Netflix said to be in Disney’s crosshairs(marketwatch.com) |
Netflix said to be in Disney’s crosshairs(marketwatch.com) |
While I'm apprehensive about the idea of this as a Netflix subscriber, I think it probably makes a fair bit of sense for both businesses.
Why do you say that? Just curious.
Some examples [1]:
- Frozen (2013) from Hans Christian Anderson’s Ice Queen (1845) - Revenue = $810.3 million
- Alice in Wonderland (2010) based on Lewis Carroll’s book (1865) - Revenue = $1.02 billion
- Snow White (1937) from the Brothers Grimm folk tale (1857) - Revenue = $416 million (10th highest grossing film as adjusted for inflation)
- Aladdin (1992) from a folk tale in One Thousand and One Nights (1706) - Revenue = $504 million
Then you have their lobbying:
"In 1998, Copyright was up for it’s last copyright term extension, from life +50 years to life +70 years. Disney’s Mickey Mouse copyright had accounted for up to $8 billion in revenue in 1998 when they were lobbying for copyright extension.
Disney’s Chairman, Michael Eisener personally met with then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. The day Lott signed on as co-sponsor of the bill, Disney’s PAC donated to Lott’s campaign. Within a month Disney also gave $20,000 in soft money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Of the 13 initial sponsors of the House bill, 10 received contributions from Disney’s PAC. On the Senate side, 8 of the 12 sponsors received contributions" [2]
Protect $8B with some cheap lobbying. What a deal!
[1][2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/derekkhanna/2014/02/03/50-disney...
Why would Sony/etc allow movies to be shown on a Disney owned platform?
Star Wars distribution alone makes it worth it.
I agree it will be a challenge, but if you look at the talent that appears to want to work with Netflix and do originals, I wouldn't rule out the parent's 5 year estimate.
It's not like you can just go to Disney and say "let's do this". They have a brand and image to uphold so their content choices will always be limited.
Mickey Mouse should be released.
Edit: Just read a bunch about the history of Disney and the Mickey IP. Yeah, totally not comfortable with that.
The extension to life + 70, or 95 years after publication for corporate works, was in the 1998 Act. Disney did lobby for that, but the big argument for it was that was to match EU copyright terms, which went to life + 70 under the "Directive harmonising the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights" in 1993.
Cable/satellite service will have to come down in price to keep a large audience for ads. It will probably be too late. With less revenue, it will be harder to produce top shows and compete with the high quality content that is being produced at a fraction of the cost. I think it's going to continue to grow to be one or two services and a few direct a la carte channel subscriptions for consumers.
Sports is a big driver for many services (ex: NFL for DirecTV) but you can now subscribe to Sunday Ticket if you can't get DirecTV where you're at. Big Ten Network can be streamed without a tv service too. You can just add a cheap HD OTA antenna to get network channels. Once most the sports outlets go direct, there'll be a huge exodus.
Or the same content outlets will have to deliver content through streaming, either subscription or ad supported, while the same service providers will just make money selling internet service rather than cable/satellite TV service.
Right now - internet is more valuable to most people but much less expensive per month than tv in a package. TV is just not reasonably priced, especially when you still have ads on every channel.
If anything, TV should be free with the networks selling advertising and paying the tv provider for their infrastructure and audience. Basically like magazines. Give it away. Get an audience. Sell ads. Don't squeeze us from both ends and charge us for content AND monthly for each piece of shitty equipment.
Or sell channels a la carte at a fair price and make it easy. These packages are ridiculous. You have a ton of stuff you don't want. Then they reconcile viewership on the backend to figure out what members of that package should get what portion of each subscription. It's old-school. It inflates the TV price because you often have to purchase a larger package than you need to get the variety of channels you want.
Consumers are simply tired of paying for content AND getting ads.
Roku is amazing and they could enable the a la carte direct subscription model with the content providers. But for most channels right now, when you add one, you have to login with your TV provider and validate.
At best, people would capture streams with something like a DVR, then FF through the ads. Besides, with advertising comes advertisers, and their predictable responses to pressure groups compromising the actual product. Good luck making 'Game of Thrones' with ad money!
Its not just you, its why ad-free subscription services exist (premium cable TV, some streaming services, etc.) I'm not sure what that has to do with the comment its in response to, though.