The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XLII

[Chukchi Husky]

The costs to produce the shows and films that these streaming services provide is far more than they can ever get from subscribers.

 

[Samson]

Modern society is unsustainable, but it has not stopped anyone yet.

 

[Ajidica]

The costs to produce the shows and films that these streaming services provide is far more than they can ever get from subscribers.

Are they though?
Looking at Paramount+ (the only streaming service I have), they clearly believe that the number of people interested in watching new Star Trek is enough to create several high-budget streaming-exclusive shows.
We had four seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, three seasons of Picard, will have four seasons of Lower Decks (possibly more), and will have two seasons of Strange New Worlds (possibly more). And of course the kids show Star Trek: Prodigy.
Discovery, Picard, and SNW are all big budget shows. Heck, SNW was created solely because fans and executives realized a character from Discover, Captain Pike played by Anson Mount, was so good they should create an entirely separate show with him and that it would be profitable.
Lower Decks has some serious talent and passion behind it. While I couldn't get past the first episode of Prodigy, it appeared to also have some serious talent behind it for an animated kids show.

I don't know how the budget compares to producing ten episodes of a streaming-only show in 2022 to a full 24 episodes of a broadcast show in 1990s money. A quick google suggested that season 1 of Discovery was produced at about $8-8.5m per episode. TNG was produced at about a million per episode, which is about $2.3 million today. That works out to about 80 million per season for new Trek and 55 million a season of old Trek. It appears Discovery's budget was cut after season1, so given how much tv production has changed since the 90s and Hollywood accounting, old Trek and new Trek are probably costing about the same to make.

All of this is suggesting that CBS/Paramount sees enough profit in streaming-only shows to roll out several big budget fairly niche shows over the last few years targeting the same audience.

 

[Samson]

Are they though?
Looking at Paramount+ (the only streaming service I have), they clearly believe that the number of people interested in watching new Star Trek is enough to create several high-budget streaming-exclusive shows.
We had four seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, three seasons of Picard, will have four seasons of Lower Decks (possibly more), and will have two seasons of Strange New Worlds (possibly more). And of course the kids show Star Trek: Prodigy.
Discovery, Picard, and SNW are all big budget shows. Heck, SNW was created solely because fans and executives realized a character from Discover, Captain Pike played by Anson Mount, was so good they should create an entirely separate show with him and that it would be profitable.
Lower Decks has some serious talent and passion behind it. While I couldn't get past the first episode of Prodigy, it appeared to also have some serious talent behind it for an animated kids show.

I don't know how the budget compares to producing ten episodes of a streaming-only show in 2022 to a full 24 episodes of a broadcast show in 1990s money. A quick google suggested that season 1 of Discovery was produced at about $8-8.5m per episode. TNG was produced at about a million per episode, which is about $2.3 million today. That works out to about 80 million per season for new Trek and 55 million a season of old Trek. It appears Discovery's budget was cut after season1, so given how much tv production has changed since the 90s and Hollywood accounting, old Trek and new Trek are probably costing about the same to make.

All of this is suggesting that CBS/Paramount sees enough profit in streaming-only shows to roll out several big budget fairly niche shows over the last few years targeting the same audience.

I do not know if it is true, but there is a narrative (sorry to quote youtube, but it is where I saw it) that the way they are all competing nowadays and customers are doing month by month "binging" on one service then switching is totally unsustainable.

Spoiler Screenshot of profitability :

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Are they though?
Looking at Paramount+ (the only streaming service I have), they clearly believe that the number of people interested in watching new Star Trek is enough to create several high-budget streaming-exclusive shows.
We had four seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, three seasons of Picard, will have four seasons of Lower Decks (possibly more), and will have two seasons of Strange New Worlds (possibly more). And of course the kids show Star Trek: Prodigy.
Discovery, Picard, and SNW are all big budget shows. Heck, SNW was created solely because fans and executives realized a character from Discover, Captain Pike played by Anson Mount, was so good they should create an entirely separate show with him and that it would be profitable.
Lower Decks has some serious talent and passion behind it. While I couldn't get past the first episode of Prodigy, it appeared to also have some serious talent behind it for an animated kids show.

I don't know how the budget compares to producing ten episodes of a streaming-only show in 2022 to a full 24 episodes of a broadcast show in 1990s money. A quick google suggested that season 1 of Discovery was produced at about $8-8.5m per episode. TNG was produced at about a million per episode, which is about $2.3 million today. That works out to about 80 million per season for new Trek and 55 million a season of old Trek. It appears Discovery's budget was cut after season1, so given how much tv production has changed since the 90s and Hollywood accounting, old Trek and new Trek are probably costing about the same to make.

All of this is suggesting that CBS/Paramount sees enough profit in streaming-only shows to roll out several big budget fairly niche shows over the last few years targeting the same audience.

Those are just a couple of shows and even those would need millions of subscribers each just to fund the production of each show. Netflix are commissioning new shows and films all the time to fill their service and they're no longer making a profit and losing subscribers while Disney+ is a loss leader.

