Jimmy Pitaro from Disney talking the Charter deal

https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/jimmy-pitaro-critical-charter-deal-dtc-launch-date.html

Key quote below and what I've been saying for years (and nothing to do with the comeback route, Zoo style), bold added by me.

Quote:

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"At the same time, when we acquire rights, we acquire rights for multiple platforms, and most of these deals are still led by the linear component. If you were to talk to any commissioner, whether a professional league or a conference, they will tell you that they prioritize linear because of the exposure and the reach. You look at the Walt Disney Company and one of the things we bring is multi-platforms, broadcast in ABC, cable in all of our ESPN networks, D2C in ESPN+, and we own the majority of Hulu. Leagues love that reach that they get, but it's led by linear. I don't see that changing, at least over the next several years."

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That is why I don't see ESPN going completely into the streaming only mode.

The leagues want them linear, and it is probably for their own benefit.

All these companies are seeing the cost of churn, and stand alone services are easier to cancel, especially when the company does a price increase, but they are also seeing the cost of doing business with Amazon, Apple and Google that take a big chunk off the top if you pay through those platforms.. In the past, we the consumer blamed Directv/Dish/cable company when a network was blacked out, even if the network was the one demanding a price increase. Now we can just easily cancel the streaming platform.



*ETA and LOL at the comeback route quote.

This is coming up:

Max is adding live sports to its service — branded as Bleacher Report.

Starting October 5th, the tier will stream live MLB, NHL, NBA, March Madness, and U.S. Soccer for an additional $9.99 a month.

It's free for all Max subscribers through February 2024. pic.twitter.com/cXpacaU17A

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) September 19, 2023

Saw the Max thing this morning too but not in this much detail. Of course, Max adds live sports a week after I renewed NBA league pass. I only have Max bc the ad supported version is free with my plan on Cricket, but I think I'm probably better off with League Pass.

My guess is they only will have on there the TNT NBA games which might satisfy a typical Lakers, Warriors, Celtics or Knicks fan. Does TBS still carry baseball?

Not sure on baseball but yeah I figured Max is only going to have whatever they carry from tnt/tbs other properties so the quick math was thinking...are there enough games on WBD/Disney properties for me to be happy seeing the national broadcasts? Nope. Not this year.

WSJ reporting that Netflix will be raising prices again now that the strike is over.

agdoc2001 said:

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WSJ reporting that Netflix will be raising prices again now that the strike is over.

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Thanks for the reminder. Keep meaning to cancel Netflix, so this is as good a time as any. Least watched of all services for me, and most expensive.

HBO is taking away 4K, HDR, and Atmos from Max if you subscribe to HBO through a cable provider or are paying for the standard Max plan. It's always cool when technology goes backwards. Shrinkflation, I guess.

And even though its been a forgone conclusion, Disney officially announced they are buying Comcast's share of Hulu which will make it a 100% Disney owned property. Time will tell if they merge it and Disney+ into one app or if they will keep 2 separate apps.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/disney-buy-remaining-33-stake-hulu-comcast-2023-11-01/

Do all of the changes make it more likely that you all will churn services? The pricing changes in particular make it more likely for me. If Disney integrates Hulu so they can raise prices, that'll definitely be one I cancel.

cajunaggie08 said:

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And even though its been a forgone conclusion, Disney officially announced they are buying Comcast's share of Hulu which will make it a 100% Disney owned property. Time will tell if they merge it and Disney+ into one app or if they will keep 2 separate apps.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/disney-buy-remaining-33-stake-hulu-comcast-2023-11-01/

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Iger has said they'll be merged and that Hulu will be a tab under Disney+ by the end of the year. I could see that being delayed somewhat, but the goal is to ultimately have only one app.

Beta version in December, ahead of the official launch in late March...

Disney+, Hulu Merged App to Launch Next Month, Bob Iger Says https://t.co/z1qu4FbPXK

— Variety (@Variety) November 8, 2023

TCTTS said:

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What all of these streamers are attempting to do now is make their "premium" tiers so expensive that you choose their new ad-supported tiers. Because they make more off of you as a user who watches ads rather than a user who pays even $20+/month for their service (the more people watching ads, the more they can charge advertisers, which is far more than they get from subscriptions). In other words, in so many ways, we're slowly making our way back to a version of cable. Only this time it'll be more a la carte, and you'll have to pay a small fortune to not watch commercials.

