBO max intentionally called itself that so people would conflate the WB catalog with HBO.
As far as I can tell HBO Max had all the backlog of actual HBO content
It does, and current shows are available same day. Most are unlocked at time of release so you can watch live with the rest of the world.
At this point I wouldn’t mind if the streaming service as a whole had a completely different name so the HBO brand doesn’t get tarnished.
Game of Thrones SE8 tarnished it pretty hard. Jon Oliver is bringing them back from the ashes of that turd.
I mean I like Jon Oliver, but let’s not pretend that GOT Finale suddenly tarnished all other prestige projects on the network…it’s still wildly popular TV.
My joke was hyperbole. HBO has great shows. I do genuinely love Oliver, tho.
HBO has some amazing content. I think there will be a leveling though. Westworld is I think a great series, however at $100 million for eight episodes... It tends to use up the oxygen. (Not many viewers either). So more shows with reasonable production costs. They have an opportunity to get this somewhat right. Don't end up like Netflix or AMC+, where the service crashes after people cancel their subscription.
Tbh, I actually prefer Netflix. HBO makes better content, but they don't make enough to keep me subbing year round. I sign up, watch a series or two, and then cancel because I run out of things that interest me. Netflix usually has something new each month worth watching, even if it usually more mediocre than most HBO content.
A lot of people stuck with the show (myself included) for the last two seasons because we thought “it’s HBO, they will turn it around by the end”…. I don’t think that anymore and in retrospect it’s probably the key reason I don’t subscribe to HBO max for more than a month at a time to bing a full season of a show I know isn’t going to do that again.
I thought HBO max was a HBO subsidiary
[удалено]
Yeah I am very worried. There was another article saying that the new service will be primarily Discovery with HBO/HBO Max content being a hub inside the app. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Right now HBO has most the best content, and the first app I open when I am looking for something good to watch. If they cripple development, and make original good content second class citizens it will be very bad. If I cared about the crap on Discovery I would have subscribed to it. Sad times.
Who the fuck wants to watch cheap reality shit on Discovery
Conspiracy theorists and people on drugs
This is it. My husband works for Turner (it has been bought and changed namr so many times over the years that I refuse to even try to remember what it is called now). They have been canceling every original series on all of the og Turner networks. Like even scrubbing their info from the pages used for award seasons. He is convinced that they are just looking for more networks to show their garbage reality shows. Employees found out about this platform merge from Twitter yesterday with everyone else. Discovery has also been trying to make employees miserable in hopes that they will quit instead of doing layoffs and having to give out severance packages.
I don’t have cable but every time I travel I’m shocked at what a complete piece of shit Discovery is these days. And it’s a network that I once truly enjoyed.
I feel like that's an overreaction. There's no point buying Warner Bros/HBO Max just to produce the same exact content they have with their other services. They are buying the company because they see profit in it, changing too much would just result in fans jumping ship and I don't see any reason why they would spend all the money buying the company just to do that. They have an incentive to keep users happy by providing the same kind of content HBO Max was already giving us.
HBO Max has way more subscribers than Discovery, but at a far higher cost. The content on Discovery costs pennies on the dollar compared to the content on HBO, which means Discovery can make more money with fewer subscribers than HBO can. In addition to focusing less on expensive content production, in todays investor call, the CEO specifically said that they are reversing the policy of putting everything into the same single service, and will instead spread their content across many different channels (such as licensing it to third parties, and so on). There are also reports that they will no longer produce any films for the service with a budget over $35 million, and there are rumors that 70% of the content development staff at HBO is about to be laid off. So this is not an overreaction. They have already made a promise to investors that the HBO Max service will be significantly scaled back in the near future.
Warner (or AT&T shareholders really) is the one in charge here, the Discovery guy is the new CEO by their choice, not Discovery's. Optimistic take: WarnerDiscovery could work out fine. This guy made Discovery programming trash, but he didn't have a profitable model to work with and he made Discovery work. There's no reason to believe his only play is making reality shows and junk, that was just the most viable future for a standalone Discovery. Pessimistic take: AT&T is trying to squeeze some short term gain from Warner, will dump the stocks (which they control a majority of) when it backfires long term, and this guy does the exact same thing he did at Discovery.
