Let Them Fight!

I feel like that motherfucker Zaslav has really hindered the process of HBO Max. They needed a few years of consistent releasing to catch up to Netflix, popping up one day and just removing a lot of content put a pause on that progress i think.

Lol, the doomsday narrative around Zaslav has gotten stale. He’s already publicly committed to letting HBO continue being HBO by extending Casey Bloys’ contract being one of the very first things he did when he took over. He’s renewed everything that’s worth renewing (Succession, Barry, Industry, Euphoria, HOTD, Tokyo Vice, The Gilded Age, OFMD).

Frankly, everything he’s cancelled isn’t/wasn’t going to be great, maybe good at best (Raised by Wolves, Made for Love, Batgirl, Hack Abrams’ Demimonde and DC shit that inevitably would’ve been trash). Westworld could go either way. So if anything Zaslav actually signals a more aggressive quality over quantity approach, which is HBO’s brand.

Netflix on the other hand practically seems to be in competition with itself to see how much money they can piss away on big-budget productions that are horrendous and almost immediately get canceled. They’ve allowed their brand to become synonymous w/ low-quality garbage, even when they do release their fair share of very good (multiseason) shows (House of Cards, The Crown, Mindhunter, Black Mirror, Narcos, Ozark, Stranger Things, Squid Game, Dark/1899, Babylon Berlin, Kingdom, etc etc etc).

My comment was about HBO Max the streaming service, not HBO the tv channel. HBO has always and will been fine.

> Frankly, everything he’s cancelled isn’t/wasn’t going to be great, maybe good at best

Streaming service is the content game. More content being released, the more subscribers the service attract, it's as simple as that. Doesn't matter if you think it's great, good or bad.

> Zaslav actually signals a more aggressive quality over quantity approach

There's no such thing. It's a streaming service. The term "quality over quantity" is just... not an actual thing. Those shows were removed or had their productions canceled because they wanted a tax break, not because they're taking a "quality over quantity" approach (which as I said is not actually a thing, the more content the better).

Lmao more content doesn’t literally = better, otherwise you could take that to the extreme and just upload random hour-long videos of paint drying on the studio walls or something. Netflix has clearly taken the quantity over quality approach and is now getting burned a bit for it, both in long-term brand image and short-term Wall Street metrics. Disney is now feeling the effects of this too where we’re starting to see that the average consumer no longer sees the “Marvel” and “Star Wars” brands as special and “event-worthy” bc of the 27 Disney+ series they release each year for each franchise.

Disney is blatantly gunning to win the streaming wars race, or at least be left standing with Netflix and 2-3 others when the “streaming bubble” inevitably pops in a couple years, so perhaps they have no choice. But other studios have recognized this and that’s why you don’t see Universal developing Jurassic World or F&F series for Peacock, for instance.

Apple TV+ is also clearly playing the “quality over quantity” approach, and yeah they’ve had to be patient bc they had no back catalog, but their patience (in not rushing out dogshit) is being rewarded with people finally coming around to seeing that almost all of their shows are at least good, maybe as many as 1/3 are brilliant, and their subscriber count is going up as a result.

damn, you almost can't tell these two apart

> Lmao more content doesn’t literally = better, otherwise you could take that to the extreme and just upload random hour-long videos of paint drying on the studio walls or something.

You just had to interpret it like this didn't you? 😂😂

> Netflix has clearly taken the quantity over quality approach

> Apple TV+ is also clearly playing the “quality over quantity” approach

lol you keep saying this buzz term, and I keep telling you this is not a thing bruh. This is just not how you gauge the success of a streaming service. Do you think it's just a coincidence that Netflix gained around 2 million subscribers this past quarter, the same quarter they released the most TV episodes they've ever released?

I can elaborate, but I'm currently watching something and my fingers are tired. lol. I wished you'd caught me on a day where I could debate this for hours.

I completely disagree. Netflix has quantity. HBO Max has quality and quantity. Zaslav is finally righting the ship. The stuff he got rid of sucked, and he's been willing to spend lavishly on quality.

>I can elaborate, but I'm currently watching something and my fingers are tired. lol. I wished you'd caught me on a day where I could debate this for hours.

