The great streaming cancellation

[Son of Mathonwy]

This seems very strange:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ut-a-trace

Cancelling shows at an early stage (or leaving multi season stories unfinished) is unfortunate but understandable from a business point of view. However a strange phenomenon is occurring - the cancellation of shows that are complete but yet to be aired. For example, Disney+ has axed the completed Nautilus apparently to save tax. It's not completely clear from the reporting but I think the idea is that a completed show is a large asset in the company's books so axing it allows them to write-down its value (ie reduce its value - a complete write-off seems unlikely to get past the auditors??), so causing them to take a loss, so reducing their taxable profits.

On the face of it this seems mad. Surely they have more to gain from the show that the tax they would save by dropping it? But this is not necessarily the case. A show is only worth the return a platform can make from it. But this is entirely down to the platform's subscriptions. If there isn't enough subs revenue it doesn't matter how great your content is - you can't monetise it. So my guess is that some of these platforms eg Disney+ have overspent on shows without the subscriber base to make it profitable. I would guess that the more successful platforms (Netflix?) would not need to make such a choice. In fact they can presumably wait to buy up these unaired shows more cheaply and air them to their larger subscriber bases.

Hopefully this is not the TV apocalypse but it probably means less shows will be made in the near future.

[Puja]

I mean, I have never understood the economics of the streaming marketplace. Were there going to be any people who would either sign up to Disney+ or defer cancelling their subscription because they need to see the origin story of Captain Nemo? I highly doubt it - so what's the financial benefit of making it in the first place?

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

I mean, I have never understood the economics of the streaming marketplace. Were there going to be any people who would either sign up to Disney+ or defer cancelling their subscription because they need to see the origin story of Captain Nemo? I highly doubt it - so what's the financial benefit of making it in the first place?

Puja

Yeah, agreed in the case of Nautilus, they may have backed a dud with limited appeal (not much to me, I have to say). I guess axing it completely is like scuttling your own ships rather than letting your enemy take them, or like when British Airways preferred to scrap their concords rather than sell them to Virgin. (Although I suspect it will emerge eventually - from the depths - on Disney+ or elsewhere).

As to the economics of streaming, it does seem like flinging bags of money into a machine and hoping more will come out the other end but not really knowing which bag did what or why.

[Numbers]

This seems very strange:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ut-a-trace

Cancelling shows at an early stage (or leaving multi season stories unfinished) is unfortunate but understandable from a business point of view. However a strange phenomenon is occurring - the cancellation of shows that are complete but yet to be aired. For example, Disney+ has axed the completed Nautilus apparently to save tax. It's not completely clear from the reporting but I think the idea is that a completed show is a large asset in the company's books so axing it allows them to write-down its value (ie reduce its value - a complete write-off seems unlikely to get past the auditors??), so causing them to take a loss, so reducing their taxable profits.

On the face of it this seems mad. Surely they have more to gain from the show that the tax they would save by dropping it? But this is not necessarily the case. A show is only worth the return a platform can make from it. But this is entirely down to the platform's subscriptions. If there isn't enough subs revenue it doesn't matter how great your content is - you can't monetise it. So my guess is that some of these platforms eg Disney+ have overspent on shows without the subscriber base to make it profitable. I would guess that the more successful platforms (Netflix?) would not need to make such a choice. In fact they can presumably wait to buy up these unaired shows more cheaply and air them to their larger subscriber bases.

Hopefully this is not the TV apocalypse but it probably means less shows will be made in the near future.

I suppose the product is what's available on the platform, so if the stuff they have made doesn't meet the mark rather than stinking up the service with it then write it off against tax and make something better, Netflix could do with taking note of this as they produce a mountain of shite, with about 1 in 10 things worth watching, it's an exercise in weeding out the crap really.

[Son of Mathonwy]

This seems very strange:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ut-a-trace

Cancelling shows at an early stage (or leaving multi season stories unfinished) is unfortunate but understandable from a business point of view. However a strange phenomenon is occurring - the cancellation of shows that are complete but yet to be aired. For example, Disney+ has axed the completed Nautilus apparently to save tax. It's not completely clear from the reporting but I think the idea is that a completed show is a large asset in the company's books so axing it allows them to write-down its value (ie reduce its value - a complete write-off seems unlikely to get past the auditors??), so causing them to take a loss, so reducing their taxable profits.

On the face of it this seems mad. Surely they have more to gain from the show that the tax they would save by dropping it? But this is not necessarily the case. A show is only worth the return a platform can make from it. But this is entirely down to the platform's subscriptions. If there isn't enough subs revenue it doesn't matter how great your content is - you can't monetise it. So my guess is that some of these platforms eg Disney+ have overspent on shows without the subscriber base to make it profitable. I would guess that the more successful platforms (Netflix?) would not need to make such a choice. In fact they can presumably wait to buy up these unaired shows more cheaply and air them to their larger subscriber bases.

