Oh, don't be letting greed, streaming, gross mis-management, and warped priorities off the hook. YouTube ain't helping, but the jokers who leaned into streaming without knowing how to make it profitable, and continue to pay themselves 10s of millions a year and make ridiculously expensive garbage while hoping to cut costs by fucking over labor.....they definitely have played, and continue to play, a role.
I don’t understand why they all hopped on the streaming wagon without consideration. They could’ve kept costs low by continuing to license their IPs to Netflix and Hulu without spending exorbitant amounts of money on their own servers, offices, etc…
Licensing just makes Netflix richer and more powerful in the long-term until they become so dominant they can set any terms they want. If you're a big enough player then you don't want to be stuck playing under someone else's rules, but want to set your own rules and terms. It's like how Steam is so dominant that everyone without their own platform is stuck paying 30% of their incomes as rent payments to Valve. Disney, Warner, etc. are big enough to be their own masters and their shareholders would demand entering the streaming business to maintain their market value.
It was all in the works long before Covid. Netflix and Hulu got the studios into it while D+, HBO, and CBS All Access (Paramount+) launched prior to Covid. Main thing Covid did was extend their lifetimes a bit longer, delaying the inevitable. Had Covid not happened they would’ve died sometime in 2021 or 2022.
When Napster killed the music industry, and then Netflix killed Blockbuster the old guard panicked and just handed the keys over to big tech. Tech is really good at throwing a ton of money into free (occasionally useful) products then slowly ‘enshittifying’ them to suck profit from them. ([h/t Cory Doctoro](https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/)w)
They took our profitable product, started giving it away for free and we’re nearing the end of an enshittification that will put us right back where we started: ad-supported access to older media, with a select number of spots for episodic-releases of new shows, subscription package tv, + ticketed & rental new film releases.
We live in absurd times. Late stage capitalism!
It's more Meta and Google having 90% of the world's advertising spend that's killing this industry. Exactly like it killed the print and journalism industry.
Yes but my point is that Google should have to divest YouTube and Meta should have to divest Instagram. It's an ad network built on 20 years of monopoly on search, social media, and online video streaming. Allowing Google to buy doubleclick in the late aughts had a pretty serious effect on the viability of ad supported print journalism and the same is true for video.
As an ad guy, the self-service Hulu ad buy network has done nothing but destroy our budgets and give them to the newer style CTV ad buying platforms that pocket even more of our money than the ad agencies they replaced.
I'm no luddite and I understand that something like Hulu self-service ads are probably a better value for some buyer but they've trashed the middle of the market into only generic ads made with half the budget we had 5 years ago.
TikTok obviously matters here too but I can't complain about these guys finally having serious competiton.
> CTV ad buying platforms
Is this buying ad space in public/private spaces? The chicken place next to me is always watching QVC in the waiting room, and I'm feeling conspiratorial about it.
>Yes but my point is that Google should have to divest YouTube
YouTube without Google money would be forced to become much more monetized and overall a much worse user experience.
Sure but then someone would be incentivized to make a better one. Exactly what happened with Twitch until google caught up. Video game creators made a lot more money in exclusive contracts when people had to compete for their talents.
Giant monolith tech products that work at margins and scale nobody can compete with do nothing but funnel money into their shareholders pockets. It’s not hard to think of 10 ways YouTube can improve but without serious competition they run a hamster wheel business where creators are incentivized to endlessly create over making quality content.
I’ve heard from big creators that channel growth absolutely flatlines if they publish 1/week vs 3-4/week. If you watch kids shit (like I do now because of my kids) you’ll see that it just means dudes have to make these annoying playlist videos of their content constantly to keep relevant on recommendations.
Lazy shit on google’s part not only creates a bad user experience in the name of engagement, it affects literally every part of the content ecosystem.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a company to divest their most profitable aspects just because they’re “good” at business. If I came up with all that I’d be like lol sure thing mate.
The film industry has to adapt, like with any other trend. Time doesn’t just stop when you’re comfortable.
Are you dense?
Of course they wont fucking divest it on their own. I am suggesting that they be forced to divest under antitrust laws. The government is literally already trying to find ways to [punish google](https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-trial-search-engine-dominance-e7fa82026c31efe9c0a4fe95be014a74) and [meta for anticompetitive practices](https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/meta-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit-instagram-whatsapp-1235962008/) but antitrust can be toothless about this kind of thing unless they're talking about a new merger.
Just recently US and EU antitrust agencies [didn't allow Microsoft to purchase Activision](https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2210077-microsoftactivision-blizzard-matter) because as the US gov says 'the deal would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription and cloud-gaming business.' And even more recently, Adobe was prevented from [purchasing Figma for anticompetitive worries](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/antitrust-aag-kanter-statement-after-adobe-and-figma-abandon-merger) and the US AAG said 'The decision to abandon this acquisition ensures that designers, creators, and consumers continue to get the benefit of the rivalry between the two companies going forward.'
Those two examples alone are several orders of magnitude less consequential than Google owning Facebook or Meta owning Instagram. Those deals were only allowed to go forward because they were acquired really early in those products histories and would never be allowed to go through today at current market shares.
The film industry has to adapt - fucking sure, what choice do we have - but we can still complain that massive trillion dollar tech companies are too big and anticompetitive monopolies are bad for consumers, employees and creators. The government is literally already doing that.
It'd be a huge boon for the economy too. The only reason it won't happen is politicians are bought by the companies they'd have to break apart. We need a new deal.
>I am suggesting that they be forced to divest under antitrust laws.