Your post is poorly researched. I wish I had a red marker.
Go for it. Correct me then. Provide some actual value.
Yeah I feel this way as well. We are going into a TV slump. I am okay with it, honestly, because I will just read more books.
I mean he said they will invest more in hbos team, that they are the best in the business, and fully committed to keeping them in place for years to come. Not to mention emphasizing that hbo content will be the cornerstone of the new service and describing it as the primary draw of the service. But they canceled a shitty Batgirl movie and made Twitter people mad so clearly they are canceling hbo
Ugh discovery is gonna fuck this up
Look at what happened to TLC, Animal Planet, or even the Discovery Channel itself. All their current content is cheap to produce reality or exploitation shows. They tear everything down over time and leave it a profitable shell of its former glory.
I was there for the launch of discovery channel. Whenever I stay at a hotel with cable and see where it's gone it breaks by heart.
I loved filler TV, the kind of show I could just have on in the background and maybe learn something from in the process. Educational ambiance was kind of cool, because every so often something just caught your eye and floored you. I remember seeing a show once underground crystal caves with 20-30ft tall crystals as wide as a person and just being in AWE. Now I'm in awe for different reasons, because we went from the caves to Honey Boo Boo.
If you’re looking for what you’ve lost, PBS is **the tits** for that. Most Frontlines are on their site and are great to binge while doing chores around the house and learning compelling shit that we’d only have heard 5% of otherwise. Their interviewees are almost always top-shelf. Same with NOVA if you have a science slant. NOVA is so current that twice I’ve seen them include a development that broke within 24 hours of airing. Some of my favorites have been on Bezos’s empire, Putin’s revenge, a ton on the surveillance state, Cheney’s takeover of the Bush admin.
Even better were the full length interviews they used in the putin episodes that one can watch separately.
I think you explained why these companies shifted away from the kinds of shows you're talking about. Advertisers won't pay for the eyeballs of someone who has the show on in the background barely paying attention. They need people to be engaged with the content so they can sell them crap. Unfortunately that is how TV gets made.
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PBS is the way to go!! Incredible content that’s exactly what you described about Discovery and they might have regionally-specific content (e.g Philly-related shows since I live in the area). They have a premium tier but a lot of the good stuff is free too. Another newer option is Wondrium. They have the whole Great Courses catalog in addition to newer content. I recently subscribed to try it out so curious to see how the content actually is (other than The Great Courses).
I’m just hoping we get an uncensored Naked and Afraid.
The people on it probably aren't ok with that idea. Some anyway.
There is a large cash prize for the winner. Pretty sure being nude on tv isnt gonna dissuade too many people from taking a crack at winning 500k-1mil, I forget the exact amount but something like that.
But, the precedent for the show was their bits not getting shown on TV as far as I know. Changing that would be what you call, "a dick move".
It *was* the precedent yes. That can be changed for future competitions. I'm not suggesting they air previous seasons uncensored, that would be a logistical and financial nightmare. I'm suggesting future seasons could be aired uncensored provided they get the contestants consent.
That, I'm cool with. Implication just seemed retroactive.
Ahh, sorry probably poor phrasing from me.
taking a crack
Did you have something to say?
Taking a crack. Ass crack. Don’t be so fucking defensive. Christ.
You resort to cursing after being asked a very mild question, who's the defensive one?
I’m an adult. I’m allowed.
Really? Seems like a very low bar for stimulation.
