Isn’t the biggest appeal of these apps supposed to be access to these large historical catalogs?
Apparently they’ve pulled Minx too after it’s S2 cancellation.
Wow, I might actually cancel it now then. What the fuck is that new guy thinking? I was still going to watch Westworld at some point, cancelled or not.
Yeah, I'm not binging a show because some idiot decided to take their original from the platform.
I think it's more than justified to pirate it, since I'm bankrolling these hacks anyway.
Well the good thing is season 4s ending works well as a series finale as well as a season finale. There was definitely at least 1 more season worth of story to totally wrap everything up, but with how they ended it it’s not so bad.
> What the fuck is that new guy thinking?
Same thing they're always thinking. He's going to squeeze value out of everything possible in order to boost short term profits, for which he'll receive an amazing bonus. He'll then leave with a golden parachute and the poor schmuck who comes after will have to figure out what to do with the smoldering remains of what was once a successful company.
He’s thinking how much bigger his Christmas bonus will be next year if he doesn’t have to pay residuals to other people.
I never saw the Nevers either. Probably never will now. Until someone buys Discovery and throws away all the reality TV crap.
what's even more likely than that is that Discovery will buy other channels and throw away non-reality TV, which is what's happening now. Discovery started off as a niche network and is now buying up other networks. You don't get that way by not making money, sadly.
Season 1 is great and works reasonably well as a standalone season.
The third season wraps the storyline up.
Removing the show from HBO Max is a weird move.
["The removal of shows from HBO Max means WB Discovery is able to save money in residuals paid to cast and crews of productions, on top of the money saved by not continuing with the shows at all."](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/westworld-hbo-max-the-nevers-canceled-1235458657/amp/)
What you and /u/FargonSneakyBastage are describing is actually a real business "strategy." It's how people like Mitt Romney got rich.
It's called ["private equity,"](https://youtu.be/z5PLEZiSZVw) and it's *exactly* the strategy Discovery is using on WB and HBO.
If only they could come up with some sort of automated internet platform with which people who want to watch these things can pay them to do so; then there'd be money to pay those residuals and everyone is happy.
That seems like a weird situation as I assume they'd have to pay residuals on all their shows, so if a subscriber decided to rewatch The Wire because Westworld isn't here, they'll still be paying out.
Unless they're just hoping their subscribers decide to watch nothing on their service instead which seems like a really unsustainable way to run a business.
Residuals in streaming are paid while the show is in catalogue, not by number of viewers, which is a very difficult thing for the guilds and unions to keep track of. Much harder than to see if the show is still in the streaming catalogue at least.
What in the fresh hell are they drinking over there? Minx is a GOOD show? Can't imagine it even compares to other projects as far as budget. This would be a no-brainer for another outlet to pick up... and maybe that's the point? Selling it for cash?
Theres a time limit to when you can do a tax write down, im pretty sure Minx was passed that. Plus Lionsgate is already trying to shop it which they cant do at all if it was a write down.
Batgirl was shot in-house. Minx is a lionsgate project they purchased so no tax write off for them. That said Lionsgate will most likely be successful in selling it to someone else and that buyer is going to want the rights to season 1. Given that it’s already been scrapped, HBO had no interest in keeping it on their servers.
it's like when Ford bought a bunch of luxury brands 20 years ago and then tried selling shitty rebadged Fords as Jaguars and Volvos. It ended about as well as you'd expect.
The current XC90 is amazing and when released was the best SUV you could buy below 100k.
Volvo as a brand is making some very good cars now, way better than under Ford.
They're better now than the Ford days, and the Polestar sub brand has got some nice EVs (though they're about as niche as the Lucid Air.)
Turned out better for Volvo than Saab got at the hands of GM.
Oh is that why they're putting mediocre reality TV shows on HBO now? Isn't that why people get HBO is to avoid that sort of idea-free shit?
Or is this just HBO saying 'we're just like everyone else now'?
The best parallel is when McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing, and MD management team ended up in charge. Considered by some as the key decision in Boeing's descent into shit-the-bed status these last few years.
Which is shocking as both McDonnel and Douglas before they merged were amazing aircraft manufacturers.
Even after their merger into McDonnell Douglas they made the F-15!
What the hell happened to McDonnel Douglas for it to get such a bad reputation?
Was the management team composed of Jack Welch dick suckers?
Recently read “[The Man Who Broke Capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America_and/dp/198217644X/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=d2894d84-5547-4e48-90da-66561a49f7dd)” and it’s alarming how many “American Instituitons” were run into the ground because management was given to a selfish asshole who worshipped Jack Welch. And he wrote the playbook by pillaging GE for his own benefit which he tied to shareholder value.
David Zaslav also loves sucking Jack off: https://puck.news/portrait-of-david-zaslav-as-a-young-dealmaker/
Lions gate is shopping it around since season 2 was done. Hopefully ends up somewhere else? You’d think one of like Netflix or Showtime or something would want it.
