For a while, before Jassy became CEO, people at the company would sometimes jokingly refer to Amazon Studios as "the loss leader for Bezos's sex life."
Now that subscriber growth is slowing down at most streaming services, the end of the "golden age of TV" is at hand.
Welcome to the "bean-counting age of TV," in which streaming services try to milk subscribers for as much as possible without pissing them off too much.
Going forward, I'm expecting cheaper content, greater restrictions, higher prices, a proliferation of tiered subscription plans, and pervasive advertisement.
Netflix's proliferation of reality TV (Love is Blind etc) felt absolutely jarring to me at first but it's just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to look back on the era of prestige TV fondly.
> We're going to look back on the era of prestige TV fondly.
I don't think prestige TV is necesirely expensive though.
The wire, breaking bad, Andor, the bear, severance all can achieve incredible results without hollywood budgets.
If anything big budgets have not translated into quality, see GoT, Rings of Power, Stranger Things all getting worse the more moeny thrown at them.
prestigue tv is about talent, and having longer story lines, it just allows for more character work than a movie, but not because of that does it have to cost exponentially more.
Their 'Infinite resources and big property given to random nobodies'(LOTR) or 'big creators given infinite resources to create a no-name property'(Woody Allen - Miley Cyrus show) both failed. Their big hits have been episode-1-viral TV shows like The-Boys that they could fun risk free or established brain-dead guaranteed hits like The-Grand-Tour.
Netflix & Prime need to start learning from HBO. Running a sustainable subscription business is a tried-and-tested model. But, their obsession with establishing monopoly through loss-leaders means they will never reach monetary-sustainability as long as they're in their 'growth' phase.
This is peak "uber vs lyft" where everyone was getting hyper-subsidized rides while both were bleeding money by the million.
I have the opposite perspective: studios will stop looking for ways to give audiences what they don’t want (and stop calling them toxic for not wanting it).
People are voting with their wallets. Hollywood in the 90s was much better at entertaining people and therefore much better at getting their money.
Studios will start making shows with good writing again. Apple TV often already is, with some glaringly bad exceptions like Foundation and parts of Ted Lasso season 3. Severance, for example, is good enough on its own for me to pay for the whole subscription.
Making entertaining and thought-provoking original content, without calling their audience sexists or racists when the writing or casting misses the mark, will be profitable and that profit will fund the next wave of prestige tv.
Foundation is an interesting case because while the parts they adapted from the books are atrocious, the original story line about the three emperors is pretty good. It feels like the writers simply wanted to do their own show but were constrained by the producers.
I watched "Air" with Matt Damon in the theater, and noticed it was an amazonstudios movie.
It was kind of ok, but wow it really lacked the polish that many hollywood movies have. It could have just been so much better.
I think nickle-and-diming movies will just lead to the sort of thing amazon is famous for. Lots of product, all of it cheaply made, with very little to differentiate it or make it memorable.
Personally I think there is also money in excellence.
Yes, indeed. MUBI is the only one that, even though it’s kinda the costliest, doesn’t not make sense. I somehow like for its nature and the way it has so far stuck to it. “Good” cinema and no gimmicks and just for its target audience. Not sure whether they’re making money.
Supposedly Bezos liked being a part of Hollywood, meeting the celebrities, being at the parties, and potentially meeting women.
I always took the last part to be an exaggeration, but it did sound like he cut the division a lot of slack on spending because he liked the idea of it.
High costs for studios seems to be something experienced by everyone in Hollywood; the difference for Amazon is that the studios sell their product on a pay-per-view basis upon launch whereas Amazon gives it away for free to everyone with Prime (at least for now... maybe Prime will start doing PPV on initial release adn then free for Prime members later?).
I've had Prime for years and wish the service was bifurcated such that I only get the shipping benefits -- I don't really care for the streaming media part of it.
I’d rather an explanation why so many expensive shows suck.
Citadel is terrible. As though the show runners have no idea what makes a show like that good. Keep in mind that you’re asking people to suspend disbelief. Don’t continually challenge that disbelief. I tried the show, said meh, tried again and turned it off in disgust. Compare to John wick (same target) doesn’t have a great story, but they ask you to suspend disbelief once and then never challenge you again. It’s got character, pathos. Not magical fucking skis.