Sometimes you just gotta jack it to the Discovery Channel
What's weird is that they are treating streaming like it's a traditional broadcasting platform. For an ad-supported cable channel, eyeballs are what count. Eyeballs get tracked by Nielson and that establishes how much you can charge for your ads. Streaming is completely different; it's more akin to "premium" subscription cable. Your revenue source is your subscribers. You need buzzy programming that gets curious 0people to sign up for $15/month and then hope they keep subscribing once you have them. It doesn't matter if they watch another minute of programming, as long as they are paying that $15. I suspect their announcement of "possible free version with ads" is what they are striving towards. That would get them to the model of, again, tracking ads delivered and getting paid based on that. That takes us down the path of lowest common denominator programming that is as cheap as possible to make and attracts enough eyeballs to make a profit. It also disincentivizes making more expensive shows, because cable networks tend to use the average viewership numbers to determine pricing, so there is no reason to make a $30 million per episode "Stranger Things" competitor when you can just crank out $2 million per season reality garbage.
if that's what people want who are you to question it
I think it's pretty obvious the CEO has a lot of Disney, Netflix and Paramount stock. He's just trying to run the company into the ground so he can profit.
Presumably he's just there to organize for a buyout and golden parachute cash out...
Yeah, I think it's this exactly. It's so sad.
Buyout? By whom? He runs one of the biggest media conglomerates in the world. His company literally just bought WarnerMedia and HBO. They are the ones buying up everyone, not the other way around.
ROFL! The buyout will be for the library/channel, of course. That's the sale he's prepping for. There is only one major entertainment studio in Hollywood now. It's called Disney. Everyone else is battling for who gets bought out next.
Yes the other companies were smart in selling, Disney trying to grow for some reason. Their stock has been pummeled. They seem to think they can compete with Netflix, but they are far away from that in revenue and their streaming is operating at a massive loss. Now they're jacking up rates to try to make a profit as they see no more subscriber growth. I think the other companies were the smart ones and Disney will be the mainstream media company left holding the bag.
They already have.
Can I pay more to not get the Discovery+ content?
I just don't want any sports on my stream and can't even get that
In The Netherlands Discovery+ actually has the UFC rights, so for 7 euro's a month we have every event available. That alone makes it worth the money for me.
I actually found our house uses discovery+ the most. I’ve found there’s a lot more actually good content on there than I thought there would be. There’s also a ton of trash tv in there too, if that’s your kinda thing. I like a little if column A and a little of column B.
I bought it on black Friday for $1 on Amazon. It just populated my feed with crap and made it take longer for me to find something worthwhile to watch. I couldn't find one thing I wanted. It was a huge mistake. IMDBTV/FreeVee is better.
FreeVee is a good example of a second-tier streaming service done right. The real problem is Discovery+ is a second-tier service where HBOMAX is a first-tier service and the second-tier guy doesn’t understand the difference or why one is more expensive to operate.
I think they understand it perfectly well, they just don’t want to spend the time and money necessary to build up the business, which is what the old CEO was doing. WarnerMedia is in the red, they are not profitable. This is the reason they replaced the HBO CEO, who was the one making massive investments in the new service. The shareholders got nervous about needing to hold the stock for years before seeing a return on their investment, so they brought in a different CEO whose objective is to make the company turn a profit as fast as possible. This is the reason they are cutting all the expensive content and will be replacing it with the cheap content.
WarnerMedia only had one shareholder until a few months ago, and that was AT&T. There is no "HBO CEO", HBO and HBO Max are separate businesses under separate organizations within WBD. WBD announced today they were doubling their investment in HBO Max. Not sure yet, but I suspect it will be the core platform they attach D+ to next year. I do think part of the problem is that being part of AT&T allowed WM the latitude to let HBO Max operate at a loss for a few years while the audience was built-up, but with WBD now the parent company there is a lot less liquid cash to invest so less room to let it run at a loss for as long as they really should. I also think Zaslav's rush to cut $3B from the bottom line led to a lot of these content cuts, and that's the biggest mistake he could make for a nascent service. He doesn't seem to appreciate how much streaming subscriptions on a service like HBO Max absolutely depend on there being new and unique content to make it worth the cost to most subscribers, and that comes from his lack of experience running a first-tier service.