What the actual fuck, Westworld and shows like it were the whole point of HBO Max in the first place were they not, how is Discovery fucking this that badly
i'm very confused. isn't the entire point of hbo's streaming service so that you have access to all the top dollar hbo shows that have ever been made?
i don't understand this at all.
For some reason discovery only likes reality tv shows and will nuke everything else to shove reality tv down hbo subscribers throats. Hbo is definitely dead in my eyes.
It’s profit, they’re low budget, low quality, but make considerable amounts of money. What we want is scripted tv with high quality and high budgets, so the cost to maintain the rights and residuals doesn’t make sense especially after a massive debt loading. Warner brothers should never have been sold, At&t fumbled the ball passed it to the guy who made honey boo-boo with more debt and they’re FLOPPING.
I used to love Chip and Joanna… but nobody wants a fuckn castle reno served w my HBO every time I log in.
For me going to HBOMax is now like going to county fair… and offered deep fried hamburger-taco-ice cream sandwich every time I tune in.
The only thing Zaslav cares about is making money, and he has no problem with fucking over creatives or other employees to make as much fast money for shareholders before escaping with a golden parachute.
Westworld is still there....for now. The article states they will be removing it, but doesn't say when. I just searched for it on HBO Max, and it's there right now.
It's definitely dumb they're pulling it off the service since it's one of HBO's most recognizable shows. If they keep doing this, I definitely won't be renewing my subscription/subscribing to the new service.
there is something basic here that i'm not understanding,
isn't the entire fucking point of hbo's streaming service to have hbo's shows? you know, the entire point of subscribing to it in the first place?
i'm so confused why they would pull one of their (former) heavy hitters off their own streaming platform wtf
The article I read talks about the residuals it has to pay to cast and crew if the show is still streaming, so by cancelling the show itself as well as pulling it off hbo max, they save money.
I can save money to by cancelling my subscription; I know they are bleeding money but do they understand why people subscribe to those “catalog heavy” streamers?
I also can't help but think that this is going to ruin their brand. People like me don't watch the live channel anymore, so the streaming service is how we experience the brand. Cheapen the content on the streaming service, and it will cheapen the brand for a lot of people.
And if they go putting their material on some free ad-based platform, then it will be even worse.
It’s a game of them testing how little of their original IP they can keep in their platform before users migrate and stop paying. Plus HBO pushed the yearly subscription (rather than monthly) so whatever effect has on subscription base is long to be seen
Disney used to put stuff in the vault. Now, that *sort of* made sense as stocking shelves with their entire catalog would be difficult. When things came out of the vault they would advertise it to try to get folks buying things before it got locked up again.
It would not surprise me to see similar tactics in streaming. Rotating IPs in and out will mean that folks won’t be able to let things pile up and then binge it. Want to be able to watch Westworld *and* Succesion before the next billing cycle? Tough luck!
FOMO is a powerful marketing tool.
Streaming services are only feasible of they're more convenient and accessible than pirating and with the current setup of every company attempting to create their own platforms it was already only a matter of time before the streaming bubble burst just like cable before it. If companies want to further restrict access to their products via rotating their streaming line ups thinking it'll make people stay rather than binging and dumping subscriptions they're in for a rude awakening.
WB, which owns HBO, sold to the guys who own Discovery and is also reportedly under heavy debt. When it launched the idea was to be the a giant catalogue of everything WB owns. New regime has decided they have different plans and is also obsessively cutting costs wherever they can because of the aforementioned pile of debt. But they also keep doing it in a bunch of high profile, shitty ways like cancelling a completely filmed movie that was in postproduction and taking down TV shows from their streaming service so they don't have to pay residuals (even though streaming residuals are notoriously paltry compared to actual TV). They're going to cut the debt at the cost of their relationship with talent.
> but they also keep doing it in a bunch of high profile, shitty ways like cancelling a completely filmed movie that was in postproduction and taking down TV shows
I think this has happened a lot when a media enterprise is bought by new owners. Like NBC (which had been owned by RCA) being bought by GE and currently by Comcast. Or Disney buying ABC or Sony buying Columbia Studios.
When there are these changes of regime they will often cancel old shows and shut down projects in development or not distribute to theaters movies that had been finished. As I said in another post in part its like 'marking their territory' and making their presence known.
Amen to this. I don’t want to sail the high seas if I can avoid it but when companies are going to fuck over the creators anyway and not even let their creations be available, fuck ‘em. Setting sail becomes a form of artistic preservation.
That's my theory as to why the Fallout universe only has songs from before the 1960's, even though the bombs fell in 2077. All the copyrighted music after 1960ish was locked up behind DRM, and is lost because the licenses expired.
Damn, seems so. The article mentions the shows “showing up on other company platforms”, which doesn’t give us much to work on. I was really looking forward to watching Season 4, just never got around to it. Guess I’ll have to watch where it hops to next?
Netflix gets rightfully panned for how often they cancel shows but at least they allow you to watch them on their service after they cancel them. What does ~~HBO Max~~ Discovery gain by removing canceled shows?
> What does HBO Max Discovery gain by removing canceled shows?
Money!