Hopefully this is not the TV apocalypse but it probably means less shows will be made in the near future.

I suppose the product is what's available on the platform, so if the stuff they have made doesn't meet the mark rather than stinking up the service with it then write it off against tax and make something better, Netflix could do with taking note of this as they produce a mountain of shite, with about 1 in 10 things worth watching, it's an exercise in weeding out the crap really.

Yeah, if it is truly awful (like Netflix's life action One Piece) I'd agree - maybe we'll never know. But everything gets written off eventually (presumably it loses a big chunk of its value on first viewing, even), so it seems extremely short-termist to not even show it once. Especially for Disney, a company with rather deep pockets.

[Puja]

This seems very strange:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ut-a-trace

Cancelling shows at an early stage (or leaving multi season stories unfinished) is unfortunate but understandable from a business point of view. However a strange phenomenon is occurring - the cancellation of shows that are complete but yet to be aired. For example, Disney+ has axed the completed Nautilus apparently to save tax. It's not completely clear from the reporting but I think the idea is that a completed show is a large asset in the company's books so axing it allows them to write-down its value (ie reduce its value - a complete write-off seems unlikely to get past the auditors??), so causing them to take a loss, so reducing their taxable profits.

On the face of it this seems mad. Surely they have more to gain from the show that the tax they would save by dropping it? But this is not necessarily the case. A show is only worth the return a platform can make from it. But this is entirely down to the platform's subscriptions. If there isn't enough subs revenue it doesn't matter how great your content is - you can't monetise it. So my guess is that some of these platforms eg Disney+ have overspent on shows without the subscriber base to make it profitable. I would guess that the more successful platforms (Netflix?) would not need to make such a choice. In fact they can presumably wait to buy up these unaired shows more cheaply and air them to their larger subscriber bases.

Hopefully this is not the TV apocalypse but it probably means less shows will be made in the near future.

I suppose the product is what's available on the platform, so if the stuff they have made doesn't meet the mark rather than stinking up the service with it then write it off against tax and make something better, Netflix could do with taking note of this as they produce a mountain of shite, with about 1 in 10 things worth watching, it's an exercise in weeding out the crap really.

Yeah, if it is truly awful (like Netflix's life action One Piece) I'd agree - maybe we'll never know. But everything gets written off eventually (presumably it loses a big chunk of its value on first viewing, even), so it seems extremely short-termist to not even show it once. Especially for Disney, a company with rather deep pockets.

Writing it off also strikes me as an exceptionally shitty way to treat the actors and crew who made it. They're already getting fucked fairly squarely by the contracts in the industry, but it strikes me as appalling behaviour to hire people for a project, get them commit a chunk of their year and their energy (potentially turning down other opportunities) to make it, and then tell them that, not only are they not getting any chance of additional money from it being seen or turning into a hit, that they're not even getting that magical "exposure" that interns are paid with, because it will never see the light of day. Hells, oftimes, they don't even get to see the final product themselves, so they have no idea whether it turned out good or bad - just "unprofitable".

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

I suppose the product is what's available on the platform, so if the stuff they have made doesn't meet the mark rather than stinking up the service with it then write it off against tax and make something better, Netflix could do with taking note of this as they produce a mountain of shite, with about 1 in 10 things worth watching, it's an exercise in weeding out the crap really.

Yeah, if it is truly awful (like Netflix's life action One Piece) I'd agree - maybe we'll never know. But everything gets written off eventually (presumably it loses a big chunk of its value on first viewing, even), so it seems extremely short-termist to not even show it once. Especially for Disney, a company with rather deep pockets.

Writing it off also strikes me as an exceptionally shitty way to treat the actors and crew who made it. They're already getting fucked fairly squarely by the contracts in the industry, but it strikes me as appalling behaviour to hire people for a project, get them commit a chunk of their year and their energy (potentially turning down other opportunities) to make it, and then tell them that, not only are they not getting any chance of additional money from it being seen or turning into a hit, that they're not even getting that magical "exposure" that interns are paid with, because it will never see the light of day. Hells, oftimes, they don't even get to see the final product themselves, so they have no idea whether it turned out good or bad - just "unprofitable".

Puja

Absolutely and I'm sure the suits who made this decision agonized for at least a millisecond over its impact on the people who made it before doing what was best for this quarter's figures and their bonuses. Okay, just their bonuses.

Nautilus will always have this hanging over it, even if it does see the light of day, even if it's actually a good show. Not good for the CV.

[Numbers]

Yeah, if it is truly awful (like Netflix's life action One Piece) I'd agree - maybe we'll never know. But everything gets written off eventually (presumably it loses a big chunk of its value on first viewing, even), so it seems extremely short-termist to not even show it once. Especially for Disney, a company with rather deep pockets.