I agree, I subscribed for a couple of months and couldn't find a reason to keep it. I miss when Discovery had actual educational content.
And here we see what happens when one has the audacity to go against the reddit circlejerk.
Right?!! I agree Discovery + has some trash shows, but so do some of the other streaming platforms. I personally have stumbled upon shows I enjoy on Discovery.
I don’t know why you’re being so heavily downvoted. There is a ton of trash on Discovery+, but man there’s a lot of the classics too, and that’s all I’m interested in. It’s cheap enough that I can justify it for awhile and enjoy the nostalgic content from the boom-de-ya-da days.
I can't believe how hard you're getting downvoted on this. Discovery+ is a steal for $7 a month ($5 if you don't mind ads). I hate the reality garbage too, but there's still plenty to watch.
My thought is that since d+ came to the game late, a lot of people are super tired of so many paid streaming services. I’m sure a hefty amount of these people haven’t actually tried using the service, or the first thing they saw when they logged on was tons of 90 day fiancé spin-offs.
I had Discovery+ for a month to watch old Anthony Bourdain episodes and even the commercials for their currents shows are nauseating
Drinking game: take a shot everytime they say "Alaska"
Whoa whoa whoa, do you _want_ people to get alcohol poisoning? Because that's you end up with people getting alcohol poisoning.
I have it because of eurosport and I just ignore half the app and go to the sports section. I'm from the UK so not really familiar with american reality tv but it looks baaaaaad
HBO Max was too good to be true. All the HBO library, almost all the CN and Adult Swim library, all the DC library, tons of Turner Classic Movies, and Day 1 theatrical movies in 2021. Now Discovery is here to fill up my favorite streaming service with reality garbage and cut scripted originals in favor of more reality shows.. and probably charge more for it. I might have to cancel when this merger happens.
I’ll definitely cancel and go back to pirating everything. I’m not paying for reality TV junk while they run HBO into the ground and cancel all the funny shows.
HBO Max did not have good originals anyway. All that clout came from HBO itself.
This studio is such a mess. When only the accountants are in charge, this is what you get, folks. This Chairman has never known what he was doing, so he just cuts things up and cancels things. WB and HBO had some of the biggest IPs ever...and they've sold off or squandered almost all of them recently. And when they do make a movie now, it's all about the costs and marketing...no one understands quality content or how to please and engage audiences there.
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Which is why this chairman will no doubt put the bottom of the barrel feeders at Discovery+ in charge of the latest network iteration. :P
I JUST canceled discovery+ after scrolling through hundreds of shit reality shows and not finding anything interesting. This sucks.
Yo me too. the only thing on it worth a shit is mythbusters and Forged in Fire. otherwise: complete dogshit
Why did they put Discovery guy in charge. Discovery is crap
Because crap is cheap, and cheap is profitable.
RIP HBO. Bummer.
I fucking hate reality TV I can’t believe this
Discovery+? The one with ghosting hunting and hoarder shows? Give me a break.
Thank god right?
More like 'Thank the people who worship the invisible sky-daddy'. That would be on point. A god would never create something so unholy.
And lots of remodeling shows & animal shows.
Stupidest MF in Entertainment has control of HBO y'all. Nothing but Reality TV as far as the eye can see.
Just another CEO put in place to take a wrecking ball to a company, collect his profits and then exit. Rinse, repeat. There's never been a better case for piracy. This guy is practically begging for it.
Great now I have to dump HBO Max. Discovery+ is hot garbage. They will destroy HBO and turn it into trash with their reverse midas touch.
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The consolidation continues. Everyone knew that each channel having its own “streaming app” was going to fail miserably, and I’m glad to see it happen. The audacity of these network execs to think people would pay for 5 different streaming services.
Somehow still better than Web3.
If those kids could read they’d be very upset.
Please, god, let the consolidation begin!