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A former coworker of mine works for one of the backend companies providing the tech for the streamers. I see his posts on LI a lot. All of what you said is the truth lol and the free stuff like tubi/pluto/etc....the intention is for those to become the eventual revenue replacement for things like carriage fees as people continue cord cutting. They're sorting out better ad-tracking and the tech needed to catch up to ease of use (more like institutional knowledge) of traditional OTA/MSO/Cable broadcasting. Still a ways off (you guys would be shocked at how some of this ish gets on the air in tv/radio. Hell I could get a pirate radio station rolling out of my basement in about 5 minutes if I wanted to) but once the tech catches up, the overall game plan is in place.

I took an intro to programmatic selling last week and will likely pay for a udemy course or something, but the growth is there and media needs it bad right now. It's getting ugly for the old school media companies. We are losing our ass because we cannot monetize digital properly.

That's really interesting. And yeah, it's looking more and more like we're basically going to view this as one big, awkward, costly transition period from traditional cable to "streaming" cable. They'll figure out the revenue replacement and it will all eventually be as lucrative again as it ever was, probably even more so.

Yup. Same deck of cards, just shuffled. The part thats kicking our ass is twofold...the lack of an established standard (could be close, could be far, who tf knows) for ad measurement is the one that worries advertisers and agencies bc they know a lot of digital money is just poofed away, there's a lot of waste and fraud. So they want verifiable proof that they hit people eyeballs and not bots. Second thing is complete lack of awareness on the part of our sales team...we don't have a separate digital sales team generally so add anything digital to the stack and they're clueless, because they're gonna sell the stuff they know the best and the easy sales. If they can't explain it, they're not gonna sell it.

This was just posted by that dude I used to work with. I did the red marks on his company and the one his company is acquiring.

Disney+ Officially Adds Hulu In Beta Launch Of "One-App Experience"; Full Rollout Set For March 2024 https://t.co/80vkW5sh91

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) December 6, 2023

Warner Bros and A24 have signed a multi-year deal to bring all past & future A24 films to Max, HBO, and Cinemax exclusively after their theatrical debuts. pic.twitter.com/FGpdCsiRMf

— The Streamr (@The_Streamr) December 6, 2023

Anyone have the Disney+ with Hulu integration beta? Was trying to figure out if there is a way to link the profile from Hulu to Disney+? From what I can tell so far the answer is no, which would be annoying since I'll have to rebuild my list of shows again if the main Hulu app goes away.

Because it's a beta, and the fully integrated version isn't launching until March, I imagine that will be the version with the linked profile and all the bells and whistles. In the meantime I went ahead and just rebuilt my Hulu list in Disney+. It was only a few shows, so not too much trouble on my end.

This was incredibly intriguing to me. Gonna reach out to a friend/former coworker who's at Amazon and ask about this, she's been a big part of how they're doing TNF. Maybe they're hiring!

I'd like to know the financial difference for Amazon for bailing out Bally's versus trying to get in on the NBA's new TV deal.

It's probably a much better financial route, and for the NBA, one less bidder in the league's TV deal could make a huge difference.

My guess is Amazon would be investing in Ballys partially because they'd get a look at the infrastructure currently being used by Ballys as the producer of the broadcast(s) as opposed to just being the carrier. They could transition Ballys as is into Amazon as opposed to building something all new from scratch. With Ballys sports properties being basically year-round with live sports there's never a good time to jump on that merry-go-round.

SCOOP: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish on Tuesday in New York City to discuss a possible merger, Axios has learned from multiple sources. https://t.co/uTBz39WwRb

— Axios (@axios) December 20, 2023

Hmmm...wonder if it is just the Paramount assets or National Amusement Inc.

Isn't National Amusements just Paramount and some random movie theaters?

All of this feels like the airline mergers/purchases since 2001.

I want off Mr. Toad's wild ride. I'm counting the days till I get out of big time corporate media.

The Ocho is officially a real thing.

https://amp.awfulannouncing.com/streaming/espn8-the-ocho-now-live-espn-fast-channel.html

superunknown said:

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The Ocho is officially a real thing.

https://amp.awfulannouncing.com/streaming/espn8-the-ocho-now-live-espn-fast-channel.html

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Actually, that's really interesting. ESPN/Disney doing a FAST channel

Hulu combining with Disney makes my head hurt just thinking about it. We switched from YTTV to Hulu about three months ago and I absolutely hate Hulus UI as is.

Just an absolute mess. Maybe they will improve it with this merger. Would like to see the beta before I cancel them and move back to YTTV though.

Prime Video is launching ads on January 29

A new ad-free option costs an additional $2.99 per month pic.twitter.com/NgP93QBMWQ

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) December 26, 2023