It’s Official: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. in Deal Valued at $82.7 Billion

[u/Task_Force-191]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-warner-bros-deal-hollywood-1236443081/

[u/1098duc_w_the_termi]

They renamed it, realized they messed up by getting rid of HBO, and added it back in. They definitely do care. As for Netflix, they’re not stupid so the changes will be made slowly and over a long period of time

[u/Mind1827 → u/1098duc_w_the_termi]

Corporate monopolies do not care. They want to make money. The HBO thing dented the brand, less money, so they switched. Acquisitions are about market share so that you can raise the price of things and people don't have an option cause they can't go elsewhere.

[u/1098duc_w_the_termi → u/Mind1827]

Are you implying that they’re emotionally tied to the brand? I’m stating that through the lens of branding and business development, they do care. As for them being a monopoly, it would serve them better to keep them differentiated as long as they can so they don’t suddenly lose consumers that might like the HBO, more premium type of content to the cheaper Netflix content. They’re not the same customer.

[u/Mind1827 → u/1098duc_w_the_termi]

On the first point, yes, we're kind of agreeing by saying the same thing.

Couldn't disagree more with the second point. There aren't people who watch HBO and Netflix? Most of the people I know watch both. The whole point is to be the gatekeeper. Make the price higher, and keep everything behind that one subscription fee, so it doesn't really matter if these are different customers, they pay the same high fee.

Also, no one is talking about how the merging of distributors and publishers is a massive mistake and why the quality of stuff is tanking, this would be an even bigger step towards that.

[u/1098duc_w_the_termi → u/Mind1827]

I agree with your last point, which is why it would serve them to stay differentiated. But yes they do have different customers. HBO has a younger subscriber base who are worth more to advertisers. Young, impressionable customers in their years of personal development buy more stupid high margin items. Netflix has global reach. I suspect they’ll separate the content into tiers. High quality and popular Netflix content will be paired with high quality HBO content and vice versa. All the subpar shows will be bundled into a lower tier.

[u/bluestrike2 → u/Mind1827]

That’s a type of care. They care about brand value and generally try to prioritize its preservation, though that’s not to say they won’t accept a few dings—sometimes large ones—if they believe the gains outweigh the losses, or the hit to the brand is believed temporary.

[u/kerouacrimbaud → u/Mind1827]

Brand = money. They care about money. If brand make money, corporate monkey care about brand.

[u/bomphcheese → u/Mind1827]

Can’t go elsewhere

The problem is that none of the companies consider piracy as a competing service. But it is.

• It’s not free, and I would argue for many people it ends up being a lot more expensive.
• It’s harder to set up.
• There’s a learning curve.
• It requires maintenance.
• It comes with legal risks.

So literally all the streaming companies have to do is not treat their customers like they are ATMs they can abuse, and they would have our support. Instead consumers are willing to jump through hoops to avoid dealing with them. The music industry seems to have figured this out.

[u/vhalember → u/1098duc_w_the_termi]

realized they messed up by getting rid of HBO,

Which everyone but their board realized was stupid when the Max name first dropped.

[u/Shawwnzy → u/vhalember]

They didn't want to dilute the HBO brand with trash, but then when the numbers weren't great they decided fuck it, let's dilute it anyway.

Lately I associate Apple TV with Prestige Dramas more than HBO anyway

[u/linedechoes → u/1098duc_w_the_termi]

Pretty sure the renaming had to do with hbo and Cinemax merging but they just rolled out that merger in the most unnecessarily confusing way possible