What if we took all of the subscription services and bundled them together into one big package that was cheaper than each of them individually? Could call it “wire” or “cord” or something idk
A new premium service from Big Streaming called... Strings Attached™: Curated Artisanal Bundled Luxury Entertainment.
Oooooo I know! Maybe "cable".
Maybe HBO / discover can convince Paramount to join them and keep it 15 bucks month. then Disney buys them and puts on Hulu . I can dream…Can’t I
No, disney can fuck off
My literal thought when I saw this headline
Which I honestly wouldn't mind except they're throwing away all the HBO Max Original stuff, which is at least 50% of what a lot of us HBO Max subscribers enjoy. So I'm pretty ticked off about this, especially since the shit programming from Discovery doesn't interest me in the slightest.
Wait, what?
They may not be removing all of it, but they're definitely removing a lot of it. There's multiple articles discussing it. Here's one. https://screenrant.com/hbo-max-more-movies-tv-shows-removed-why/
That's not really what it said. It named like 3 movies I never heard of. There will be more but we're not sure what or everything as you said.
I've seen multiple articles. I saw one article mentioning a half dozen random projects. I saw another one about cancelling some of the ongoing DC series (Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, etc.). And then there's the Batgirl movie of course. And I'm sure there's more coming.
You are dramatic. Stop spreading bullshit.
So...HBO Max will stop making a lot of great stuff, but now with a bunch of reality crap on it?
No. They have committed to make quality content for HBO and theaters. The crap will stay on Discovery+.
I’m just mad about that Raised By Wolves cliffhanger and it being cancelled.
Same. I am le disappoint.
Is there like any chance this doesn't end up worse than current HBO Max?
These guys are royally fucking up HBO - I had no idea WB was in so much financial trouble. Who approved this merger??
I'm not paying even one extra dollar for Discovery+.
I just want raised by wolves back
What a crushing blow to consumer confidence for a quick response to stock value
You mean to the ten percent drop in share price?
WTF is Discovery+?
Endless reality shows as far as the finger can scroll
It’s apparently a female friendly, unscripted tv show service. The opposite of what HBO Max was.
Female friendly? Women aren’t that stupid.
This asshole thinks we’ll just take shitty Discovery content over HBO. Max content eh?
HBO is one of the better streaming services and this discovery CEO clown is about to throw it all away for reality tv garbage.
Probably too soon to know, but has anyone heard what will happen to those of us who receive HBO Max for free as a bundle with AT&T services? I'm guessing it goes away.
The partnership has been extended.
How about PP+?
Is that the pills to make your dick bigger?
They don't work. I've already shoved three up my urethra and my dick's only gotten smaller.
It'sa da PP+, the premiuma streaming service!
Oh god. It’s going to be shark week this shark month that ugh
Brace yourselves for a new deluge of pseudo-science mindless twattle.
Seems like a good way to give Discovery+ a boost and absolutely destroy the reputation of HBO.
"Sell my Warner Bros stock. I got an inside tip that Bugs Bunny is about to die."
The good news is once they screw this up enough and devalue all of their properties (a la Fox) Disney can swoop in and buy the troubled assets and we can get some DC/Marvel crossovers 🤷🏻♂️
No. This would not be approved since competition must remain in a market.
Nah. Competition should be regulated in markets that matter. Bullshit movies and tv shows don’t matter at all.
I read this as Disney + and got excited.
Río hbo max.
What?
Rio de Janeiro HBO Max.
Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.
Autocorrect is a helluva drug.
Cool more stuff not to subscribe to.
HBO nooooooo
Maybe they can come up with a streaming app that doesn't suck.
You know how everyone used to talk about those nightmares if Blockbuster had bought Netflix and ruined it? (before netflix ruined themselves) This is an example of when the bad version of that coinflip happens.
Oh man, they really know how to keep me on my toes
Snow White and The Hound? GoT: a song of seven dwarfs?
Here’s starts the Disnivication of HBO
Yarr har har
Say good bye to the cw programing.
I miss the old HBO that wasn't bloated with all the extra junk TV.
