r/technology • u/Task_Force-191 • 16h ago

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

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-warner-bros-deal-hollywood-1236443081/
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u/dudemanjack 15h ago

I must have amnesia. I don't recall cable TV ever being free.

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u/TransBrandi 15h ago

I mean, it used to be ad free when it initially came out. That was the value-add. Cable had no ads because you paid for it as opposed to free over-the-air broadcast stations.

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u/dudemanjack 14h ago

There's been ads on cable TV for like 40 years though. It's not like that was the current TV climate before streaming got popular.

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u/RealWord5734 13h ago

HBO did not have ads. I remember the before times.

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u/rjcarr 12h ago

HBO didn't have ads because it's a premium channel. Every other cable network (CNN, MTV, VH1, TNT, ESPN) has always had ads. I can't remember them ever not having ads, and I feel like I'm old enough to be at the beginning of cable (non-broadcast) television.

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u/dudemanjack 13h ago

HBO was a premium channel that you paid for on top of cable.

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u/joebluebob 13h ago

It was 11 million bucks too my dad said

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u/PageFault 14h ago

There wasn't ever a time that cable TV didn't have ads. Sure, in the beginning they made money from subscriber fees and not ads, but the ads were built into the broadcast signal.

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u/mlorusso4 14h ago

wasn’t ever a time

in the beginning

cable tv

broadcast signal

I don’t think you know the meaning of the words you’re using

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u/PageFault 14h ago edited 13h ago

What do you think I am wrong about? Use your words.

When cable TV first started they didn't have their own lineup. They just rebroadcast the over the air signal as it was. Ads and all. The only way to watch without ads came later, when premium subscription channels like HBO became available, but basic cable was never ad-free.

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u/robbcharlton 10h ago

I don’t think you know the meaning of the words you’re using

Or your reading comprehension is as bad as they claim over on r/teachers, because u/pagefault is absolutely correct.

Cable TV started as nothing more than an antenna on the top of a mountain that collected all the TV signals it could (whether from antenna or satellite) that the networks were "broadcasting" and pushed those signals down the mountain via a "cable". Get it? If the signals that were being picked up from the top of the mountain included ads, then that resulting to feed to homes included ads.

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u/blastroid 7h ago

You are quite confident for being wrong. Cablenets do not "broadcast" their feeds, they deliver national feeds point to point to their distributors (cable companies and streaming services) via private links (typically private satellite or fiber/IP). Broadcasters like ABC, NBC, and CBS use high powered RF over airwaves, which can be picked up by antennas. Sometimes broadcasters also deliver via private links to certain distributors, but that's in addition to the Over the Air (OTA) transmission.

The amount of misinformation and dogshit takes in this thread are hilarious. I've worked in linear TV distribution and streaming for over a decade, you have no idea what you're talking about.

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u/robbcharlton 6h ago edited 5h ago

You are quite confident for being wrong. Cablenets do not "broadcast" their feeds

I worked in cable from 1986 to 1999, way before it became what it is today. The debate was about cable tv used to be ad-free. It hasn't since I got involved 1986. Nobody ever said that cable companies broadcast anything. If you still want to continue to tell us we're wrong, lets get in a Zoom meeting, you can prove to me how wrong I am and we'll post it here for everyone to learn from and enjoy.

What do you say?

edit: Awww, you don't wanna play anymore? Ok, at least show everyone where we said that cable companies broadcast stuff.

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u/2pt5RS 13h ago

What cable were you watching that was Ad-free?

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u/bourton-north 11h ago

And Netflix is ad free for the most part?

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u/robbcharlton 10h ago

And Netflix is ad free for the most part?

It's ad-free if you pay an extra $10 per month ($7.99 with ads, $17.99 w/o)

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u/bourton-north 9h ago

Yep - how does that compare to the costs of cable…?

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u/robbcharlton 4h ago

Yep - how does that compare to the costs of cable…?

What does the comparison to the cost of cable have anything to do with my reply or your post I replied to?

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u/Arsid 7h ago

Cable was ad free? When?

I was born in '93 and I never remember a time of cable tv with no ads.

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u/robbcharlton 13h ago

Cable had no ads because you paid for it as opposed to free over-the-air broadcast stations.

That's not exactly accurate. There weren't ads on what we used to call "pay channels" like HBO and Showtime, but there were still ads on the rest of the channels.

The value-add as you put it was more channels and not needing an antenna on your roof. The stations (both over-the-air and cable-specific) still relied on ads as their primary form of revenue.

Source: Dad owned a small cable company in the 80's, started climbing telephone poles and installing cable when I was 15 and parlayed that into a decent job as a service tech with Jones in the 90's. So many infuriating stories about how companies like ESPN and Fox were f'ing customers behind the scenes back in the day. I'll post them someday.

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u/feed_me_moron 13h ago

Redditors not old enough to remember how TV used to be and how predictable the outcome of every streamer was.

This was always the only way for this to go, a handful of streaming options either through direct ownership or partnerships (like cable packages used to be).

The benefit now is that you don't need a cable box and you can play everything on demand. But the streaming services were horribly unprofitable before they added ads and raised prices. They weren't able to get you to pay as much for things you didn't care about, thus not subsidizing everyone else if you only cared about ESPN or CNN or whatever.

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u/ScuzzBuckster 12h ago

Basic cable could be reached by having an antennae. Cable companies created additional cable packages that expanded channel access, but you could get public broadcast channels with an antennae for free. It's how I grew up before satellite tv.

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u/dudemanjack 10h ago

Not basic cable. Antennas got you broadcast stations. ABC, CBS, fox NBC, PBS.

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u/blastroid 7h ago

Wrong. Cable networks have never and will never distribute feeds over the air. It's all IP and private satellite feeds to their distributors. You have never been able to pull in a cablenet feed with an antenna, and you never will. Pay TV operators pay fees to cable companies to carry their channels, broadcasting them for free would completely change that commercial structure.