r/movies • u/Vanderlyley • 28d ago

News Paramount Posts $286M Fourth Quarter Streaming Loss

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/paramount-fourth-quarter-streaming-1236148263/
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1.9k

u/BealKage 28d ago

No matter what platform, the app is always the slowest most dogshit streaming service by FAR

These companies are not even trying to succeed

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u/MangaMaven 28d ago

My husband and I were were without internet access for multiple days and were unable cancel our trial period so it ended up accidentally converting the trials into a premium membership.

Whatever. We didn’t want to spend those $12, but we weren’t going to cry. At least the premium version says it’s have no commercials……. BUT IT DID. And they were unskippable when you watched on a TV. I’ll get Star Trek DVD’s from a bargain bin sale like my ancestors before me, thank you.

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u/Teutronic 27d ago

“Oh, you like Star Trek? Here’s a list of all the Trek shows you can watch. Yes, the popular ones we made recently for this platform are last on the list. Why aren’t we making money?”

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u/dister21 27d ago

We used to not be able to watch the original series on our TV. It would just stay in a black screen with a loading wheel forever. We found a work-around by starting the episode on our phones, then rebooting our smart TV, and finally the episode would play. We would have to do this for every episode. It wasn't until a few months ago that we stopped having to do this--just in time for the last 5 or so episodes of our rewatch of the series.

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u/The-Real-Number-One 27d ago

The popular ones they made....recently? New Star Trek is awful.

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u/Pheeshfud 27d ago

Lower Decks was great. Strange New Worlds is pretty good.

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u/The__Amorphous 27d ago

And they've already canceled everything except SNW. Guess they have to make room for more Taylor Sheridan cowboy cosplay.

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u/Data_Chandler 27d ago

I 100% agree with you. I haven't enjoyed a second of Star Trek made since 2005, not one second. It just doesn't feel like the Star Trek I grew up with: rational, hypercompetent professionals working as a team to solve mysteries and improve mankind with science and curiosity.

I'm not trying to tell anyone they're wrong for liking it, anyone can - obviously - like whatever they want.

That said, I'd like to see anything made since 2005 to come even remotely close to the sublime excellence that is this scene. I haven't found it, and I've given all of it a fair shot.

https://youtu.be/HKII3sFUCgs?si=cRTULrcT4tv8TjBa

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u/GatheringWinds 27d ago

This is what I've been trying to do, collect all my favorite movies and shows physically on Blu-ray. That way I only pay for maybe one streaming service at a time and go to the theater or rent stuff through apple if I haven't seen it before. I'd like to say doing all this saves me money but really it's just become one of my biggest hobbies and I spend as much as I would on a cable package.

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u/DrDoogieSeacrestMD 27d ago

I’ll get Star Trek DVD’s from a bargain bin sale like my ancestors before me, thank you.

Physical media ripped to a NAS and streamed via Plex will always beat a streaming service; plus, it comes with the added bonus of not needing to worry about episodes being pulled or edited.

Like how the licensing rights for certain songs on Scrubs didn't cover internet distribution as streaming was a pipe dream in 2001, so the licenses only covered over-the-air broadcasting and home media. So when Disney went to renew the licenses for internet distribution, the artists either said no or wanted a ridiculous amount of money, forcing Disney to replace those songs with ones they had the rights to, totally throwing the groove of the show off as most of the song choices were specifically curated for those exact scenes.

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u/MangaMaven 27d ago

I just looked up Plex and it seems to just show you the paid streaming services you can watch things on, but you can’t watch things on Plex itself. (?) Am I just missing something?

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u/DrUmamiNipples 27d ago

Plex basically has two versions that people talk about. There's Plex the streaming service, and Plex the media server. The latter is what Plex originally was and how most people use it.

The way it works is that you put your media on a hard drive, connect that hard drive to your home network somehow, and then install the Plex Media Server application on a computer. While running, that Plex Media Server pulls the media from the hard drive and puts it on the network allowing you to see the videos (and pictures and music) on any Plex client that's also attached to the same network, like the Plex app on a smart TV or other device.