 

[Fippy]

All a complete mess, many peoples i know have no interest in a dozen subs / month.
They want something where they can be almost sure: here i can watch what the mood gives, not constantly wonder about who has what.
+ many of those productions have no flair, new tech little substance.

 

[Takhisis]

What is the argument that they're unsustainable?

Actually, to pile in on this: how is it that so many streaming websites of the black-market kind survive not charging people at all, nor even using ads?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I am starting to think that I will remain #1 forever here.
Tbh, it's a question of how many more years/decades this site will keep existing, which itself is tied to how many new civ games there will be. 7 is already more than the vast majority of strategy games.

Well, I know I'll never catch up to you. There are a few people I could catch up to and pass, since they've been absent for years and I'm here every day. It's going to take a long time, though, unless we get some topics that I have a lot to say about.

I've never believed in spamming my way to milestone posts (it's taken over 15 years at TrekBBS to get to the middle rung of the Admiralty, and I still have fewer than 13,000 posts there). I could have spammed my way to Empress on the first gaming forum I belonged to (should have, in hindsight, given what happened to everyone's post count when the owner turned post count off in the non-product forums); I went from Queen (5000+ posts) down to whatever rank had less than 500. High ranks like King/Queen and Emperor/Empress were rare on that site even with post count everywhere. There were only 4 Emperors and 1 Empress, and 4 Queens (I was the 4th). I don't recall how many Kings there were. Not many. Achieving Emperor/Empress took 10,000 posts, and over the course of years from the forum's beginning to the time of my leaving, only 5 people ever achieved that.

Certain post count levels allowed entry to certain hidden forums, so this caused a LOT of ill-will there and some of us took ourselves elsewhere to breakaway forums. The first forum's owners/admins didn't like that, but too bad.

Even on TrekBBS, where post count determines which hidden rank lounges you get access to, I didn't take advantage of the perk that premium membership allows - entry to all the rank lounges, regardless of post count. I stayed out of the Admirals' Lounge until I'd earned the post count to get there anyway. Now, of course, I post wherever I want in the Lounges, since I've met the post count criteria for all of them.

Which reminds me... I have a Star Trek Hangman game to host over there, and no great ideas.

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, I get it. It's like Wallmart killing local business in the 1990s, only to be killed in turn by Amazon. Yes, larger companies than Netflix are going to cut-throat price from their largess, eating losses until they can kill the industry-revolutionary pioneer, until old-money can bury them behind a screen of proxy-companies' smoke and mirrors like everything else. Nobody in the US government wields Teddy's Anti-Trust Big Stick anymore. They're all Trusty afficionados, so everything must be centralized, congealed, and privileged beyond the reproach of the normie plebs. Who we need more taxes from, while we're at it.

 

[Takhisis]

Actually, to pile in on this: how is it that so many streaming websites of the black-market kind survive not charging people at all, nor even using ads?

This question still stands.

 

[Farm Boy]

Maybe they're works of passion?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This question still stands.

Are you sure they're not using ads? If someone is using an adblocker, they wouldn't know if a site is using ads. For instance, it's bemusing to see people complain about YouTube having ads. I never see them. The only site I really have to fight with to get rid of them is Pinterest. When a page is half-full of ads instead of pictures, what makes them think I'd buy anything they advertise?

 

[Takhisis]

They bill themselves as doing it without ads and they appear to have none.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

They bill themselves as doing it without ads and they appear to have none.

Hm. I have a question - two, really. Would you be interested in seeing a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of Fiddler on the Roof?

If so, can you access CBC Gem? (it's the part of CBC.ca that's a streaming service for movies, shows, and documentaries that have some type of Canadian content - in this case because Norman Jewison is Canadian).

I'm not sure if this is geoblocked to non-Canadians. I watched part of it, and it's really interesting.

Dunno about non-CBC account holders. I have one, but never paid for premium service. I accessed the video without signing in.

 

[Takhisis]

can you access CBC Gem?

Well, I get this answer:

This content is not available outside Canada. Please visit gem.cbc.ca/info/outside-canada for more information.

ERROR-4001​

so, unless I move to Canada, I won't be able to.

 

[Samson]

Why are people so much more trusting of judges than lawyers in the UK? Judges are just lawyers who have got the nod from other lawyers, right?

Spoiler Another, smaller difference same effect :

 

[Arakhor]

I would guess it's because we expect them to be serious, educated professionals, despite the Tories' shameless attempts to politicise the judicial and civil services.

 

[Samson]

I would guess it's because we expect them to be serious, educated professionals, despite the Tories' shameless attempts to politicise the judicial and civil services.

Do we not expect the same of lawyers? They have pretty serious education requirements.

 

[Arakhor]

Perhaps because there's a cultural expectation that lawyers will say anything for the right sum? I dunno.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Why are people so much more trusting of judges than lawyers in the UK? Judges are just lawyers who have got the nod from other lawyers, right?

I was wondering why "television news readers" are so much more trusted than journalists.