Here’s an old joke I like to tell. There’s a guy who works in the Empire State Building. He’s got his window open, and he hears some commotion. He looks out and sees another guy, jumping from the observation deck. As the falling man goes by the window, he’s heard to say “So far so gooooooooo……”
The point here is that sometimes things feel like they’re ok even when you know that they are going to change very soon. That’s the point where at right now. There are a lot of real questions out there and I don’t think they’re really ready to be answered. This means that there will likely be a lot happening this year that won’t be so customer-friendly. Let’s dig in.
Problem #1: HBO Max
Now, I’ve railed about HBO Max in recent months, and I’m not the only one. Since Discovery’s takeover of Warner Media, the app has gone from must-have to “oh right, what am I going to do with it when The Last of Us is over?” They’ve turned into just one more app where there’s one show you want to watch and nothing else. The problem is that it’s one of the highest-priced mainstream apps and people aren’t going to want to keep it if there’s nothing on.
Discovery had originally announced that they were merging Discovery+ and HBO Max into a single app. They’ve since backed off on that promise, and I think I know why. I think merging the subscriptions was just too hard. You’ve got people who get HBO free because of their pay-TV provider or cell phone provider, and people who don’t. You’ve got people who pay about $25 a month for the two apps combined, and chances are you’d lose some of that. So while HBO Max will be replaced by a new app with different code, chances are the content selection will be the same. That’s a win for consumers, I think. We’ll see how bad the new app is. When Discovery+ launched it was very, very problematic. That’s been mostly fixed, but still it makes me worry.
Problem #2: Paramount+ with Showtime
Paramount is in the process of rebranding their app as “Paramount+ with Showtime.” They’ve had Showtime content on the app for a while but it’s looking like if you want the commercial-free experience, you’re going to have to start paying the top-tier price that includes Showtime. This is a problem for people who already get Showtime free through their pay-TV provider, or those who get it as an add-on to another streaming service at a reduced price. Paramount hasn’t said how they will handle this. Most likely, they’ll just start charging the higher price anyway and that’s just a few more bucks a month you’ll have to pay. Frankly, that stinks.
I get it, Showtime hasn’t been a great app for a long time. There are a few shows a year that people like, but it’s hard to justify paying for it year-round. Adding it to Paramount+, an app that’s struggled to keep audiences from dropping it after Star Trek shows finish, makes sense. I just don’t know if it’s going to be worth $12 a month no matter what.
Problem #3: Peacock.
Peacock announced last month that they were getting rid of the Peacock free tier for new customers and no longer giving the premium tier to Comcast/Xfinity customers for free. First of all, there are going to be some people who will sue because Peacock said their app would be free forever. Those people will probably lose but it will take years to sort out.
Second of all, it’s very hard to justify paying for Peacock at all. Last holiday season, they dropped their drawers with an offer for one year of the app for $12. That’s probably about what it’s worth. Yes, I like Poker Face, it’s a good show. But, it’s one show. Peacock has exclusives on most new Universal Studios content for 3-6 months, but then that content moves over to Prime Video or somewhere else and you can see it then. I enjoyed watching Nope when it premiered on Peacock but my life would not have ended if I had to wait a few months.
A lot of people are really harsh toward Peacock but I’m generally not one of them. I think in the past, they’ve come in at a fair price point for a relatively weak selection of content. If they want to scale up and compete with Netflix, Hulu, and the like, they’ll need more than one show to do it.
Problem #4: Disney+ (maybe.)
I’ll admit that I wasn’t a fan of Disney+ when it was first announced. I figured they would take every Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars property, put it behind a paywall and then keep raising prices. And it turns out, hey wait a minute.
Variety reports that Disney head Bob Iger likes the idea of Disney+, but he thinks the service needs to cut costs and raise prices. So, there goes the neighborhood. They’ve already hiked the prices 30% in the last year and who knows where they’re going with it now.
So far so goooooooooo….
So that’s where we are. We’ll see a lot of changes in the coming months and it’s likely that all of them will mean we’ll pay more. It will probably also mean that the streaming apps won’t make more money, since people will get more picky with their choices.
And folks, I’m not some sort of communist. I know that creating and distributing this content takes money. It turns out that it takes more money than most companies realized. It also cannibalizes the profits these same companies get from pay TV companies.
So of course prices are going to go up. And, most likely, password sharing will go up too, and people will drop their pay-TV channels, and in the end these companies probably won’t make more money. What they’ll do, though, is annoy their customers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The key here isn’t charging more money, it’s spending more smartly. Good content doesn’t have to cost 100 million dollars. It can be produced very inexpensively and without a lot of extra nonsense. Give us good stories and we’ll watch them. One of my favorite shows of all time involved a wooden model hung in front of a piece of velvet with holes cut in it to simulate stars. The sets were made out of plywood and locations were usually just a national park a few minutes from the studios. But the stories were great, and that was all that mattered.
I have a feeling that the summer’s going to see a big “splat” from at least one of these companies, possibly more. That’s the way the joke ends too, although it’s just implied rather than being shown. That’s good storytelling and it didn’t cost anything. See where I’m going with that?