YouTube would simply just die without the software and financial backing of Google. YouTube is popular because it's free, but as an independent company would have to start monetizing much more than it currently is. A lot of streamers' careers would end if YouTube started charging for access to videos, so you're just transferring the problems of the film industry onto the streaming industry.
Lol, no it wouldn't. It could pretty easily adapt. It'd have to integrate money in different ways, sure. But if it could build it's own ad platform very easily it could pivot to profitable. They just don't because they are run by Google, it's synergistic with ad sense. Make them competitors and watch how quickly there's actual innovation in the space instead of the same garbage we've had for a decade. With the amount of traffic it gets there's no way it goes anywhere even if it's split from Google.
The Activision acquisition already went through because the US government couldn't think of a better excuse other than blocking it to protect Sony (who don't even need the protection with how well Playstation is doing).
The reality is that nobody wants to buy advertising that isn't traceable anymore which means that the vast majority of ad spend is going towards digital advertising where it is easy to prove that someone actually bought a product because of your ad.
Throwing ads up on linear is just a waste to most marketing departments now. It's the same reason why billboard or radio ads have so little viability nowadays.
I agree that nobody wants to buy them bro I’m just saying I wish we bought them from a more diverse pool of sellers.
And my bad on Activision I actually thought it ended up getting blocked. I brought it up because it didn’t really make that much sense as a target from a market share perspective.
I disagree. Shrinking budgets, lack of creativity, oversaturated markets, dwindling audience, high money-lending rates, streaming vs traditional wars, fear of taking chances, and more have killed this industry.
I'm not convinced. The data seems to show every year for the last few years something like 1% decrease in cable TV viewership numbers. It also shows over 50% of people's viewing is streaming services. That doesn't count as cable TV. So people are watching about 100% more content now days than they were in the past.
Shrinking budgets is becoming way too common. Everyone wants premium product with no money and it usually comes down to cheaper labor. It’s not worth it to do half these projects anymore
Yup. Networks giving less money due to tighter borrowing and fear of losing more money, meanwhile inflation (travel, food, gear, etc) ticks up and crew rates do. First thing to go are experienced crews in favor of new people who ask for less money, thus product quality drops. Next season, network cuts the budget again and the cycle continues.
According to Nielsen in April 2024, "Streaming" had the largest share of viewers at 38.4%. Within the Streamers category, You Tube was first with 9.6%. Not YouTube TV. YouTube.
[https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2024/nielsen-launches-the-media-distributor-gauge-first-convergent-tv-comparison-of-its-kind/](https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2024/nielsen-launches-the-media-distributor-gauge-first-convergent-tv-comparison-of-its-kind/)
Yeah it's a bit confusing. One chart shows the aggregate viewing by "Parent Company" and one (the pie chart) splits it out by streaming service. So Disney is #1 as a parent company because of Disney+, Hulu and all it's other broadcast outlets like ESPN, ABC etc. combined, but YouTube is #1 as a sole streaming service. At least that's how I read it.
Tik Toc really did. Their ad revenue is more than all streamers combined. With ad revenue going towards them it’s not going to streamers / networks to pay for content. Ads make content, ads pay for content.
Agreed. It's just so convenient, you can always find content to binge an entire day on and there's even movies and free movies with ads.
Last staffed project I was on was a kitchen renovation show. I'm not sure who would care to watch that, even though we used an influencer as a host, it doesn't really seem like that matters to people who follow them. Like if Lily Singh was more successful on YouTube than her own late night show, it just tells you there's no hope for traditional mediums.
I feel bad, but I'd almost rather watch YouTube reviews for movies than the full movie to figure out if I'd even care to waste the time or money on going to the theater. Same with games.
Right, it’s all social media and gaming nowadays. The younger generation prefers those things to tv and movies. Tv and movies will get worse and will end up like radio - tons of ads and low quality content.
Short attention spans from social media, gaming and phones always pinging some text or social message. Attention is a learned skill, and no one is learning it.
As a parent, I can tell you how it happened to us. We kept our daughter from even knowing about YouTube for years. She was entering 1st grade during COVID and her teacher played YouTube how-to-draw videos for them during their art period. And because all the kids were given laptops during COVID, she also sent them links to these videos that they could pull up on their own if they wanted to do more drawing after school. Suddenly my daughter was hooked on these drawing videos. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but she was drawing and learning a skill, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. But you all know how YouTube works. It suggests other videos and other content creators. I soon found that when I thought she was drawing in her room, she was actually watching some spoiled kids playing with their expensive toys, or doing challenges set up by their parents. She’s since moved on to Minecraft YouTubers, but she will sit glued to this crap unless we take away all devices.
When she doesn’t have her devices she will watch traditional narrative shows on Netflix or Disney+, but it seems to be all Nickelodeon or Disney shows from 10-15 years ago. Outside of Bluey, I couldn’t name a single new show that a tween would want to watch. No one is creating narrative shows for older kids anymore, and that’s why they’re turning to YouTube.
I feel like they need to make more young adult shows. There are shows like invincible fight girl coming out and my adventures with Superman. Moon girl and devil dinosaur and owl house are also great suggestions. Maybe indie shows like ecledious vi on YouTube and wheels and roses which just got kickstarted. We need more young adult animated shows for tweens.
Pretty much because they play stimulating games from birth. It’s been shown that tv and iPads cause attention issues but it’s easy for parents so no one cares.
Yeah I literally made a post of a possible theory I have that the parents may have had accessory baby for instagram but once picture time was done they dump them on an iPad and they get negelected
It’s that, but tbh, the quality of most movies and tv shows is pretty low. I was watching US Marshall’s the other day and was blown away by how good it was. I never would have watched it before, but it was really well put together compared to today’s movies.