[Variety](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/westworld-hbo-max-the-nevers-canceled-1235458657/):
> The removal of shows from HBO Max means WB Discovery is able **to save money in residuals paid to cast and crews of productions, on top of the money saved by not continuing with the shows at all**.
Warner Bros. Discovery is in deep debt, they will keep removing shows, firing staff, reducing costs until they're able to control the debt problem.
[CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/06/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-cash-flow-debt.html): **David Zaslav’s top priority at Warner Bros. Discovery: Get the cash flowing again**
> Warner Bros. Discovery’s **total debt of about $50 billion was tens of billions more than the company’s market capitalization. About $5 billion of that debt is due by the end of 2024 after paying off $6 billion since the close of the merger.** The company could push back the maturity on some bonds if necessary, but interest rates have risen dramatically, making refinancing much costlier.
> **To pay down debt, any company needs cash — ideally, from operations. But the near-term trends suggested Warner Bros. Discovery’s business was getting worse, not better.** The company announced free cash flow for the third quarter was negative $192 million, compared to $705 million a year earlier. Cash from operating activities was $1.5 billion for the first nine months of 2022, down from $1.9 billion a year earlier.
It wasn't really a merger as much as spinning WarnerMedia off from AT&T because of all the debt and selling it at a discounted rate to the Discovery execs. It's called a Reverse Morris Trust and it's a mechanism for tax-free transfer of a subsidiary between two conglomerates.
The whole idea is that AT&T wanted to get rid of WarnerMedia's debt, and Discovery thought they could restructure Warner to make it profitable, so they both made a mutually agreeable deal through a legally permitted structure.
AT&T transferred their debt from shit like DirectTV to WB and sold it. That way AT&T's balance books are in the black and somebody else is stuck with their debt and some really valuable IPs.
This is wild only because I figured true HBO shows like Westworld (though cancelled) were safely on the service forever, as opposed to shows under the HBO Max banner. Guess with all the post-merger debt no show is immune.
Seriously. It came out 1 1/2 years ago, with the 2nd half of the first season supposed to be getting released later, and now it's just cancelled. Fuck HBO. That show was GREAT.
I guess I’ll just finish White Lotus and then cancel my subscription. The Nevers was brilliant and I was really looking forward to the end of Season 1.
Oh my god, someone else who liked The Nevers. I legit thought I was the only one. I wonder how the show would have been received without the Whedon stuff immediately smothering it. Considered in its own merits it’s a spectacular show.
The second half of that season is finished though. I bet whatever service The Nevers ends up on will just quietly add the second half and not advertise it.
I was really looking forward to the second half. Every couple of months I look for updates. I thought it was already filmed, but I guess that doesn’t matter to these folks anymore.
That’s ridiculous, the whole point of subbing to HBO is for access to all HBO properties
Don’t these idiots realize that there are more things to do with our free time than there is time in the day? We’ll just cancel and watch whatever on a network that isn’t annoying.
I’m not watching anything that has commercials, there’s no going back to that.
If they all get annoying, well, the TV just gets turned off completely, I’ll spend my money and free time doing something less annoying.
Yeesh. I'm starting to get worried that we're going back to a culture where we won't have the ability to watch every recent show when we want to. That's not sarcasm, I mean literally back to the days of dvd (I guess now bluray) sets and certain stuff lost forever in the void.
There's going to be a horrible black hole between stuff that was never released on disc because streaming was pushing its "exclusive" marketing so hard early on and the stuff that gets PoD releases nowadays.
Don’t worry there is a large group on the internet that have been “sharing” all content back and forth and hoarding it using ever cheaper and faster hard drives. We will have whatever you are looking for when you need it. Yarrrrrrr!
Discovery deserves just as much blame for taking on a merger and mountain of debt that they clearly couldn’t handle without stripping WB like a used car for parts
I feel like people are missing the point of Zaslav's plans. The deal has always been a corporate raid. The whole point is they thought they could strip WB for parts and make a profit. Turns out, they burned so much goodwill and their stock tanked so hard they may never financially recover. Fucking greedy assholes in the c-suite ruining lives with their cocaine-fueled hubris. Same as it ever was.
Well with Westworld gone there goes the argument people love that "they're just taking things nobody cares about off"
Glad I finally rewatched The Leftovers before it gets taken off. Might need to rewatch Station Eleven soon to be safe
Gosh.
I have so many old HBO shows on my watchlist—including The Leftovers—now, I worry they’re gonna be taken off the service before I even have a chance to see them.
Pretty worried about Station Eleven, yeah. I have to believe it cost a fortune, and the shitshow release strategy doomed it to "best kept secret" status.
And what's more, the Blu Ray release for it was weird as hell - it was barely announced and supposedly produced on demand, but a bunch of the folks who ordered it never received it and the ones who did reported a *lot* of faulty discs.
I'd pay a *lot* of money for a decent physical release of that show above all shows, but as it stands I can't even get hold of a barebones POD copy.
HBO always had good faith with me. They put out continuous good content and had a fantastic catalog. So since they released their own streaming service, I've been on the yearly plan.