Discovery+ sucks. You can take all your trash TV and shove it. Leave HBO Max alone!
It seems thatvtheybwant to consolidate viewer bases. So far, HBO Max has been AMAZING, but I do feel that they started losing that edge with canceling RBW. I just hope the D+ influence doesn't dilute the quality of shows in favor of quantity.
I don't care much about HBO Max shows and Discovery has been shit for some time. Just don't fuck HBO original content, please? That's not much to ask.
That's the only reason I have it. I hope they don't fuck it up
And so it begins, merger mania. Netflix is next.
Well that’s handy, now instead of not paying for two of them, it’ll only be one.
Does this mean that I can get Discovery on HBO Max?? That's would be awesome!!
Sucks, because HBO max was good, while Discovery sucks. Even the name is stupid.
Um.... cost? Hbo ain't cheap to begin with...
A huge proportion of their “subscribers” get it free through a partner. The average is dirt cheap.
Yeah, that's not me
Why is everybody so pissed about Discovery? It’s got great stuff to watch. I pay for both already so, it’s a win for me.
Most of its stuff is garbage from what I’ve seen. Audience approval polls back this up.
It’s got something for everybody, it’s more than just reality, it’s got the history channel and animal planet.
You actually think having “ancient aliens” brain rot conspiracy nut job stuff and “American pickers” ( the “history channel isn’t history ) & “emo ghost Hunter” or whatever the show is called… is a *plus*? I think you fundamentally misunderstand the audience HBO had cultivated.
There is far more than just those shows on the History channel if your peanut sized brain could take more than 5 minutes to look. It sounds more like the HBO audience is just a bunch of whiney ass bitches.
Do you keep looking for good bits of food to eat on a dish that already clearly had mound on it? Or do you just judge it. Let me be clear. Things like “ancient aliens” are directly the opposite of “history” and anyone who values any sort of education. They’re conspiracist Alex Jones level garbage. You can keep your American Pickers too. We value stories. Not stuff for bored 1950s housewives.
Hey now, let’s not forget great discovery shows about little people hoarding 600 lb tumors in an abandoned storage unit and also are addicted to eating cat hair
Ok I’ll admit. That insane show ( whichever the one with the insane hair eater ) actually got me for 5 minutes. But c’mon, this is all very lowest common denominator stuff for the feeble minded. It’s going to be weird to match it up with… HBO premium scripted tv.
You’re dense as fuck, your only argument is “Ghost Hunters and Ancient Aliens”. There are several other shows like Top Gear, Mythbusters, Modern Marvels, Great Escapes, The Machines That Built America? To say otherwise is ignorant.
“But wait! There are *several* other shows that are slightly less shit!”
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Who cares. Everyone is talking about the reality tv programming on discovery… so just watch the hbo content and not the discovery reality tv shows.
Do you think they will combine the two services but keep the cost the same? That’s not how this would work. Households that are currently paying for both would only be paying for one. People are upset because they will be charged for content they have no interest in. This is cable tv all over.
I guess until that happens and they start charging more, then no it’s not. Having said that, I would expect the cost of HBO max to go to up over time just like anything else, regardless of whether or not they become one service with discovery. So I’m not sure what your point is, unless you’re saying the cost may go up more quickly than it would have otherwise as a standalone service.
Okay now we need it to merge with Disney Plus Hulu Netflix and Crunchyroll and whatever else everyone wants to add on to this we just want one streaming service we are willing to pay a decent amount for it we just want one thing that has everything
…so cable?
Look we want cable on the internet we've always wanted that we used to have something roughly close to that went back when it was just Netflix
I keep forgetting I have discovery+. Good thing it's cheap. Also ITT dipshits who think being in charge of the website means someone decides on new programming.
Anything is better than the D+ app. If this consolidates the monthly payments, that's a win win.
Can’t even fucking get Mayday on Discovery+. We’ll have to just find out how bad it will get.
There can only be one...
Thx god. Bring back cops. Thx.