Rings of power sucked terribly. I remember being repeatedly amazed at how such a high production value show could grab me not at all. The first fight scene was mind blowing. And yet I didn’t care. The ship they sail in the (second?) episode. Gorgeous, wonderful, compelling. I remember thinking. You built this whole unique wooden ship, and actually learned to sail it just to convince me of the authenticity of the scene. Only to throw it away five min later. The story and dialogue? Utter crap. Don’t even get me started on the narration. Bro. Go back to your notes from your first creative writing class. A quarter of the way down the first page you’ll see something that says “Show, don’t tell.” You need to actually sit down and figure out what that means.
What to know how they get maximum bang for their buck? They need someone on each project (with veto rights) who actually knows how to tell a story.
The thing they’re lacking isn’t expensive, but it does take a bit of rigor and someone with the courage and power to say no.
I feel like Amazon shows spend money on actors and sets, but not nearly enough on writing. And that just sort of underscores how important writers are. You can have a cool concept, but if you can't build a good story out of it... or you don't give writers time to explore... you end up with a story that doesn't capture audiences. I feel like Amazon is probably the least forgiving with deadlines, and that's going to lead to shittier scripts going into production. Over time... that dooms a series.
Most Amazon shows seem like cool concepts. But the writing, at times, just seems really "basic cable-y" -- and it's a shame since it's clear Amazon is spending a mint on these shows. But the end result just feels like someone wearing a $12k suit and flip flips. Something just seems off.
Also, Amazon doesn't do nearly enough to advertise shows. They need to get more hype, more people talking about their shows -- they seem to think that ads inside of Amazon are enough. I feel like their efforts are probably stifled since many news outlets are tied to their own entertainment streaming services. "Let's only talk about Disney+ shows..." But like Reddit, and social media in general... they need to do more to get the word out about their shows.
A friend (who is also in his 40s) put it really well when we were talking about the problem with Amazon shows... "They are Showtime when they want to be HBO." They certainly are spending the money to be HBO... but it's not all about money, sometimes it's about time and giving up control to the artists so the artists can do their best work.
Lastly, holy hell this can't be underscored enough, I hate using Amazon Prime Video since they don't have a way to turn off the "buy now" buttons. Like, if I want to have kids or elderly parents on that account... I just want them to see shows that don't cost me money to watch, and Amazon does nothing but layer in ads for shows and services that I have to buy. Among all the streaming services, Amazon is THE WORST at this. And as a result, I don't even want to install it on my parent's TVs for the simple fact that Dad will complain if there are shows on there he has to pay for, and he'll flip out if he gets an unexpected bill -- like to the point he won't feel comfortable using that TV at all, even another app, if he feels it'll bill him. I bet a lot of older folks are in this boat.
An example of where the show's writers just really missed the mark...
I wanted to like "A League of Their Own" -- I loved the movie. But I can't watch the TV show.
It seems like they have spent a lot to make the world feel like it's WW2-era. Except when anyone speaks. All the dialogue and idioms seem pulled from the present.
And, for me, it doesn't seem intentional. It just seems sloppy. And that makes it impossible for me to get lost in the story. Like it feels like all the actors know it's 2023 and could at any minute bust out a cell phone and take a selfie.
Like, "Mad Men" was a great period piece. "Halt and Catch Fire" was also a great period piece. And even "A Knights Tale", or even "Norsemen" was a good sort of modern spin on antiquity. But ALOTO just feels sort of unintentionally lost between the two.
I can only guess the dialogue gets improvised (I can see this being the case given the casting choices and how one of the creators is also one of the actors), or the writers don't have a shared style guide for consistency, or the story editor (or whatever role) is pressed for time.
But the end result is a show that portrayed a world that had no real conflict (since the actors all sort of seem to know it's 2023) and so it just sort of felt like a predictable outcome where everyone just sort of says things that imply, "I know where society is headed!" And I quickly lost interest.
Internally, there's been a lot of hate towards financing these big spends in the era of layoffs. Lots of rumors say that we were saddled with Rings of Power because Bezos wanted his own Game of Thrones.
It’s about time that tech companies go in and clean up Hollywood. There needs to be a year of efficiency imposed on these spendthrifts. The Hollywood elite needs to be held accountable, if they are not delivering ROI and maximizing shareholder value.