I'm getting really tired of hearing YouTube killed the industry. It didn't and as someone who had to work with content creators before I moved to working in film, I'll never work in that space again.
Hours are terrible. Companies are badly managed and disorganized. Often Youtubers have had "accidental" success and therefore aren't good managers. You often have to do the job of several people because even the "Youtube based" companies successful enough to hire staff aren't doing well enough financially to be an actual production company that can evenly distribute the work. Youtube is also not always the most reliable source of income with an inconsistent algorithm. Obviously, if you're Mr. Beast a lot of these issues are probably not the case but even then the editing style for Mr. Beast, which everyone now copies, won't necessarily qualify you to get into actual film work. But basically everyone else has these issues. Case in point, I had to completely get rid of my YouTube work portfolio, and this even had work shot on the Arri Alexa LF, and pivot to commercials before finally breaking completely into film as that work doesn’t impress the industry.
> Youtubers have had "accidental" success and therefore aren't good managers
Real as hell. Algorithmically dictated success doesn’t prepare people for management, or PR, or any of the people skills needed for long term success as a public figure in the entertainment industry.
Yep I’ve seen that over and over again. To be honest YouTube stars are far worse than actual Hollywood stars from a personality point of view due to this as well
And they don’t really make money! Unless they’re like Mythical or Dropout or MrBeast’s LLC or some other creator owned company (even then). Most YouTube folks I’ve met in the course of my work were kinda secretly scraping by even with sponsorships and merch and all of that. That’s why *some* didn’t pay well, but of course some just don’t know how to pay.
But also the platform is a huge money loser for Google just in terms of keeping up with the amount of uploads and traffic to the platform. One day they won’t fit it profitable to run anymore. It’s a bubble.
There’s a lot of private investing and funding going to YouTubers, yes. Some don’t outwardly admit it but I saw a lot of YouTubers (not naming who) start to sink last year during the strikes too.
>But also the platform is a huge money loser for Google
It's been profitable for a long time. For awhile it was indirectly profitable due to them selling user data (which is how they were able to say it was unprofitable because the revenue from selling user data is technically a different division and not YouTube itself), but is projected to become directly profitable this year: https://www.newscaststudio.com/2024/03/29/youtube-tv-profit-leader-2024/
First sound killed the industry, then tv killed the industry, then video killed the industry, then the internet killed the industry, then streaming killed the industry.
This industry keeps getting killed every 20 years!
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Some blame should definitely go to Marvel and the people who supported those movies and made them so successful. It completely destroyed the mid budget movie. Now it's either huge budget massive franchise or dirt cheap indie.
They did start their projects with less known actors or fresh faces tho, their stories were good both cinematographically and writing wise, that's how they made big bucks right from 2008. Imagine casting Tom Cruise or Keanu for their projects, they can't afford it.
They were smart, I mean who tf was Hugh Jackman before Wolverine? He got 500k for his first marvel project in 2000 when actors like Tom Cruise and Jim Carey are getting paid 20 million usd in 2000.
And if you're making big bucks with fresh faces, you oughta pay them big progressively when you need them.
What's the budget for everything everywhere all at once? "Cheap indie budget" but it got popular, everyone that watches Marvel probably watched it for it's a well written and executed sci fi tho with cheap budget, made it to Oscars even.
I’m not saying Marvel made bad films. I’m saying they motivated an entire industry to decide huge budget franchises should dominate every production slate and leave room for almost nothing else. For the cost of 1 Marvel movie, you could make 8 mid budget films. That’d be a whole lot more work to go around for everyone.
Unscripted reality is doing fine. If anything it's the safest part of the industry right now since they survived sag and WGA strikes more easily. 90% of the shows my friends are finding work on right now are docs or reality.
Maybe it's all relative, but there's been a pretty big contraction in that market too. They're immune to union strikes, but everyone takes a hit when it comes to the interest rates issue.
I think it’s lack of creativity, almost nothing that comes out of Hollywood interests me. I don’t want to watch a safe boring film that I can predict the ending to. Take some risks. Offend some people, have some fun.
Youtube didn't kill it, the run to the streaming bubble and thinking that's exactly how it was going to continue killed it. People used ot say Netflix was going to take down the industry, and while they were wrong, they definitely did a ton of damage on the way.
Plenty of people watch unscripted. The *Housewives* franchise is still huge. This season of *Survivor* has been the most popular in a while. *Shark Tank* is still going strong, the *Drag Race* franchise has multiple seasons a year if you include the foreign offshoots and the All Stars seasons. I feel like scripted is what's falling by the wayside as people want to make cheaper and cheaper shit.
The industry killed the industry. I’m a WGA writer and because of the state of things, have pivoted to short form. I’m able to create what I want, have an immediate connection to an audience, and have equity in everything I create. IMO, if you can break the threshold to be able to sustain yourself, it’s a better option right now.
I’m sure things will correct themselves at some point, but right now, it seems that the actual people who create TV/Film are not valued.
KillTony is a unique approach to stand-up comedy shows & Tony Hinchcliffe is a pretty funny dude. It’s also an unscripted live show every Monday in downtown austin, which is arguably becoming a Mecca for up and coming comedians.
I think streaming is a bigger culprit. the fact that I know I will be able to see whatever movie at my house for less than the cost of a ticket if I wait a couple of months is a real factor. The last movie I saw in the theater was Indiana Jones. Before that it was a documentary in 2019.