Bruh put your phone down when you’re watching something! (unless it’s trash lol)

Here we go with the "quality" "quantity" thing again. 🙄

nah. it's Tell Me Lies on Disney+. not trash, but definitely something you can watch with you phone in hand. lol.

Where can I even research this? Lol

Netflix will never be anywhere near as good as HBO.

HoTD and Euphoria are the only shows in that list with any serious viewership.

And HBO has spent 20 years as the channel for premium content by giving a shit about what they attached their name to. Do you think it's a coincidence they were able to charge hundreds of dollars a year on top of cable costs and thrive while doing it? Would you spend $60 a month on Netflix? Because millions of Americans have been spending around that on HBO since the 90s.

Eeeeeehh... I was just talking about streaming services there man (as I said in the earlier reply). Comparing Netflix with the traditional HBO channel is pointless. There's just nothing to compare there. We're in a different time now. We consume content differently, content is made differently, and for the most part we even discuss content differently.

Honestly when Netflix was cancelling shows people were bitching nonstop about how horrible it was and how the service was sucking and going to fall apart. It just outperformed what was supposed to be a doomsday quarterly report and smoked everyones expectations and now it's stock is shooting up. Just maybe even though people online complained about what was cancelled, Netflix knows what drives numbers.

Zaslav is a business guy who is coming in to fix a bloated company that was in debt and throwing every thing at the wall that they possibly could. Now people are complaining that he's killing everything by cancelling projects that look like they probably aren't profitable.

People do need to realize that at some point the party was always going to end for every streaming service and the motion was going to shift from "pour content out to attract consumers" to "become efficient and maintain profitability".

All of those shows get solid viewership for their budgets or you can be confident Zaslav would’ve axed them. The budget level is key, Westworld and Raised By Wolves are held to different standards than Succession (which had better ratings than either of the former this season lol).

Sounds like… competition?!

TV died when streaming took over

Username checks out

Competition is not a given in today's model of monopolies. When you see some good old fashioned "innovation through competition" nowadays thats news worthy.

He will shut down hbo max and start from scratch witha new service. So yeah he's REALLY doing a good job.

He will shut down Hbo max in summer and start from scratch and merge it with another reality tv service This is stupid af.

It’s not just a money thing. Batman and Superman are getting thrashed by Marvel’s D-list characters. Game of Thrones Season 8 was so bad, it risked ruining a franchise that’s in the same top tier category as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. Speaking of, the Fantastic Beasts series is similarly a massive screw up. To be fair, JK Rowling deserves most of the blame not just Warner Bros. And when was the last time you saw anything related to Bugs Bunny, once the most famous cartoon character (Mario is/was similarly bigger than Mickey Mouse at one point). It’s crazy how the greatest franchises in American history have been fumbled. Not some of the greatest, the greatest.

I had HBO Go before this, and have HBO Max now. It doesn’t really matter what it’s called. It’s just servers streaming movies and shows. That being said, I’m assuming it’s going to be called HBO Max. As long as the quality stays high or dare say, improves, I’ll be happy. And HBO, DC, Warner Bros, etc. have been dropping the ball hard. I’m still furious about Game of Thrones Season 8.

He will merge it with a food and cheap reality tv service. And they will change the name. Hbo max is now sooo popular. So they will literally start from scrarch after 3 years of hard work and building the hbo max Brand. Now everyone knows hbo max.

Paywall.

Discovery certainly has quantity over quality too. And Netflix has also plenty of quality.

To be honest, those two are way too in debt for that to be possible but a merger between the two would actually make a great service. Netflix has the viewers and international reach and it can absorb both sides of Discovery (they got plenty of their own reality TV stuff) and Warner (prestigious projects in TV/movies, big franchises like DC or Harry Potter). Hell they even are both interested in gaming (Netflix is publishing games and Warner too and they have studios).

A merged service between the two would basically be unstoppable.

HBO makes a good series, they carry it until the ene. Netflix makes a good series and cancels it after 2 seasons

I agree. But ket's be honest. Shutting down hbo lax is the dumbest idea ever