There's several ways to connect your hard drive to your network. You can get a dedicated box for this called a NAS (Network Attached Storage), but unless you fork over like $300 or more, the computers in them usually aren't powerful enough to effectively run a Plex server. I personally just leave my regular desktop computer on 24/7 and run the Plex media server application in the background. I have a 4TB hard drive in my computer that I put all my videos on and Plex pulls from. If you don't have a desktop or do but don't want to leave it running 24/7, you can just make your own cheap NAS. It's as simple as using a Mini PC.

Here's a video showing a guy setting up the Plex server on his Mini PC. Don't worry about all the transcoding stuff, you likely won't need it. Of course if you need more storage than the hard drive included with the computer, you can certainly upgrade the internal storage, but a USB external hard drive works just fine.

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u/DrDoogieSeacrestMD 27d ago

Am I just missing something?

Yes. Plex offers what you saw and also the ability to stream content from your network to your devices.

Imagine Netflix as your home desktop computer; that's what Plex's media server is: a streaming service that only you can access and is as fast/reliable as your home internet connection.

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u/MangaMaven 27d ago

Ahh. Thank you

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u/hanimal16 27d ago

“Like my ancestors before me” 😂😂

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u/MangaMaven 27d ago

Hey, if it ain’t a lie

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u/hanimal16 27d ago

+1 for Star Trek too lol

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u/Skyblacker 27d ago

Pluto TV has two live channels that are just marathons of Star Trek, free with ads.

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u/Cute_Fluffy_Femboy 27d ago

ancestors hear my plea

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u/zetadelta333 28d ago

Learn to pirate. I was going to watch things on paramount. Saw commercials and just added the shows i wanted to my plex server. This isnt the 90s anymore. Im not playing that comercial bullshit.

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u/rawonionbreath 27d ago

“I want muh free entertainment!”

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u/polarisdelta 28d ago

These companies are not even trying to succeed

At the very top they are stacked with people who feel they are entitled to success and that any effort at all is sufficient.

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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 27d ago

All they want is quarterly success. They don't give a shit about the long term

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u/TheHeadlessOne 27d ago

Sure but they're struggling quarter to quarter anyways

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u/FILTHBOT4000 27d ago

Well, obviously, they don't know how to achieve either, as per this post's title.

A huge amount of Hollywood studios are run by idiot executives that are wholesale carried by the talent they put money into, often in spite of the executives' intentions. There is an entire ecosystem built up (that has been somewhat slowly dismantled by various trends) to carry that weight.

Those executives obviously thought they could do the same with programmers, and without that ecosystem, just hired some randos on the cheap and said "Okay, make the magic happen!"

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u/pencil1324 27d ago

This is uncomfortably accurate.

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u/akamu24 28d ago

The UI is so bad! There’s hope that SkyDance will fix it. Maybe.

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u/s101c 27d ago

And to think about it, developing a streaming app UI isn't hard at all. One person can do it well.

Paramount could hire a well-educated team of 5-10 people to work on the app's interface and speed (they'd have to spend 1-2 millions per year on the top-performing workers).

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u/Positively-Fleabag85 28d ago edited 28d ago

Disney merged with Jio(owned by Reliance Group) for streaming in India and they have a new platform called JioHotstar which is basically just the old disney hotstar. The interface sucks sooo much, they have some of the best content on there but you'll never come across the good catalogue because their recommendations are dogshit

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u/CptNonsense 28d ago

Paramount+ is vastly superior to Disney+ on Roku

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u/SoMuchMoreEagle 28d ago

I agree. I think Paramount must have made it for Roku. But I've used it on other things and it's dogshit.

Disney+ works okay for me.

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u/Wet-Skeletons 28d ago

Cause they all already have the internet/server space locked in. There is no viable way to compete except to do the same and be a subsidiary of the same bigger telecom company. As intended.

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u/rgbhfg 28d ago

The loss isn’t from the app UX but content creation. Nobody chooses their streaming based on app UX, but instead the catalog (and basic minimal working streaming)

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u/Lemondish 28d ago

I only ever used it through Amazon prime video. I just wasn't into much of the content outside the Star Trek stuff, so I usually just wait for the season to end and binge it because there's no real value in keeping it going.

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u/HowDiddleDo 28d ago

Another case of Epic/EA/Ubisoft vs an app that has everything established. All they need to do is copy the streaming apps that work and make unique improvements

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u/raverbashing 28d ago

It's also because the morons think it's "just build an app" and don't realize the huge amount of work behind the service that Netflix and Disney put on their services

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u/LAwoman25 28d ago

Good thing I’ve never even considered downloading it

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u/goodsnpr 27d ago

You mean you don't like constant price hikes, low quality high volume "content", and shrinking access to original programming on a platform that frequently has problems?

