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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u/spaceraingame 28d ago

I still fail to see why they needed their own streaming service

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u/Sir_Shax 28d ago

That’s because Disney who owns half the current film industry started their own one and other studios thought their collection was also worth the same not realising their dog shit movies from the 90s don’t carry the same weight.

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u/BusinessPurge 28d ago

Everyone thought they’d get the same gigantic stock bump as Netflix, now they’re overcommitted without an exit plan

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u/Sir_Shax 28d ago edited 28d ago

They need to cop the loss on the chin like the WWE and realise their own standalone app isn’t necessary in such a saturated market. I don’t have prime but I’ve seen some comments in here saying you can get Paramount through them and honestly that’s the only way it’s sustainable. One company you subscribe to and then subscribe to the smaller company for a premium. Basically come full circle to cable TV but 4x the price.

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u/spideyv91 28d ago

Wwe app was ahead of its time they just realized they could make more money by licensing out their product. It was amazing if you were a fan and hasn’t been the same since.

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u/Noggin-a-Floggin 28d ago

You brought up WWE and it fucking sucks that Netflix doesn't have every episode of Raw and SmackDown like the Network did (I live in Canada, we still had WWE Network even when stuff moved to Peacock). It's a hodgepodge of random episodes.

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u/oksowhatsthedeal 28d ago

I genuinely miss WWE Network. The back catalog of RAW, Nitro, and the pay-per-views was great

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u/AaronRedwoods 28d ago

It had its warts, but god damn was it nice having their entire library in one spot.

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u/gademmet 28d ago

Yeah, the WWE Network was one of the better ones in terms of content. Decades of the weekly shows and PPVs, and original content that was a great mix of stuff and generally enjoyable (Ride Along, Table for 3, the documentary type ones like 365, Untold, and WWE24).

I was very skeptical at first but it grew into this great thing that was sadly apparently unsustainable. It and Disney+ are the main ones I think with libraries that really seem like a solid deal (although of course with the rapid price escalation of the last few years, that's quickly being shaken).

I wish the Vault on YouTube would up playlists of some of the stuff, but it's doing great work as is.

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u/Sempais_nutrients 27d ago

It was unsustainable for wwe because they used to sell PPV shows every other month at 50 bucks a pop. The Network was only 9.99 a month and it came with the PPV shows live so they lost all that revenue. As a result, they basically could never go back to the model they had before the Network and had to merge with Peacock.

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u/sabin357 27d ago

great thing that was sadly apparently unsustainable.

I don't think that's the case. I just think licensing their content to a larger platform was far more profitable. From what I recall, they were profitable...but they were just as greedy as they've ever been.

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u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 28d ago

In the US the peacock deal was ideal. You got all the benefits of the network at a lower price. Post Netflix Raw it’s fucked here too. They even lost Smackdown from Hulu so now if you want to stream Smackdown your only option is either through your cable plan or wait 30 days for it to be on peacock.

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u/toxicbrew 28d ago

I didn’t realize you need to wait 30 days for that. I would advise people use a vpn and watch smack down on Netflix from Canada then

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u/sabin357 27d ago

In the US the peacock deal was ideal.

No it wasn't. It made you use the inferior Peacock app instead of having the stability & awesome features of The Network. Lots to hate about WWE, but they had some great features in that app, especially jumping to labeled bookmarks.

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u/MikeArrow 28d ago

On the WWE point, I avoided Netflix for years, but being able to watch Raw, Smackdown, NXT and all the PLE's live was enough to get me to subscribe.

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u/SymphonyOfGecko 28d ago

AEW did the smartest thing and they kept their shows on the TNT/TBS networks and also started streaming on HBO Max. Giving the option is way more user-friendly

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u/PotOfMould 27d ago

It does in Europe.

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u/A_Life_of_Lemons 27d ago

4x the price? You could be subscribed to like 6 or 7 apps right now and still beat cable pricing from the mid-2000s.

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u/Doom_Art 28d ago

Which is a perfect encapsulation of most of the "innovating" tech companies do.

Same thing that's existed for decades, but with less regulation and several times more expensive.