It should not cost so much for a TV show or movie. YouTubers with more views are producing hit after hit with nothing more than an iPhone these days. Directors should streamline their operations with AI, and on-screen talent and team members should be paid an hourly wage that is only time they are actually in front of a camera, delivering value. If they really believe in a project, they can choose to give up cash compensation for the privilege of purchasing options of a TV show. This helps align incentives and optimize risk to capital and stakeholders to do more and deliver faster with less.
Amazon and others should think about relocating production to areas outside of California where the costs are out of control and in a locale where the regulatory environment is optimized for business returns. TV shows and movies need to be evaluated on a quarterly basis and KPI’s should be enforced at all levels. To minimize risk, investment into AI that can be trained to emulate consumer watching behavior is needed and production should be run in a data-driven agile process.
If a show can’t be monetized, it isn’t worth being produced. Entertainment needs to be in the service of moving ad inventory, growing or retaining paying subscribers, or improving conversion of existing profit centers.
Wow, this is really on the line, I can't quite tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
For the sake of it not being sarcasm; obviously it's my belief that not everything (especially entertainment of all things) should be seen through the lens of purely making money. I am quite sure there are dozens and dozens of people who will disagree with me -- but it's always been my belief that Art that covers it's own costs and leaves its mark on humanity and history is a much greater success than making money hand-over-fist.
The game industry is really straddling the line with this and has been for quite a substantial amount of time, it's a war between MBAs and creatives, though even Sony recognises the need for creative freedom and does not expect a substantial profit on their games. (though I suppose their incentives are different, great games boost sales of the consoles which gives them greater market share)
> The article also noted that a minority of the viewers who started The Rings of Power, Amazon’s most expensive project ever, finished the series.
It’s funny how something is so bad people won’t even watch it for free.
I don’t think this is a completely correct assumption, but since Amazon doesn’t give viewership numbers (or Netflix or Hulu or hbo) it’s hard to know if a show is successful or popular or profitable.
I’d like to see old fashioned Nielsen rating numbers so you can tell if 1M households watched something and could compare shows.
I’m sure some people watch an episode because the marginal cost is $0 so it’s probably equivalent to an old prime time show on ABC/CBS/NBC that would have high ratings in the beginning and then low ratings in the end. Broadcast tv was free too.
It reminds me of how friends wouldn’t even watch a movie or show on torrents and that would help me understand if a movie is good or bad (with a torrenting crowd) because people won’t even download Justice League and watch it for free.
Anyway, I’ve been surprised at how bad Amazon’s shows are considering their spend. They seem like the anti-AppleTV. AppleTV seems to spend a lot as well, but make much higher quality stuff.
I suspect it’s because AppleTV has a direct cost and budget and want to attract people to watch. And prime video is lumped into Prime membership that is probably pure profit to Amazon and just customers on auto charge year after year, so most don’t even watch video yet they have revenue from 152M US prime members [0] so Amazon is getting $21B/year and may not care about viewership, they just need to spend money.
I haven't watched it as the reviews indicate it's likely not worth it, but Amazon's Citadel does seem kinda absurd in terms of money spent compared to the result. There are certainly series where you can see the money they spent, that kind of quality might not get you a mainstream audience anyway but even if it is not a commcercial success you can still understand why it was expensive.
It doesn't seem surprising that a very expensive series that doesn't look expensive and at the same time fails to attract a mainstream audience would trigger some scrutiny.
Readit News
Now that subscriber growth is slowing down at most streaming services, the end of the "golden age of TV" is at hand.
Welcome to the "bean-counting age of TV," in which streaming services try to milk subscribers for as much as possible without pissing them off too much.
Going forward, I'm expecting cheaper content, greater restrictions, higher prices, a proliferation of tiered subscription plans, and pervasive advertisement.
Completely predictable.
Netflix's proliferation of reality TV (Love is Blind etc) felt absolutely jarring to me at first but it's just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to look back on the era of prestige TV fondly.
I don't think prestige TV is necesirely expensive though.
The wire, breaking bad, Andor, the bear, severance all can achieve incredible results without hollywood budgets.
If anything big budgets have not translated into quality, see GoT, Rings of Power, Stranger Things all getting worse the more moeny thrown at them.
prestigue tv is about talent, and having longer story lines, it just allows for more character work than a movie, but not because of that does it have to cost exponentially more.
This should be seen as a death-kneel for any channel/service, yet those cable channels keep going after decades of truly terrible TV.
I wonder what kind of person these shows pander to.
