LogFAQs > #893184090

scarletspeed7 posted...

Interesting that you're pitching it as a Big Eight, because at that point you'll be paying the same amount for a decent cable package now as for 8 Netflix-costing streaming services.

Yep. I feel this is exactly where we're headed.

And do you just go back to cable at that point? Can networks and cable unite and change the technology so that the convenience is there for them re-entice viewers back to TV?

Oh, they can try, and I don't doubt that they might, but network and cable have bled so many 18-49ers that I just don't see it happening. Once a technology concept is construed as archaic and out-of-vogue, I'm not sure there's much historical precedent for it bouncing back in a big enough way for such attempts to be successful. I mean, sure, you've got stuff like the meteoric renaissance of vinyl. But this is the kind of dish where a cable network would want and need millions of people to flock back, and there's just so much apathy from younger people toward traditional TV setups now.

Granted, there are still millions of 'em who haven't cut any cords, but that pool is diminishing year after year, and I just don't know, man. We're attuned to this convenience of choosing what to watch ourselves, of having the option to set up a queue, or to binge something the whole way through on a dreary Sunday. We're attuned to a lack of commercials. This is where we're headed and those are things that cable and network can't really offer. I don't see it happening.

My biggest question is, what is the cost a content provider will pay for one viewer? Because that's the value that will determine where shows go from here. Rising costs, more shows, diluted viewer pool... it makes me wonder if Twin Peaks was a commercial success or not, for example.

I'm not sure about Twin Peaks. Its live viewership was pretty bad but it supposedly drove subscriptions to historic degree. What is historic degree, though? It's kind of the big question, you know? It's why I wasn't really drinking the Kool-Aid on Star Trek: Discovery being particularly commercially successful when CBS was saying it drove subscriptions to the same ballpark. Where are the numbers, you know? Then I saw the actual numbers through insider stuff and they seemed... fine? It wasn't until Netflix's international Most Watched 2017 list started circulating and Discovery ranked in one of the lists that I was like, "alright, yeah, you've done alright here."

How much was spent to get there, however? How much can continually be tossed into Star Trek: Discovery to keep that particular set of viewers comfortable? The same applies to Twin Peaks. (I think. I don't know. I don't follow it. Is it supposed to be coming back? Is the jury still out? "Limited Series" is often a convenient way of covering up one's possible failures if a show doesn't hit a certain financial ceiling; I have no doubt they'll bring it back if it's doing well enough to justify the action.)
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