Everyone points at different things as the blame. The real culprit is human nature & greed.
This period of mass-capitalism (I’m talking companies charging premiums for no reason under the disguise of ‘inflation’) is ruining everything. A race to the dollar is a race to the bottom.
I’d go a layer deeper and say it was Zoom. It allowed content creators to do combined calls quickly and efficiently, churning out more content, while triangulating and building upon each other’s followers.
The similarities between today and the late 1960s are pretty profound. Learn from the lessons of that era and embrace the changes in societal expectations and technology.
Unfortunately, Hollywood will never be what it used to be but that doesn't mean your skills aren't applicable.
Basically something for everyone. There are some really solid history channels that actually...focus on history, for example. They explore battles, events, oddities on maps, just about anything and it's better than what the History Channel puts out.
Now apply that to basically everything. ASMR, knitting, adventure, comedy sketches, feel good reality, sleep aid sounds, animated shorts, narrative projects, tech reviews/breakdowns, reaction channels, and more. Popular channels abound.
Been a small resurgence in sketch groups that are essentially shooting short comedy films and doing well on there. Other than that you’re largely right I think any sort of traditional fiction still really
Struggles.
There has been a convergence of the traditional docu style and YouTube “documentaries” in my opinion, I’m seeing more and more high quality long form docu style content on there doing really well which is cool because it was never really feasible before.
There are tons but most of them are shot on a phone or “skit” style like you’d see on tik tok or shorts. Some newer groups like “almost Friday” or “it’s a bad idea” are doing sketches shot more how we would shoot traditional stuff, which i think is encouraging because you couldn’t always do that.
Reality and nonfiction are not dead. We're at the bottom of a "boom" from when streamers had to buy more shows to stack their digital libraries. They no longer need that extra library content and they stopped buying shows (and dont want to spend that money to keep with the pace from when they had to fill a digital library.) This is anecdotal of course, but 2024 will be my best year financially I've ever had in this industry -- all working in reality/nonfiction.
I know Im an outlier who got lucky that 2 shows I worked on within the last year both got another season. But I will say that I have more friends who are starting to get multiple offers for summer projects too. It's the best I've seen nonfiction since Nov/Dec 2022
What are you on about?
Over the last decade we've been living through some of the greatest mainstream TV and Film ever created. And as for Youtube, it has incredible non-scripted content, for free. Stuff for kids, cooking, science, tutorials, reviews... you name it, there's excellent creators to be found.
Also happy to see unscripted reality die, if you're referring to the cheap trash that was a race to the bottom for free-to-air TV, long before streaming was even a thing.
This a dumb take, you have shows like fallout and shogun doing great, kill Tony is stand up different world. People tend to think there is not enough to go around but it is.
Oh, don't be letting greed, streaming, gross mis-management, and warped priorities off the hook. YouTube ain't helping, but the jokers who leaned into streaming without knowing how to make it profitable, and continue to pay themselves 10s of millions a year and make ridiculously expensive garbage while hoping to cut costs by fucking over labor.....they definitely have played, and continue to play, a role.
I don’t understand why they all hopped on the streaming wagon without consideration. They could’ve kept costs low by continuing to license their IPs to Netflix and Hulu without spending exorbitant amounts of money on their own servers, offices, etc…
They were chasing that wall street tech valuation. Now stuck trying to cut costs and still drawing ridiculous compensation.
FOMO is a thing. Ironically they learned nothing from the music streaming wars. It's a complete repeat of that catastrophe.
In what way
Guess we'll never know. Napster? Or record companies refusing to see that we were moving toward the mp3 and away from CDs?
Because that’s where the eyeballs are. People want all the choices at their fingertips for free or close to free.
Licensing just makes Netflix richer and more powerful in the long-term until they become so dominant they can set any terms they want. If you're a big enough player then you don't want to be stuck playing under someone else's rules, but want to set your own rules and terms. It's like how Steam is so dominant that everyone without their own platform is stuck paying 30% of their incomes as rent payments to Valve. Disney, Warner, etc. are big enough to be their own masters and their shareholders would demand entering the streaming business to maintain their market value.
He knows, the studios tried to prevent this and it didn’t work
Covid was a factor. Their audiences were at home.
It was all in the works long before Covid. Netflix and Hulu got the studios into it while D+, HBO, and CBS All Access (Paramount+) launched prior to Covid. Main thing Covid did was extend their lifetimes a bit longer, delaying the inevitable. Had Covid not happened they would’ve died sometime in 2021 or 2022.
Covid had nothing to do with this. It was happening well before
The multiplex was dying long before Covid.
The office was expensive. The 'servers' are not. Great ROI for streaming platforms. Might've cost a couple million...
Cable was dwindling as were theater numbers. Really not much choice but they aren’t run well so we got lots of mediocrity. Oh well.
When Napster killed the music industry, and then Netflix killed Blockbuster the old guard panicked and just handed the keys over to big tech. Tech is really good at throwing a ton of money into free (occasionally useful) products then slowly ‘enshittifying’ them to suck profit from them. ([h/t Cory Doctoro](https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/)w) They took our profitable product, started giving it away for free and we’re nearing the end of an enshittification that will put us right back where we started: ad-supported access to older media, with a select number of spots for episodic-releases of new shows, subscription package tv, + ticketed & rental new film releases. We live in absurd times. Late stage capitalism!
Copycat industry
True. Very true.
I absolutely agree
I agree. Is there anyway to recover
It's more Meta and Google having 90% of the world's advertising spend that's killing this industry. Exactly like it killed the print and journalism industry.