Sadly this comment applies to every streaming service I've tried. Sometimes they fix the app, but often they fuck it up again and update it two later.

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u/ATLhoe678 27d ago

So dogshit it's cheaper and faster to pirate.

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u/Freud-Network 27d ago

They got a Walmart+ deal, and the give-a-fucks just disappeared like magic.

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u/GudgerCollegeAlumnus 27d ago

I’ve had problems with Max. Good luck if you want to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. And the “Next Episode” button disappears at the end of an episode, when I’d typically need it.

But yeah, Paramount is pretty bad too.

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u/Keepa5000 27d ago

I subscribe for the Champions League here in the US. You literally have to dig through 5 sub menus to find the games. Sure sometimes its in the front banner but it changes so quickly that you have to start again. We're talking big games too. A couple of weeks ago Spain and Englands biggest teams were playing and you wouldn't have known if you just opened the app.

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u/Merusk 27d ago

It's not about succeeding. It's about "not giving up (analog) dollars for digital pennies."

https://avc.com/2008/11/trading-analog/

Zucker planted the idea that getting residuals from people who actually know how to build a tech platform vs. running one yourself was a bad deal.

Ignorance is always at the forefront here. Decisionmakers have ZERO technical expertise. Techs in any field can point out hairbrained or unworkable ideas the Exec and C-suite push out and told you 'just make it happen.'

They're "Ideas people" not "geeks" so why should petty things like licensing rights, ongoing technical debt, platform maintenance, security upgrades, et. al matter. Ignore that it's a whole new vertical and they have no skills in the company which support the idea, and will have to grow headcount significantly. They've made hundreds of millions to billions for their companies, their ideas are GOLD. All their other non-technical buddies tell them so.

So you see half-baked ideas and platforms rolled out because the bigger picture isn't seen by anyone with decision-making power. They'll fold in time and write it up to fickle masses.

Note that Sony - who has always had technical leadership - is one of the ONLY big studios to have stayed away from streaming. Despite their history of bad or half-baked tech ideas. They make a good chunk of 'digital pennies' by just licensing their films for a set time and doing NOTHING else. Just IP management, which they already had to do as part of their core business.

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u/cpburke91 27d ago

The Firestick app is complete garbage too.

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u/NotScottBakula 27d ago

Why would they try. They know cable and satellite is out the door and everyone will need their fix of Viacom media. They been around for a while now so it's not like they can't get feedback from it customers. They get out what they invest in.

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u/Strict_Jeweler8234 27d ago

No matter what platform, the app is always the slowest most dogshit streaming service by FAR

These companies are not even trying to succeed

Mouth breathers and troglodytes will respond "why aren't you working for paramount if you believe you can do better?"

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u/BaneSixEcho 27d ago

Yep. Paramount has the worst user experience by a long shot. It's not even close. Well, to be fair, Paramount and AMC are in a race to the bottom, but I'm giving the nod to Paramount since they're the bigger platform.

And it's across every device I've used. Windows. Android. Roku. Chromecast with Google TV. Xbox. They're the worst app on every platform. It's almost impressive to have a monopoly on incompetence.

As an example, here's my experience from last night:

  • The unskippable "CBS on Paramount+" stinger? I don't know what it's called. You've seen it at the beginning of everything you've ever watched on the platform. No one cares about this thing. Get rid of it.
  • An ad for a Paramount show that I skip. But I shouldn't be seeing it at all because I pay for no ads! A house ad is still an ad, assholes!
  • Skip Recap. But I've interacted with it now, so all the video controls are up on the screen. Which means...
  • I have to button up past the video controls and the subtitle button to reach "Skip Intro". What should be automatic (like Netflix) is a four button press operation.
  • After the episode is over it goes back to the episode list and I have to manually start the next one.
  • Repeat all the above several times as I watch several episodes.
  • At the end of an episode it kicks me back to the episode list as usual, except now every episode of the season is marked as watched! Great! I've only watched 7 of 14 episodes, but sure. Mark them all as watched. Why not.

Fucking. Garbage.