Writing it off also strikes me as an exceptionally shitty way to treat the actors and crew who made it. They're already getting fucked fairly squarely by the contracts in the industry, but it strikes me as appalling behaviour to hire people for a project, get them commit a chunk of their year and their energy (potentially turning down other opportunities) to make it, and then tell them that, not only are they not getting any chance of additional money from it being seen or turning into a hit, that they're not even getting that magical "exposure" that interns are paid with, because it will never see the light of day. Hells, oftimes, they don't even get to see the final product themselves, so they have no idea whether it turned out good or bad - just "unprofitable".

Puja

Absolutely and I'm sure the suits who made this decision agonized for at least a millisecond over its impact on the people who made it before doing what was best for this quarter's figures and their bonuses. Okay, just their bonuses.

Nautilus will always have this hanging over it, even if it does see the light of day, even if it's actually a good show. Not good for the CV.

In reality if the program is not good enough to make the cut on Netflix it would have to be shockingly bad so not really a boost for their CV anyway, they should concentrate on acting better or picking better scripts, the actors are still paid as are the crew so I'm not feeling any real empathy towards them tbh.

[Puja]

Writing it off also strikes me as an exceptionally shitty way to treat the actors and crew who made it. They're already getting fucked fairly squarely by the contracts in the industry, but it strikes me as appalling behaviour to hire people for a project, get them commit a chunk of their year and their energy (potentially turning down other opportunities) to make it, and then tell them that, not only are they not getting any chance of additional money from it being seen or turning into a hit, that they're not even getting that magical "exposure" that interns are paid with, because it will never see the light of day. Hells, oftimes, they don't even get to see the final product themselves, so they have no idea whether it turned out good or bad - just "unprofitable".

Puja

Absolutely and I'm sure the suits who made this decision agonized for at least a millisecond over its impact on the people who made it before doing what was best for this quarter's figures and their bonuses. Okay, just their bonuses.

Nautilus will always have this hanging over it, even if it does see the light of day, even if it's actually a good show. Not good for the CV.

In reality if the program is not good enough to make the cut on Netflix it would have to be shockingly bad so not really a boost for their CV anyway, they should concentrate on acting better or picking better scripts, the actors are still paid as are the crew so I'm not feeling any real empathy towards them tbh.

There's a fairly well-publicised strike going on at the moment about the fact that 95% of actors and crew are paid barely anything as a basic and don't get any bonus whatsoever if a show is pulled before being released, while Netflix itself turned £12bn profit last year. I've got a lot of sympathy for them.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Absolutely and I'm sure the suits who made this decision agonized for at least a millisecond over its impact on the people who made it before doing what was best for this quarter's figures and their bonuses. Okay, just their bonuses.

Nautilus will always have this hanging over it, even if it does see the light of day, even if it's actually a good show. Not good for the CV.

In reality if the program is not good enough to make the cut on Netflix it would have to be shockingly bad so not really a boost for their CV anyway, they should concentrate on acting better or picking better scripts, the actors are still paid as are the crew so I'm not feeling any real empathy towards them tbh.

There's a fairly well-publicised strike going on at the moment about the fact that 95% of actors and crew are paid barely anything as a basic and don't get any bonus whatsoever if a show is pulled before being released, while Netflix itself turned £12bn profit last year. I've got a lot of sympathy for them.

Puja

Yes and I'm also thinking, (I know this is pure speculation but) what if the show is actually good? If it gets sold off cheap and then eventually streamed without any fanfare, no Tube ads, no banners when you open Netflix or Amazon Prime, then it'll struggle to get an audience and to get acclaim. It may have a great script and great acting and still fail through bad publicity. Not really fair on those who worked on it.

[francoisfou]

Does anyone know of a reliable and free rugby stream that doesn’t involve any signing in?

[morepork]

Does anyone know of a reliable and free rugby stream that doesn’t involve any signing in?

https://www.vipboxtv.sk

[Numbers]

Does anyone know of a reliable and free rugby stream that doesn’t involve any signing in?

You could just set a VPN for the UK and stream it from ITVX I should think.

[paddy no 11]

The itvx isn't compatible with some phones, i couldn't stream from it on holidays

Vipbox worked well with good wifi

[Stom]

I use vipleague dot tv

[Sandydragon]

I mean, I have never understood the economics of the streaming marketplace. Were there going to be any people who would either sign up to Disney+ or defer cancelling their subscription because they need to see the origin story of Captain Nemo? I highly doubt it - so what's the financial benefit of making it in the first place?

Puja

Consider the vast sums invoked on the making of the Lord of the Rings prequel series that Amazon is committed to. I don’t see how they make a profit but that’s probably because I’m not in the streaming business