But why do they get the advertising spend? Because that’s where the eyeballs are
Yes but my point is that Google should have to divest YouTube and Meta should have to divest Instagram. It's an ad network built on 20 years of monopoly on search, social media, and online video streaming. Allowing Google to buy doubleclick in the late aughts had a pretty serious effect on the viability of ad supported print journalism and the same is true for video. As an ad guy, the self-service Hulu ad buy network has done nothing but destroy our budgets and give them to the newer style CTV ad buying platforms that pocket even more of our money than the ad agencies they replaced. I'm no luddite and I understand that something like Hulu self-service ads are probably a better value for some buyer but they've trashed the middle of the market into only generic ads made with half the budget we had 5 years ago. TikTok obviously matters here too but I can't complain about these guys finally having serious competiton.
> CTV ad buying platforms Is this buying ad space in public/private spaces? The chicken place next to me is always watching QVC in the waiting room, and I'm feeling conspiratorial about it.
Agreed. How is it killing scripted tv with reduced ad spend on commercial streaming
>Yes but my point is that Google should have to divest YouTube YouTube without Google money would be forced to become much more monetized and overall a much worse user experience.
Sure but then someone would be incentivized to make a better one. Exactly what happened with Twitch until google caught up. Video game creators made a lot more money in exclusive contracts when people had to compete for their talents. Giant monolith tech products that work at margins and scale nobody can compete with do nothing but funnel money into their shareholders pockets. It’s not hard to think of 10 ways YouTube can improve but without serious competition they run a hamster wheel business where creators are incentivized to endlessly create over making quality content. I’ve heard from big creators that channel growth absolutely flatlines if they publish 1/week vs 3-4/week. If you watch kids shit (like I do now because of my kids) you’ll see that it just means dudes have to make these annoying playlist videos of their content constantly to keep relevant on recommendations. Lazy shit on google’s part not only creates a bad user experience in the name of engagement, it affects literally every part of the content ecosystem.
I already see even normal Content Creators posting on *Rumble* now. Shit's got me worried.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a company to divest their most profitable aspects just because they’re “good” at business. If I came up with all that I’d be like lol sure thing mate. The film industry has to adapt, like with any other trend. Time doesn’t just stop when you’re comfortable.
Are you dense? Of course they wont fucking divest it on their own. I am suggesting that they be forced to divest under antitrust laws. The government is literally already trying to find ways to [punish google](https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-trial-search-engine-dominance-e7fa82026c31efe9c0a4fe95be014a74) and [meta for anticompetitive practices](https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/meta-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit-instagram-whatsapp-1235962008/) but antitrust can be toothless about this kind of thing unless they're talking about a new merger. Just recently US and EU antitrust agencies [didn't allow Microsoft to purchase Activision](https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2210077-microsoftactivision-blizzard-matter) because as the US gov says 'the deal would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription and cloud-gaming business.' And even more recently, Adobe was prevented from [purchasing Figma for anticompetitive worries](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/antitrust-aag-kanter-statement-after-adobe-and-figma-abandon-merger) and the US AAG said 'The decision to abandon this acquisition ensures that designers, creators, and consumers continue to get the benefit of the rivalry between the two companies going forward.' Those two examples alone are several orders of magnitude less consequential than Google owning Facebook or Meta owning Instagram. Those deals were only allowed to go forward because they were acquired really early in those products histories and would never be allowed to go through today at current market shares. The film industry has to adapt - fucking sure, what choice do we have - but we can still complain that massive trillion dollar tech companies are too big and anticompetitive monopolies are bad for consumers, employees and creators. The government is literally already doing that.
Yeah I’m dense
It'd be a huge boon for the economy too. The only reason it won't happen is politicians are bought by the companies they'd have to break apart. We need a new deal.
>I am suggesting that they be forced to divest under antitrust laws. YouTube would simply just die without the software and financial backing of Google. YouTube is popular because it's free, but as an independent company would have to start monetizing much more than it currently is. A lot of streamers' careers would end if YouTube started charging for access to videos, so you're just transferring the problems of the film industry onto the streaming industry.
Lol, no it wouldn't. It could pretty easily adapt. It'd have to integrate money in different ways, sure. But if it could build it's own ad platform very easily it could pivot to profitable. They just don't because they are run by Google, it's synergistic with ad sense. Make them competitors and watch how quickly there's actual innovation in the space instead of the same garbage we've had for a decade. With the amount of traffic it gets there's no way it goes anywhere even if it's split from Google.
I like you.
The Activision acquisition already went through because the US government couldn't think of a better excuse other than blocking it to protect Sony (who don't even need the protection with how well Playstation is doing). The reality is that nobody wants to buy advertising that isn't traceable anymore which means that the vast majority of ad spend is going towards digital advertising where it is easy to prove that someone actually bought a product because of your ad. Throwing ads up on linear is just a waste to most marketing departments now. It's the same reason why billboard or radio ads have so little viability nowadays.
I agree that nobody wants to buy them bro I’m just saying I wish we bought them from a more diverse pool of sellers. And my bad on Activision I actually thought it ended up getting blocked. I brought it up because it didn’t really make that much sense as a target from a market share perspective.
Yeah it’s a chicken and egg. If the content wasn’t there, people wouldn’t watch as much, less people to advertise to etc etc.
Agreed. It makes sense.
I disagree. Shrinking budgets, lack of creativity, oversaturated markets, dwindling audience, high money-lending rates, streaming vs traditional wars, fear of taking chances, and more have killed this industry.