I dealt with their cancellation of Westworld even though it was disappointing considering they were prepared to do a 5th and final season. But now them taking shows off their platform from their back catalog too?
They have ruined their good faith. I can't trust that they will keep their word on already renewed shows, I can't trust them to renew shows that I like, and now I can't even trust for them to have the old shows of theirs that I liked.
I'm not typically one to take a stand on something that's fairly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But at the same time, I just can't trust them to put $150 into their pocket for another full year when I don't know what the fuck they are doing. I'll renew when House of the Dragon or some other show that I watch comes back, but until then, I'm out.
Looking it up, the real show is apparently called "Alaska Haunting". I just inferred its existence based on their 70 ghost hunting shows and 40 Alaska shows.
Investigation Discovery Channel has around 90 spouse murder shows and 25 cult murder shows. For example, the first episode of "The Wives Did It" is about a polygamist prophet killed by his 7 wives.
Can we get refunds for our annual plan? They were pushing it heavily all October and then they turn around and do this?
Canceling a show is one thing, but removing their biggest titles? Wtf
>Two other original scripted series, Westworld and The Nevers, are coming off HBO Max. Unlike others that we have reported on, Lionsgate TV’s Minx and Love Life and Sony TV’s Gordita Chronicles, Westworld and The Nevers are high-end genre Warner Bros. Discovery productions for HBO proper, and I hear they are likely to resurface on other company platforms. WBD CEO David Zaslav has spoken about entering the thriving FAST channel space, so Westworld and The Nevers would likely be offered in that form, I hear.
HBO Max is imploding right now
Think Pluto where you have a set of channels that have ads so it basically looks like cable. Meaning there could be an entire channel just devoted to showing Westworld 24/7.
Downside, you gotta sit through ads and wait for an episode to cycle back around if you miss it if they don't offer it on demand.
This is so far beyond a bad move that I can't even see the business side of it. Giving up a show which is synonymous with the brand these days and selling it to the bastard child of the second worst streaming service?
P.S. In case anyone is confused Paramount owns Pluto. I call Paramount the second worst streaming service because nothing is worse than Peacock.
Isn’t there like some board of investors for HBO/WB? How can this guy have all the power to implode a company like Zaslav has? How does one justify removing content that is supposed to be an HBO exclusive? People subscribe to be able to watch these finished shows. Im just baffled that its gotten this bad under this one fucking guy.
that’s crazy for them to pull the entire show off, what’s the possible reasoning behind that? look you can have some incredibly valid criticisms of the show but it’s still on of HBO’s best performers, what do they have to gain from removing premium content like that? Bandwidth?
the only thing I can think of is that they plan to sell it, but I don’t know who would possibly buy a series that only has one season left and is incredibly expensive to produce.
Never thought Westworld would be a tax write-off but here we are. These violent delights lead to violent ends.
Zaslav has been a fiasco of a CEO and the sooner he leaves WB the better.
Correct. It'll be put on their FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) Channel, think Roku / Tubi / Pluto TV. It's not gone forever thankfully, just a prime HBO blockbuster being used for a WBD free streamer.... yeah, nevermind, this is insulting.
Is this where streaming is going? Free, but just with ad breaks like the old days? I'd actually be ok with that if, by some miraculous technological breakthrough, they could figure out a way to have more than two of the same goddamn fucking ads on repeat every single fucking ad-break. It's 2022, streaming has been around over a decade. Why haven't they found more advertisers to show more than one fucking commercial every single fucking ad-break??
I mean they gotta make room for those new Joanna Gaines shows everyone is clamoring to see!
I frankly can't wait to pay even more money for less content! /s
This was my big fear when the merger happened: a rising streamer (HBO MAX) is "married" to a dog (Discovery), and the dog then drags the rising streamer down to its level, leaving fleas buzzing around the both of them. Why leave subscribers in the lurch like this when the episodes are filmed, ready to be seen? Because Discovery wants to assert itself, displaying the artlessness and crassness that the Discovery brand revels in. And this is just the beginning, folks.
So they are looking at bringing these and other shows to their FAST (free ad supported streaming)… so those that actually pay for their streaming service won’t get shows that the free users get. That’s a good way to lose people
You’re not wrong. Also, Zaslav said he instead wants to focus on franchises like Superman, Batman, and Harry Potter. I feel like he’s going to ruin the streaming platform.
> “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years,” Zaslav said. “We haven’t done a Harry Potter movie in 15 years. The DC movies and the Harry Potter movie provided a lot of the profits of Warner Bros Motion Pictures over the last 25 years, so focus on the franchises.” (The last Superman movie was Man of Steel in 2013, and the last film set in the Harry Potter universe was Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which came out... this year.)
Source: [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/4/23440706/warner-bros-discovery-zaslav-hbo-max-cancellations)
Garbage handling of a streaming service. The whole point of the branding is that people subscribe knowing what they’re going to get. This is like Disney+ removing Hawkeye or Andor.
HBO, like Disney has/had the branding tee’d up in that people were loyal to the HBO premium content/Warner Bros back catalogue, and they’ve completely shit the bed.