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u/Daotar 27d ago

Yeah. We get paramount through Amazon just for Star Trek and it works just fine. I always have to remind myself of that when I see people complaining about the app.

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u/sabin357 27d ago

They need to cop the loss on the chin like the WWE and realise their own standalone app isn’t necessary in such a saturated market.

The WWE Network was feature rich & no host since has even tried to come close. It had bookmarks like a YouTube video or DVD/Bluray, so you could not only jump straight to a specific match, but also the finish to that match.

Lots to hate about the company, but that was leaps ahead of everything else that shows sports that I've tried. I'd even like chapters you can jump to for my other content too.

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u/XelaIsPwn 27d ago

You're absolutely correct, but WWE is such a bad example - what I wouldn't do to bring back that app right now lmao

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u/MostlyCats95 22d ago

I miss the WWE app. It was a better watch experience than Peacock is for PPVs. Speaking of which I legit think that Peacock will fail within a year if they ever lose WWE PPVs in America because everyone I know who has Peacock only has it for PPVs

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u/ChiBurbABDL 27d ago

The exit plan is to go back to square #1 from about 15 years ago: let Neflix or Hulu stream their shows.

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u/jackmusick 27d ago

It’s so clear this is unsustainable. It was 100+ a month in the 90s for TV where you didn’t get most movies, it wasn’t on demand and there was still ads. Now we’re paying 10-20 bucks a month for a few things where we get exponentially more content with minimum to no advertising and a lot of times, the content isn’t even staggered. How was this ever going to work? Even bad content is expensive and takes a lot of time to make.

The ship has already sailed, too. No one is going back to paying 100 (probably closer to 200 or 300 into today’s dollars) for what we had back then, yet alone for one or two platforms as they exist today. People are and will go back to piracy and only unchecked capitalism is to blame.

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u/desacralize 27d ago

I keep saying it, everybody came crawling back to Steam to host their games after trying their own thing for awhile, so why not the same with Netflix (or some other single aggregation site). Let one place take their cut and eat the cost of hosting this shit and maintaining a good storefront.

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u/stakoverflo 27d ago

Wouldn't the plan be, "fire everyone and go back to licensing our TV content to another streamer"?

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u/LNMagic 27d ago

It would have been smarter to negotiate a content package addon with Netflix. I really didn't like juggling tons of interfaces. I've been going back to my own server lately.

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u/SeasonNo8112 27d ago

Definitely lol and the story goes even deeper than that! Look up the paramount Decrees, it's pretty fascinating. For the curious:

Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are technically exhibition companies (like movie theatres), but they are also funding and producing original content, AND also distributing that content to their platform and selling it to others. Major studios were prohibited from doing just that based on the 1948 Paramount Decrees, which were put in place to break up monopolies in the entertainment industry (prior to that, studios owned production, distribution, AND exhibition I.e. movie theatres, and by controlling the entire chain, they were able to fix prices and stifle competition). 

When the streaming companies came around, they simply weren't considered studios, they were tech companies, so no one stopped them from producing original content, despite also distributing and exhibiting that content. They also benefitted from looser agreements with the unions, and didn't have to abide by existing agreements that were based around syndication (i.e. didn't have to pay as much to creatives based on viewership/plays). So the streamers were making content for cheaper AND getting to circumvent regulation which directly gave them a competitive advantage. So eventually, the studios got pissed and challenged it in court, which was totally fair imo lol but instead of regulating the steaming companies and telling them they can't make original stuff, they just opened the flood gates. 

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u/tempinator 28d ago

They’re actually so fucking stupid. Anyone with a brain could have seen this a mile away.

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u/Flat-Limit5595 27d ago

The exit plan to to give their shit to netflix/hulu and stop losing money

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u/tristanjones 27d ago

No, it is because otherwise they become beholden to netflix to deliver their products and set their value. No company wants to do that. They'd become just as fucked over as artists are by spotify.

Unfortunately for them, the market won't support 7-8 streaming services. So just as discovery and HBO merged. We will see more mergers as a result

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u/Darmok47 26d ago

Sony, in one of their rare bouts of good decisionmaking, continues to just license their stuff to other streamers and it seems to be working out for them.