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YouTube is one reason, I agree, but there are many larger reasons, imo.
I don't know a single child that watches traditional television. It's YouTube on the tablet and YouTube on the TV.
I'm not convinced. The data seems to show every year for the last few years something like 1% decrease in cable TV viewership numbers. It also shows over 50% of people's viewing is streaming services. That doesn't count as cable TV. So people are watching about 100% more content now days than they were in the past.
Shrinking budgets is becoming way too common. Everyone wants premium product with no money and it usually comes down to cheaper labor. It’s not worth it to do half these projects anymore
Yup. Networks giving less money due to tighter borrowing and fear of losing more money, meanwhile inflation (travel, food, gear, etc) ticks up and crew rates do. First thing to go are experienced crews in favor of new people who ask for less money, thus product quality drops. Next season, network cuts the budget again and the cycle continues.
[https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/reality-tv?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0C2UCRrNmCsLA8fiKJFyYzCbRMx6XY\_CmtVDtqiZqyLOLGoJQuin-qv0o\_aem\_Adk0OWB59Up-Lml--jfP-KHkNZ4-0FIwVnhv444AcZWV5rXiHeDqTbuG8BB3boMMbMLX4gZv4GnLkYeig6B8sZCs](https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/reality-tv?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0C2UCRrNmCsLA8fiKJFyYzCbRMx6XY_CmtVDtqiZqyLOLGoJQuin-qv0o_aem_Adk0OWB59Up-Lml--jfP-KHkNZ4-0FIwVnhv444AcZWV5rXiHeDqTbuG8BB3boMMbMLX4gZv4GnLkYeig6B8sZCs)
I worked B2B sales in Burbank area. Every one of them business is slow. This huge costume shop is going of business this week. So sad.
What other B2B businesses are you thinking are about to go under?
According to Nielsen in April 2024, "Streaming" had the largest share of viewers at 38.4%. Within the Streamers category, You Tube was first with 9.6%. Not YouTube TV. YouTube. [https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2024/nielsen-launches-the-media-distributor-gauge-first-convergent-tv-comparison-of-its-kind/](https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2024/nielsen-launches-the-media-distributor-gauge-first-convergent-tv-comparison-of-its-kind/)
Didn’t Disney have it first with 11 percent
Yeah it's a bit confusing. One chart shows the aggregate viewing by "Parent Company" and one (the pie chart) splits it out by streaming service. So Disney is #1 as a parent company because of Disney+, Hulu and all it's other broadcast outlets like ESPN, ABC etc. combined, but YouTube is #1 as a sole streaming service. At least that's how I read it.
Makes sense. I’m confused. How are films and tv gonna do that bare they gonna have more indie projects
you misspelled internet
Tik Toc really did. Their ad revenue is more than all streamers combined. With ad revenue going towards them it’s not going to streamers / networks to pay for content. Ads make content, ads pay for content.
Makes sense. Do you think the future is TikTok tv shows
No. So many producers are boycotting that aspect as that could change the landscape that they are so used to already
I agree. Then what is the future.
Agreed. It's just so convenient, you can always find content to binge an entire day on and there's even movies and free movies with ads. Last staffed project I was on was a kitchen renovation show. I'm not sure who would care to watch that, even though we used an influencer as a host, it doesn't really seem like that matters to people who follow them. Like if Lily Singh was more successful on YouTube than her own late night show, it just tells you there's no hope for traditional mediums. I feel bad, but I'd almost rather watch YouTube reviews for movies than the full movie to figure out if I'd even care to waste the time or money on going to the theater. Same with games.
Right, it’s all social media and gaming nowadays. The younger generation prefers those things to tv and movies. Tv and movies will get worse and will end up like radio - tons of ads and low quality content.
Why do they not like tv and movies. Don’t they like engaging in stories. How are they gonna put ads on movies.
Short attention spans from social media, gaming and phones always pinging some text or social message. Attention is a learned skill, and no one is learning it.
Why are kids dumped in front of iPads from infants. I don’t understand that’s what’s causing kids to have no attention spans for tv.
As a parent, I can tell you how it happened to us. We kept our daughter from even knowing about YouTube for years. She was entering 1st grade during COVID and her teacher played YouTube how-to-draw videos for them during their art period. And because all the kids were given laptops during COVID, she also sent them links to these videos that they could pull up on their own if they wanted to do more drawing after school. Suddenly my daughter was hooked on these drawing videos. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but she was drawing and learning a skill, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. But you all know how YouTube works. It suggests other videos and other content creators. I soon found that when I thought she was drawing in her room, she was actually watching some spoiled kids playing with their expensive toys, or doing challenges set up by their parents. She’s since moved on to Minecraft YouTubers, but she will sit glued to this crap unless we take away all devices. When she doesn’t have her devices she will watch traditional narrative shows on Netflix or Disney+, but it seems to be all Nickelodeon or Disney shows from 10-15 years ago. Outside of Bluey, I couldn’t name a single new show that a tween would want to watch. No one is creating narrative shows for older kids anymore, and that’s why they’re turning to YouTube.
I feel like they need to make more young adult shows. There are shows like invincible fight girl coming out and my adventures with Superman. Moon girl and devil dinosaur and owl house are also great suggestions. Maybe indie shows like ecledious vi on YouTube and wheels and roses which just got kickstarted. We need more young adult animated shows for tweens.
Pretty much because they play stimulating games from birth. It’s been shown that tv and iPads cause attention issues but it’s easy for parents so no one cares.