Their 'Infinite resources and big property given to random nobodies'(LOTR) or 'big creators given infinite resources to create a no-name property'(Woody Allen - Miley Cyrus show) both failed. Their big hits have been episode-1-viral TV shows like The-Boys that they could fun risk free or established brain-dead guaranteed hits like The-Grand-Tour.
Netflix & Prime need to start learning from HBO. Running a sustainable subscription business is a tried-and-tested model. But, their obsession with establishing monopoly through loss-leaders means they will never reach monetary-sustainability as long as they're in their 'growth' phase.
This is peak "uber vs lyft" where everyone was getting hyper-subsidized rides while both were bleeding money by the million.
People are voting with their wallets. Hollywood in the 90s was much better at entertaining people and therefore much better at getting their money.
Studios will start making shows with good writing again. Apple TV often already is, with some glaringly bad exceptions like Foundation and parts of Ted Lasso season 3. Severance, for example, is good enough on its own for me to pay for the whole subscription.
Making entertaining and thought-provoking original content, without calling their audience sexists or racists when the writing or casting misses the mark, will be profitable and that profit will fund the next wave of prestige tv.
It was kind of ok, but wow it really lacked the polish that many hollywood movies have. It could have just been so much better.
I think nickle-and-diming movies will just lead to the sort of thing amazon is famous for. Lots of product, all of it cheaply made, with very little to differentiate it or make it memorable.
Personally I think there is also money in excellence.
What's the background on why that comment was being made?
I always took the last part to be an exaggeration, but it did sound like he cut the division a lot of slack on spending because he liked the idea of it.
I've had Prime for years and wish the service was bifurcated such that I only get the shipping benefits -- I don't really care for the streaming media part of it.
Citadel is terrible. As though the show runners have no idea what makes a show like that good. Keep in mind that you’re asking people to suspend disbelief. Don’t continually challenge that disbelief. I tried the show, said meh, tried again and turned it off in disgust. Compare to John wick (same target) doesn’t have a great story, but they ask you to suspend disbelief once and then never challenge you again. It’s got character, pathos. Not magical fucking skis.
Rings of power sucked terribly. I remember being repeatedly amazed at how such a high production value show could grab me not at all. The first fight scene was mind blowing. And yet I didn’t care. The ship they sail in the (second?) episode. Gorgeous, wonderful, compelling. I remember thinking. You built this whole unique wooden ship, and actually learned to sail it just to convince me of the authenticity of the scene. Only to throw it away five min later. The story and dialogue? Utter crap. Don’t even get me started on the narration. Bro. Go back to your notes from your first creative writing class. A quarter of the way down the first page you’ll see something that says “Show, don’t tell.” You need to actually sit down and figure out what that means.
What to know how they get maximum bang for their buck? They need someone on each project (with veto rights) who actually knows how to tell a story.
The thing they’re lacking isn’t expensive, but it does take a bit of rigor and someone with the courage and power to say no.
Most Amazon shows seem like cool concepts. But the writing, at times, just seems really "basic cable-y" -- and it's a shame since it's clear Amazon is spending a mint on these shows. But the end result just feels like someone wearing a $12k suit and flip flips. Something just seems off.
Also, Amazon doesn't do nearly enough to advertise shows. They need to get more hype, more people talking about their shows -- they seem to think that ads inside of Amazon are enough. I feel like their efforts are probably stifled since many news outlets are tied to their own entertainment streaming services. "Let's only talk about Disney+ shows..." But like Reddit, and social media in general... they need to do more to get the word out about their shows.
A friend (who is also in his 40s) put it really well when we were talking about the problem with Amazon shows... "They are Showtime when they want to be HBO." They certainly are spending the money to be HBO... but it's not all about money, sometimes it's about time and giving up control to the artists so the artists can do their best work.
Lastly, holy hell this can't be underscored enough, I hate using Amazon Prime Video since they don't have a way to turn off the "buy now" buttons. Like, if I want to have kids or elderly parents on that account... I just want them to see shows that don't cost me money to watch, and Amazon does nothing but layer in ads for shows and services that I have to buy. Among all the streaming services, Amazon is THE WORST at this. And as a result, I don't even want to install it on my parent's TVs for the simple fact that Dad will complain if there are shows on there he has to pay for, and he'll flip out if he gets an unexpected bill -- like to the point he won't feel comfortable using that TV at all, even another app, if he feels it'll bill him. I bet a lot of older folks are in this boat.
