Editorial

There is a New Creative Power in Town

Source - “Jessica Jones, Marvel”

“A big part of the job is looking for the worst in people.  Turns out I excel at that.” Jessica Jones, “Jessica Jones, Marvel,” 2019

Gawd, we love this industry. 

It adjusts/progresses/moves forward so smoothly … not!

For two years, people – not organizations, people – figured out ways to create good content to entertain people, giving them momentary relief from “the real world.”

For the past oh six months, some of the people in the US who do the work have been standing on the sideline saying they want better say/pay in their efforts and that they have “some” concerns about the new invisible worker in the room – generative AI.

Movie houses clamor to return to the days of the past when people saw the film first on the giant screen even as regular folks showed increasingly they maybe, sorta, kinda, oh heck no weren’t willing to pay more – even though ticket sales were slowly dropping since 2002 according to The

Numbers – but when the cushioned seats, costly concessions where introduced to watch more thrills the tickets have been creeping back up.

To give the US film industry an added “incentive” to show their stuff at theaters first AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) made a new rule that if you wanted your project to have a snow ball’s chance of being considered for an Oscar, you had to show it at major theaters in select markets for a specific amount of time.

About thefuture.tv

Thefuture.tv, founded in 2005, is an independently owned organisation that explores the future of broadcasting. It features articles, editorials, and interviews on topics such as the rise of streaming services, the impact of AI on content creation, the latest technological innovations and new product launches.

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Editorial

Consumers Finding Their Own Entertainment Bundle Is Better

“I'd think you money-hungry sons of b****es would at least be good at math.” – Mike Williams, “Deepwater Horizon,” Summit Entertainment, 2016

When something needs to be fixed in our home we go out to the garage, grab our toolbox, take out the credit card and call someone to handle it.

My wife and kids will tell you I’m an OK husband/father but as a handyman … we suck.

So, when we said we were tired of searching everywhere for seemingly hours on end to find a movie or show we wanted to stream and proclaimed we were going to build our own viewing bundle – you know, like the $200+ cable bundle we left behind – they were skeptical … actually, they laughed at me

First, let us make it perfectly clear that we wouldn’t have had to embark on this undertaking if the streaming services had all gotten together and simply said, “O.K., let’s do something really weird … make it easy for the customer to find her/his entertainment, regardless.”

They did, they didn’t.

Disney came up with this fantastic bundle – Disney+, Hulu, ESPN.  WBD countered with the Max bundle – HBO, Discovery, Warmer Bros, sorry no TNT, CNN, Turner Sports … yet.  Paramount+ threw in Showtime.

Amazon has its bundle – Prime TV plus MGM+ so they’re good to go.

Netflix and Apple TV said we’ll pass for now while no one wanted to talk with Peacock.

The rest of the 200+ broad and niche players in the market?  They stuck close to home.

The big problem was that they were all their bundles.

Okay, so let’s assume a few of them really thought about the viewer rather than their shareholder and joined into a common bundle without a big bump in cost--let’s say Disney, Netflix, Apple … killer.