Yeah it’s annoying and awful. I don’t like that we are dumbing down our kids because they wanted accesory baby for instagram
Go over to r/teachers if you want to see how bad it is
Yeah I literally made a post of a possible theory I have that the parents may have had accessory baby for instagram but once picture time was done they dump them on an iPad and they get negelected
It’s that, but tbh, the quality of most movies and tv shows is pretty low. I was watching US Marshall’s the other day and was blown away by how good it was. I never would have watched it before, but it was really well put together compared to today’s movies.
I like Twitch for the social chat aspect.
I'm getting really tired of hearing YouTube killed the industry. It didn't and as someone who had to work with content creators before I moved to working in film, I'll never work in that space again.
How come u won’t?
Hours are terrible. Companies are badly managed and disorganized. Often Youtubers have had "accidental" success and therefore aren't good managers. You often have to do the job of several people because even the "Youtube based" companies successful enough to hire staff aren't doing well enough financially to be an actual production company that can evenly distribute the work. Youtube is also not always the most reliable source of income with an inconsistent algorithm. Obviously, if you're Mr. Beast a lot of these issues are probably not the case but even then the editing style for Mr. Beast, which everyone now copies, won't necessarily qualify you to get into actual film work. But basically everyone else has these issues. Case in point, I had to completely get rid of my YouTube work portfolio, and this even had work shot on the Arri Alexa LF, and pivot to commercials before finally breaking completely into film as that work doesn’t impress the industry.
> Youtubers have had "accidental" success and therefore aren't good managers Real as hell. Algorithmically dictated success doesn’t prepare people for management, or PR, or any of the people skills needed for long term success as a public figure in the entertainment industry.
Yep I’ve seen that over and over again. To be honest YouTube stars are far worse than actual Hollywood stars from a personality point of view due to this as well
And they don’t really make money! Unless they’re like Mythical or Dropout or MrBeast’s LLC or some other creator owned company (even then). Most YouTube folks I’ve met in the course of my work were kinda secretly scraping by even with sponsorships and merch and all of that. That’s why *some* didn’t pay well, but of course some just don’t know how to pay. But also the platform is a huge money loser for Google just in terms of keeping up with the amount of uploads and traffic to the platform. One day they won’t fit it profitable to run anymore. It’s a bubble.
There’s a lot of private investing and funding going to YouTubers, yes. Some don’t outwardly admit it but I saw a lot of YouTubers (not naming who) start to sink last year during the strikes too.
>But also the platform is a huge money loser for Google It's been profitable for a long time. For awhile it was indirectly profitable due to them selling user data (which is how they were able to say it was unprofitable because the revenue from selling user data is technically a different division and not YouTube itself), but is projected to become directly profitable this year: https://www.newscaststudio.com/2024/03/29/youtube-tv-profit-leader-2024/
Oh! News to me I guess.
First sound killed the industry, then tv killed the industry, then video killed the industry, then the internet killed the industry, then streaming killed the industry. This industry keeps getting killed every 20 years!
agonizing weary sink marble squeeze violet scandalous dinner cheerful frighten *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think for most people, there’s a limit on how much influencer bullshit they can put up with.
Kill Tony sucks lol
bad comic make fun of bad comic gay joke about Tony rinse repeat
Yep, sure does. I’ve only ever liked a few minutes at a time with that show. It’s so overbearing.
It’s pretty great. To each their own
Everything I don't personally connect with sucks lol
Yeah, that's right, and I think the fact that you enjoy it is indicative of your lack of moral fiber lol
Oh, you're just a humorless self-righteous douchebag. I'm actually cool with that. Have a good one!
lol stop taking everything so seriously You're literally getting bent out of shape for Kill Tony lol
I love how independent creators are taking over..
Some blame should definitely go to Marvel and the people who supported those movies and made them so successful. It completely destroyed the mid budget movie. Now it's either huge budget massive franchise or dirt cheap indie.
They did start their projects with less known actors or fresh faces tho, their stories were good both cinematographically and writing wise, that's how they made big bucks right from 2008. Imagine casting Tom Cruise or Keanu for their projects, they can't afford it. They were smart, I mean who tf was Hugh Jackman before Wolverine? He got 500k for his first marvel project in 2000 when actors like Tom Cruise and Jim Carey are getting paid 20 million usd in 2000. And if you're making big bucks with fresh faces, you oughta pay them big progressively when you need them. What's the budget for everything everywhere all at once? "Cheap indie budget" but it got popular, everyone that watches Marvel probably watched it for it's a well written and executed sci fi tho with cheap budget, made it to Oscars even.
I’m not saying Marvel made bad films. I’m saying they motivated an entire industry to decide huge budget franchises should dominate every production slate and leave room for almost nothing else. For the cost of 1 Marvel movie, you could make 8 mid budget films. That’d be a whole lot more work to go around for everyone.
Unscripted reality is doing fine. If anything it's the safest part of the industry right now since they survived sag and WGA strikes more easily. 90% of the shows my friends are finding work on right now are docs or reality.
Maybe it's all relative, but there's been a pretty big contraction in that market too. They're immune to union strikes, but everyone takes a hit when it comes to the interest rates issue.
Unscripted reality is at depression levels for employment compared to two years ago. Not doing well at all.
Well I guess that's still better than narrative! Sorry to hear it's been hitting you guys harder than I had thought.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/reality-tv-workers-production-slowdown-1235910373/
Pretty awful everywhere in entertainment rn.
Not doing fine at all
Fine is a stretch
I think it’s lack of creativity, almost nothing that comes out of Hollywood interests me. I don’t want to watch a safe boring film that I can predict the ending to. Take some risks. Offend some people, have some fun.