I wanted to like "A League of Their Own" -- I loved the movie. But I can't watch the TV show.
It seems like they have spent a lot to make the world feel like it's WW2-era. Except when anyone speaks. All the dialogue and idioms seem pulled from the present.
And, for me, it doesn't seem intentional. It just seems sloppy. And that makes it impossible for me to get lost in the story. Like it feels like all the actors know it's 2023 and could at any minute bust out a cell phone and take a selfie.
Like, "Mad Men" was a great period piece. "Halt and Catch Fire" was also a great period piece. And even "A Knights Tale", or even "Norsemen" was a good sort of modern spin on antiquity. But ALOTO just feels sort of unintentionally lost between the two.
I can only guess the dialogue gets improvised (I can see this being the case given the casting choices and how one of the creators is also one of the actors), or the writers don't have a shared style guide for consistency, or the story editor (or whatever role) is pressed for time.
But the end result is a show that portrayed a world that had no real conflict (since the actors all sort of seem to know it's 2023) and so it just sort of felt like a predictable outcome where everyone just sort of says things that imply, "I know where society is headed!" And I quickly lost interest.
It should not cost so much for a TV show or movie. YouTubers with more views are producing hit after hit with nothing more than an iPhone these days. Directors should streamline their operations with AI, and on-screen talent and team members should be paid an hourly wage that is only time they are actually in front of a camera, delivering value. If they really believe in a project, they can choose to give up cash compensation for the privilege of purchasing options of a TV show. This helps align incentives and optimize risk to capital and stakeholders to do more and deliver faster with less.
Amazon and others should think about relocating production to areas outside of California where the costs are out of control and in a locale where the regulatory environment is optimized for business returns. TV shows and movies need to be evaluated on a quarterly basis and KPI’s should be enforced at all levels. To minimize risk, investment into AI that can be trained to emulate consumer watching behavior is needed and production should be run in a data-driven agile process.
If a show can’t be monetized, it isn’t worth being produced. Entertainment needs to be in the service of moving ad inventory, growing or retaining paying subscribers, or improving conversion of existing profit centers.
For the sake of it not being sarcasm; obviously it's my belief that not everything (especially entertainment of all things) should be seen through the lens of purely making money. I am quite sure there are dozens and dozens of people who will disagree with me -- but it's always been my belief that Art that covers it's own costs and leaves its mark on humanity and history is a much greater success than making money hand-over-fist.
The game industry is really straddling the line with this and has been for quite a substantial amount of time, it's a war between MBAs and creatives, though even Sony recognises the need for creative freedom and does not expect a substantial profit on their games. (though I suppose their incentives are different, great games boost sales of the consoles which gives them greater market share)
It’s funny how something is so bad people won’t even watch it for free.
I don’t think this is a completely correct assumption, but since Amazon doesn’t give viewership numbers (or Netflix or Hulu or hbo) it’s hard to know if a show is successful or popular or profitable.
I’d like to see old fashioned Nielsen rating numbers so you can tell if 1M households watched something and could compare shows.
I’m sure some people watch an episode because the marginal cost is $0 so it’s probably equivalent to an old prime time show on ABC/CBS/NBC that would have high ratings in the beginning and then low ratings in the end. Broadcast tv was free too.
It reminds me of how friends wouldn’t even watch a movie or show on torrents and that would help me understand if a movie is good or bad (with a torrenting crowd) because people won’t even download Justice League and watch it for free.
Anyway, I’ve been surprised at how bad Amazon’s shows are considering their spend. They seem like the anti-AppleTV. AppleTV seems to spend a lot as well, but make much higher quality stuff.
I suspect it’s because AppleTV has a direct cost and budget and want to attract people to watch. And prime video is lumped into Prime membership that is probably pure profit to Amazon and just customers on auto charge year after year, so most don’t even watch video yet they have revenue from 152M US prime members [0] so Amazon is getting $21B/year and may not care about viewership, they just need to spend money.
[0] https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/amazon-prim...
>It’s funny how something is so bad people won’t even watch it for free.
By contrast, ratings for The Last of Us on HBO rose steadily through every episode <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us_(TV_series)#Rat...>.
It doesn't seem surprising that a very expensive series that doesn't look expensive and at the same time fails to attract a mainstream audience would trigger some scrutiny.