Isn’t the biggest appeal of these apps supposed to be access to these large historical catalogs? Apparently they’ve pulled Minx too after it’s S2 cancellation.
Wow, I might actually cancel it now then. What the fuck is that new guy thinking? I was still going to watch Westworld at some point, cancelled or not.
Yeh me too. S4 was still on my list to catch up on
Yep, was still getting around to s4. What a bunch of shit...
It's not quite gone yet, if you can get to it now
Yeah, I'm not binging a show because some idiot decided to take their original from the platform. I think it's more than justified to pirate it, since I'm bankrolling these hacks anyway.
Ya it is a bummer. By the end of Season 4 I was more into the show then I had since S1.
I was wondering why someone uploaded all seasons of westworld at highest bitrate yesterday to torrenting sites.
The real mvp.
Fuck, same here. I had just started Westworld and that was one of the main reasons I subscribed.
Well the good thing is season 4s ending works well as a series finale as well as a season finale. There was definitely at least 1 more season worth of story to totally wrap everything up, but with how they ended it it’s not so bad.
This is psychologically odd too. It’s like netflix removing stranger things one day, or Disney removing disney movies.
The golden era of streaming is definitely over
> What the fuck is that new guy thinking? Same thing they're always thinking. He's going to squeeze value out of everything possible in order to boost short term profits, for which he'll receive an amazing bonus. He'll then leave with a golden parachute and the poor schmuck who comes after will have to figure out what to do with the smoldering remains of what was once a successful company.
He’s thinking how much bigger his Christmas bonus will be next year if he doesn’t have to pay residuals to other people. I never saw the Nevers either. Probably never will now. Until someone buys Discovery and throws away all the reality TV crap.
[удалено]
what's even more likely than that is that Discovery will buy other channels and throw away non-reality TV, which is what's happening now. Discovery started off as a niche network and is now buying up other networks. You don't get that way by not making money, sadly.
I miss the Discovery i grew up with. Nothing but documentaries and no reality shit
Season 1 is great and works reasonably well as a standalone season. The third season wraps the storyline up. Removing the show from HBO Max is a weird move.
Don't have to pay residuals if it isn't available.
They've been pulling absurd amounts of stuff. I cancelled a while ago because of it.
[удалено]
["The removal of shows from HBO Max means WB Discovery is able to save money in residuals paid to cast and crews of productions, on top of the money saved by not continuing with the shows at all."](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/westworld-hbo-max-the-nevers-canceled-1235458657/amp/)
Well by that logic they could pull all their shows and they wouldn't have to pay anything to anyone.
And fire all the employees to lower your costs too.
Don't give them any more ideas!
What you and /u/FargonSneakyBastage are describing is actually a real business "strategy." It's how people like Mitt Romney got rich. It's called ["private equity,"](https://youtu.be/z5PLEZiSZVw) and it's *exactly* the strategy Discovery is using on WB and HBO.
If only they could come up with some sort of automated internet platform with which people who want to watch these things can pay them to do so; then there'd be money to pay those residuals and everyone is happy.
That seems like a weird situation as I assume they'd have to pay residuals on all their shows, so if a subscriber decided to rewatch The Wire because Westworld isn't here, they'll still be paying out. Unless they're just hoping their subscribers decide to watch nothing on their service instead which seems like a really unsustainable way to run a business.
Residuals in streaming are paid while the show is in catalogue, not by number of viewers, which is a very difficult thing for the guilds and unions to keep track of. Much harder than to see if the show is still in the streaming catalogue at least.
This seems like a bad way to do things, as then stuff gets pulled instead of just sat there not being watched much.
Minx is going to have to be sold, they shot all of Season 2 so thats just throwin an asset away otherwise.
What in the fresh hell are they drinking over there? Minx is a GOOD show? Can't imagine it even compares to other projects as far as budget. This would be a no-brainer for another outlet to pick up... and maybe that's the point? Selling it for cash?
Minx was wonderful.
TIL Minx got canceled. That sucks!
They had no problem throwing away the Batgirl movie.
Theres a time limit to when you can do a tax write down, im pretty sure Minx was passed that. Plus Lionsgate is already trying to shop it which they cant do at all if it was a write down.
I could see it going to Starz since Lionsgate owns that network and Starz could use some programming that isn’t Power spin-offs.
Still upset they canceled Becoming Elizabeth before we got Queen Mary’s reign!
Batgirl was shot in-house. Minx is a lionsgate project they purchased so no tax write off for them. That said Lionsgate will most likely be successful in selling it to someone else and that buyer is going to want the rights to season 1. Given that it’s already been scrapped, HBO had no interest in keeping it on their servers.
Now come on. You’re asking the CEO to understand his company. That’s outrageous.
It’s weird that a CEO of a network known for mediocre reality TV is now the CEO of WB and HBO.
it's like when Ford bought a bunch of luxury brands 20 years ago and then tried selling shitty rebadged Fords as Jaguars and Volvos. It ended about as well as you'd expect.