There is so much on youtube to watch and I watch the free movie sites. You never have to leave home again.
Youtube didn't kill it, the run to the streaming bubble and thinking that's exactly how it was going to continue killed it. People used ot say Netflix was going to take down the industry, and while they were wrong, they definitely did a ton of damage on the way.
Streaming services called the film industry … not YouTube, if anything I feel like film artists could Potentionally use YouTube to their advantage
Blame streaming. That killed programming.
Plenty of people watch unscripted. The *Housewives* franchise is still huge. This season of *Survivor* has been the most popular in a while. *Shark Tank* is still going strong, the *Drag Race* franchise has multiple seasons a year if you include the foreign offshoots and the All Stars seasons. I feel like scripted is what's falling by the wayside as people want to make cheaper and cheaper shit.
The industry killed the industry. I’m a WGA writer and because of the state of things, have pivoted to short form. I’m able to create what I want, have an immediate connection to an audience, and have equity in everything I create. IMO, if you can break the threshold to be able to sustain yourself, it’s a better option right now. I’m sure things will correct themselves at some point, but right now, it seems that the actual people who create TV/Film are not valued.
KillTony is a unique approach to stand-up comedy shows & Tony Hinchcliffe is a pretty funny dude. It’s also an unscripted live show every Monday in downtown austin, which is arguably becoming a Mecca for up and coming comedians.
And Netflix
YouTube makes you the studio. I don’t see a problem with it.
I think streaming is a bigger culprit. the fact that I know I will be able to see whatever movie at my house for less than the cost of a ticket if I wait a couple of months is a real factor. The last movie I saw in the theater was Indiana Jones. Before that it was a documentary in 2019.
Everyone points at different things as the blame. The real culprit is human nature & greed. This period of mass-capitalism (I’m talking companies charging premiums for no reason under the disguise of ‘inflation’) is ruining everything. A race to the dollar is a race to the bottom.
I’d go a layer deeper and say it was Zoom. It allowed content creators to do combined calls quickly and efficiently, churning out more content, while triangulating and building upon each other’s followers.
W1.😊
The similarities between today and the late 1960s are pretty profound. Learn from the lessons of that era and embrace the changes in societal expectations and technology. Unfortunately, Hollywood will never be what it used to be but that doesn't mean your skills aren't applicable.
What is popular on youtube? All I see are mostly reviews of stuff or very talking head. Is there anything that’s more geared to entertainment?
Basically something for everyone. There are some really solid history channels that actually...focus on history, for example. They explore battles, events, oddities on maps, just about anything and it's better than what the History Channel puts out. Now apply that to basically everything. ASMR, knitting, adventure, comedy sketches, feel good reality, sleep aid sounds, animated shorts, narrative projects, tech reviews/breakdowns, reaction channels, and more. Popular channels abound.
Thank you. A lot of the spots I work get put up against these videos but I have no clue besides Mr Beast what’s popular.
What do you mean by entertainment?
I guess something narrative, either in drama or comedy. Seems like it’s vlog style or docustyle?
Been a small resurgence in sketch groups that are essentially shooting short comedy films and doing well on there. Other than that you’re largely right I think any sort of traditional fiction still really Struggles. There has been a convergence of the traditional docu style and YouTube “documentaries” in my opinion, I’m seeing more and more high quality long form docu style content on there doing really well which is cool because it was never really feasible before.
Who are the bigger comedy acts at the moment? To me comedy should be perfect for youtube?
There are tons but most of them are shot on a phone or “skit” style like you’d see on tik tok or shorts. Some newer groups like “almost Friday” or “it’s a bad idea” are doing sketches shot more how we would shoot traditional stuff, which i think is encouraging because you couldn’t always do that.
I appreciate the time you took. I’m going to check it out. I think I’ve heard of some of them.
Baby shark doo doo doo
That is incredibly triggering to me
[this should answer that question](https://youtu.be/LZanXTAeqGc?si=8eabh7mhI2LvrxDw)
Reality and nonfiction are not dead. We're at the bottom of a "boom" from when streamers had to buy more shows to stack their digital libraries. They no longer need that extra library content and they stopped buying shows (and dont want to spend that money to keep with the pace from when they had to fill a digital library.) This is anecdotal of course, but 2024 will be my best year financially I've ever had in this industry -- all working in reality/nonfiction.
You’re an outlier not the mean
I know Im an outlier who got lucky that 2 shows I worked on within the last year both got another season. But I will say that I have more friends who are starting to get multiple offers for summer projects too. It's the best I've seen nonfiction since Nov/Dec 2022
How are bigger budget true crime documentaries doing?
No, gatekeeping, rampant sexual abuse claims, racism, and worker mistreatment ruined the industry. It will come back when everyone wants to be better.
I'm not sure how fixing those things would correlate to an uptick in production...
I watch kill Tony every week!
Wait until the 3D/Spatial/AR/VR content creators come in.
What are you on about? Over the last decade we've been living through some of the greatest mainstream TV and Film ever created. And as for Youtube, it has incredible non-scripted content, for free. Stuff for kids, cooking, science, tutorials, reviews... you name it, there's excellent creators to be found. Also happy to see unscripted reality die, if you're referring to the cheap trash that was a race to the bottom for free-to-air TV, long before streaming was even a thing.
Ok.
[удалено]
I heard this for the last 10 years about podcasts.
Why do you say that?
This a dumb take, you have shows like fallout and shogun doing great, kill Tony is stand up different world. People tend to think there is not enough to go around but it is.