“HBO Max to Be Renamed ‘Max’ With Addition of Discovery+ Content, Launch Date and Pricing Revealed”: Variety
Everybody knows that when it comes to streaming television subscriptions it’s all about hit product. Word of mouth that garners viewers. Without “Ted Lasso”, Apple TV+ is dead on arrival. I wish Zaslav talked about new programming as opposed to this business nonsense. This is the man who eliminated shows and a brand name movie based on some cockamamie financial engineering. When it comes to streaming TV, brand is everything. Subscribing to a streaming service is not a financial decision, it’s an emotional decision. Which is why all these paid ad services miss the point. If someone wants the programming, they’ll pay. Otherwise you’re just cannibalizing your profits. Mercedes-Benz stopped importing its A-class to America, the company decided to stop making cheap models and focus on the expensive ones, where the profit is. But Zaslav? He’s bottom-feeding, appealing to the watchers of reality TV. Have you ever heard someone say they subscribed to a pay service to watch a reality show? I never have. Reality TV is mostly a time-killer, a guilty pleasure, very rarely is it appointment TV. You can live without the latest Bobby Flay competition show, but not the latest “Succession”, or “Stranger Things”.
This is what is wrong with television and this is what is wrong with music. Those in control never had skin in the game, they’re managers, not entrepreneurs. They’re anti-risk. Reed Hastings was all about risk, and he had vision, to switch from DVDs by mail to streaming. Do you remember when he announced that? The public screamed! The same public that today doesn’t even own a DVD player. You get ahead of the public, that’s how Spotify won, that’s how you will win, by providing something that people can’t even conceive of as opposed to trying to drag them back to the past.
Bob Lefsetz
Mirrors much of what I wrote a couple of months ago, as the company pulled Westworld and other exclusives from HBO. Alas, the new management is doubling down on these flawed decisions. At this point the best we can hope for is that ‘Max’ fails quickly, as Scott Galloway puts it, convincing the managerial team to reverse course.
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