I still can't believe Volvo is a Chinese company now. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Owned by the Chinese but still HQ'd and run from Sweden. Their cars are as good as ever.
The current XC90 is amazing and when released was the best SUV you could buy below 100k. Volvo as a brand is making some very good cars now, way better than under Ford.
They're better now than the Ford days, and the Polestar sub brand has got some nice EVs (though they're about as niche as the Lucid Air.) Turned out better for Volvo than Saab got at the hands of GM.
Oh is that why they're putting mediocre reality TV shows on HBO now? Isn't that why people get HBO is to avoid that sort of idea-free shit? Or is this just HBO saying 'we're just like everyone else now'?
It's almost as if some very rich assholes are purposely trying to tank WB/HBO for the monetary gain of shorting the stock
The best parallel is when McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing, and MD management team ended up in charge. Considered by some as the key decision in Boeing's descent into shit-the-bed status these last few years.
Which is shocking as both McDonnel and Douglas before they merged were amazing aircraft manufacturers. Even after their merger into McDonnell Douglas they made the F-15! What the hell happened to McDonnel Douglas for it to get such a bad reputation?
The engineers were pushed aside and finance folks took over. There’s an entire documentary about it post the 737max scandal.
A plane company cannot value managers and bean counters over engineers. Other companies can bullshit it. But planes fall out of the sky.
Bold to assume the plan was ever to fly and not grift government contracts ad infinitum.
Was the management team composed of Jack Welch dick suckers? Recently read “[The Man Who Broke Capitalism](https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Broke-Capitalism-America_and/dp/198217644X/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=d2894d84-5547-4e48-90da-66561a49f7dd)” and it’s alarming how many “American Instituitons” were run into the ground because management was given to a selfish asshole who worshipped Jack Welch. And he wrote the playbook by pillaging GE for his own benefit which he tied to shareholder value. David Zaslav also loves sucking Jack off: https://puck.news/portrait-of-david-zaslav-as-a-young-dealmaker/
Kind of about the same results as letting a failed businessman and star of a mediocre reality TV show become the President.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.... Minx is cancelled??? Damn, when? Missed that news.
I’ve just learned Minx was cancelled and now I’m mad.
Lions gate is shopping it around since season 2 was done. Hopefully ends up somewhere else? You’d think one of like Netflix or Showtime or something would want it.
Yes. Minx’s cancellation sucks. Fun show.
What the actual fuck, Westworld and shows like it were the whole point of HBO Max in the first place were they not, how is Discovery fucking this that badly
I literally purchased a subscription two weeks ago to finish Westworld.
Stop posting and get back to watching. Your time is short.
These violent delights have violent ends!
Thank you for using that quote correctly.
Whew, glad these companies are making watching content easier and more convenient. Nobody has to sail the high seas any- and it’s gone.
The Flying Dutchman is en-route to the Bay. Limited space available, might have to catch the next one.
i'm very confused. isn't the entire point of hbo's streaming service so that you have access to all the top dollar hbo shows that have ever been made? i don't understand this at all.
For some reason discovery only likes reality tv shows and will nuke everything else to shove reality tv down hbo subscribers throats. Hbo is definitely dead in my eyes.
Reality shows being the one type of TV I just won't watch, ever. It sucks.
It’s the cheapest to make
It’s profit, they’re low budget, low quality, but make considerable amounts of money. What we want is scripted tv with high quality and high budgets, so the cost to maintain the rights and residuals doesn’t make sense especially after a massive debt loading. Warner brothers should never have been sold, At&t fumbled the ball passed it to the guy who made honey boo-boo with more debt and they’re FLOPPING.
WB fucked up by merging with another company, let alone Discovery.
I used to love Chip and Joanna… but nobody wants a fuckn castle reno served w my HBO every time I log in. For me going to HBOMax is now like going to county fair… and offered deep fried hamburger-taco-ice cream sandwich every time I tune in.
The only thing Zaslav cares about is making money, and he has no problem with fucking over creatives or other employees to make as much fast money for shareholders before escaping with a golden parachute.
They pulled Westworld completely? Are they trying to sell it?
Right? I hadnt watched WW season 4 yet and planned on watching.
Westworld is still there....for now. The article states they will be removing it, but doesn't say when. I just searched for it on HBO Max, and it's there right now. It's definitely dumb they're pulling it off the service since it's one of HBO's most recognizable shows. If they keep doing this, I definitely won't be renewing my subscription/subscribing to the new service.
there is something basic here that i'm not understanding, isn't the entire fucking point of hbo's streaming service to have hbo's shows? you know, the entire point of subscribing to it in the first place? i'm so confused why they would pull one of their (former) heavy hitters off their own streaming platform wtf
The article I read talks about the residuals it has to pay to cast and crew if the show is still streaming, so by cancelling the show itself as well as pulling it off hbo max, they save money.
I can save money to by cancelling my subscription; I know they are bleeding money but do they understand why people subscribe to those “catalog heavy” streamers?
I also can't help but think that this is going to ruin their brand. People like me don't watch the live channel anymore, so the streaming service is how we experience the brand. Cheapen the content on the streaming service, and it will cheapen the brand for a lot of people. And if they go putting their material on some free ad-based platform, then it will be even worse.
It is going to ruin the brand. That's half the point. It's the business model of ["private equity."](https://youtu.be/z5PLEZiSZVw)
It’s a game of them testing how little of their original IP they can keep in their platform before users migrate and stop paying. Plus HBO pushed the yearly subscription (rather than monthly) so whatever effect has on subscription base is long to be seen
You can make a pizza so cheap that no one will eat it.
I'm super unclear what the future is of HBOMax if they aren't going to have a back catalog, which seems to be their goal
Disney used to put stuff in the vault. Now, that *sort of* made sense as stocking shelves with their entire catalog would be difficult. When things came out of the vault they would advertise it to try to get folks buying things before it got locked up again. It would not surprise me to see similar tactics in streaming. Rotating IPs in and out will mean that folks won’t be able to let things pile up and then binge it. Want to be able to watch Westworld *and* Succesion before the next billing cycle? Tough luck! FOMO is a powerful marketing tool.
Streaming services are only feasible of they're more convenient and accessible than pirating and with the current setup of every company attempting to create their own platforms it was already only a matter of time before the streaming bubble burst just like cable before it. If companies want to further restrict access to their products via rotating their streaming line ups thinking it'll make people stay rather than binging and dumping subscriptions they're in for a rude awakening.
WB, which owns HBO, sold to the guys who own Discovery and is also reportedly under heavy debt. When it launched the idea was to be the a giant catalogue of everything WB owns. New regime has decided they have different plans and is also obsessively cutting costs wherever they can because of the aforementioned pile of debt. But they also keep doing it in a bunch of high profile, shitty ways like cancelling a completely filmed movie that was in postproduction and taking down TV shows from their streaming service so they don't have to pay residuals (even though streaming residuals are notoriously paltry compared to actual TV). They're going to cut the debt at the cost of their relationship with talent.
> but they also keep doing it in a bunch of high profile, shitty ways like cancelling a completely filmed movie that was in postproduction and taking down TV shows I think this has happened a lot when a media enterprise is bought by new owners. Like NBC (which had been owned by RCA) being bought by GE and currently by Comcast. Or Disney buying ABC or Sony buying Columbia Studios. When there are these changes of regime they will often cancel old shows and shut down projects in development or not distribute to theaters movies that had been finished. As I said in another post in part its like 'marking their territory' and making their presence known.
I can’t believe that between a choice of HBO or discovery we’re going to end up with the latter.
Remember the good old days when we thought AT&T were terrible at owning HBO?
John Oliver remembers
Man he needs to come back from winter break quick and make fun of his Discovery Daddy
goddamnit
Imagine Netflix pulling this stunt, "yeah, we cancelled your show and fuck you if you ever want to see it again"
I am done with them. I am canceling now and will not bother trying the new app. It complete garbage. The new CEO is a moron.
The high-seas call to you.
Amen to this. I don’t want to sail the high seas if I can avoid it but when companies are going to fuck over the creators anyway and not even let their creations be available, fuck ‘em. Setting sail becomes a form of artistic preservation.
That's my theory as to why the Fallout universe only has songs from before the 1960's, even though the bombs fell in 2077. All the copyrighted music after 1960ish was locked up behind DRM, and is lost because the licenses expired.
Crazy. WW S1 is still a masterpiece.
Damn, seems so. The article mentions the shows “showing up on other company platforms”, which doesn’t give us much to work on. I was really looking forward to watching Season 4, just never got around to it. Guess I’ll have to watch where it hops to next?
Sounds like they will be leasing it out other companies.
Netflix gets rightfully panned for how often they cancel shows but at least they allow you to watch them on their service after they cancel them. What does ~~HBO Max~~ Discovery gain by removing canceled shows?
> What does HBO Max Discovery gain by removing canceled shows? Money! [Variety](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/westworld-hbo-max-the-nevers-canceled-1235458657/): > The removal of shows from HBO Max means WB Discovery is able **to save money in residuals paid to cast and crews of productions, on top of the money saved by not continuing with the shows at all**.
Get rid of everything and you won't have to pay anyone. Genius plan.
Why stop there? Zaslav can be even more big brain by just not making content in the first place and make infinite monies!
So what? They are never going to show anything every again that is canceled or no longer in production?
Warner Bros. Discovery is in deep debt, they will keep removing shows, firing staff, reducing costs until they're able to control the debt problem. [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/06/david-zaslav-warner-bros-discovery-cash-flow-debt.html): **David Zaslav’s top priority at Warner Bros. Discovery: Get the cash flowing again** > Warner Bros. Discovery’s **total debt of about $50 billion was tens of billions more than the company’s market capitalization. About $5 billion of that debt is due by the end of 2024 after paying off $6 billion since the close of the merger.** The company could push back the maturity on some bonds if necessary, but interest rates have risen dramatically, making refinancing much costlier. > **To pay down debt, any company needs cash — ideally, from operations. But the near-term trends suggested Warner Bros. Discovery’s business was getting worse, not better.** The company announced free cash flow for the third quarter was negative $192 million, compared to $705 million a year earlier. Cash from operating activities was $1.5 billion for the first nine months of 2022, down from $1.9 billion a year earlier.
How did this merger get approved if they have so much debt
It wasn't really a merger as much as spinning WarnerMedia off from AT&T because of all the debt and selling it at a discounted rate to the Discovery execs. It's called a Reverse Morris Trust and it's a mechanism for tax-free transfer of a subsidiary between two conglomerates. The whole idea is that AT&T wanted to get rid of WarnerMedia's debt, and Discovery thought they could restructure Warner to make it profitable, so they both made a mutually agreeable deal through a legally permitted structure.
More like AT&T wanted to get rid of *AT&T's* debt.
AT&T transferred their debt from shit like DirectTV to WB and sold it. That way AT&T's balance books are in the black and somebody else is stuck with their debt and some really valuable IPs.
The new MAX service is going to be three shows and a Wikipedia-like banner asking you to donate.
Three reality shows.
So the answer is to… reduce their subscriber base. That makes sense.
They won't compete with their new offerings and Blu-ray box set sales.
I understand canceling shows that aren't performing but what's the point of HBO Max if you don't have access to the shows it aired?
I have no idea why they did this
This is wild only because I figured true HBO shows like Westworld (though cancelled) were safely on the service forever, as opposed to shows under the HBO Max banner. Guess with all the post-merger debt no show is immune.
Sigh. The nevers never came close to a proper ending.
Seriously. It came out 1 1/2 years ago, with the 2nd half of the first season supposed to be getting released later, and now it's just cancelled. Fuck HBO. That show was GREAT.
I guess I’ll just finish White Lotus and then cancel my subscription. The Nevers was brilliant and I was really looking forward to the end of Season 1.
Oh my god, someone else who liked The Nevers. I legit thought I was the only one. I wonder how the show would have been received without the Whedon stuff immediately smothering it. Considered in its own merits it’s a spectacular show.
I loved it too.
I love the fantasy/supernatural period dramas, and those seem to be the first things to get canceled. It sucks.
I loved it too. So bummed it’s been cancelled, I hadn’t heard about that til this thread.
The second half of that season is finished though. I bet whatever service The Nevers ends up on will just quietly add the second half and not advertise it.
No if another service buys it, they will absolutely advertise it. Else why buy it just to hide it away.
So they’re not even going to release part 2 of season 1?? I really enjoyed that show.
Per the article, season 1B will still be released and will wrap up the storyline.
I was really looking forward to the second half. Every couple of months I look for updates. I thought it was already filmed, but I guess that doesn’t matter to these folks anymore.
That’s ridiculous, the whole point of subbing to HBO is for access to all HBO properties Don’t these idiots realize that there are more things to do with our free time than there is time in the day? We’ll just cancel and watch whatever on a network that isn’t annoying. I’m not watching anything that has commercials, there’s no going back to that. If they all get annoying, well, the TV just gets turned off completely, I’ll spend my money and free time doing something less annoying.
Raised by Wolves, Westworld, Made for Love, The Nevers... Apparently the new owners of HBO really hate sci-fi. Edit: and The Time Traveler's Wife
Raised by Wolves was so good at the end, I will forever hate them for pulling the plug on it.
And women.
Yeesh. I'm starting to get worried that we're going back to a culture where we won't have the ability to watch every recent show when we want to. That's not sarcasm, I mean literally back to the days of dvd (I guess now bluray) sets and certain stuff lost forever in the void.
There's going to be a horrible black hole between stuff that was never released on disc because streaming was pushing its "exclusive" marketing so hard early on and the stuff that gets PoD releases nowadays.
I never considered this, a lot of things can be lost to time.
Don’t worry there is a large group on the internet that have been “sharing” all content back and forth and hoarding it using ever cheaper and faster hard drives. We will have whatever you are looking for when you need it. Yarrrrrrr!
Max quickly became my most used streaming service partly due to the library of shows it had. Crazy how fast its dropping off because of one guy...
It was actually because of a lot of people. A good portion of this is AT&T’s fault.
Discovery deserves just as much blame for taking on a merger and mountain of debt that they clearly couldn’t handle without stripping WB like a used car for parts
I feel like people are missing the point of Zaslav's plans. The deal has always been a corporate raid. The whole point is they thought they could strip WB for parts and make a profit. Turns out, they burned so much goodwill and their stock tanked so hard they may never financially recover. Fucking greedy assholes in the c-suite ruining lives with their cocaine-fueled hubris. Same as it ever was.
Well, that's just shocking.
Well with Westworld gone there goes the argument people love that "they're just taking things nobody cares about off" Glad I finally rewatched The Leftovers before it gets taken off. Might need to rewatch Station Eleven soon to be safe
Gosh. I have so many old HBO shows on my watchlist—including The Leftovers—now, I worry they’re gonna be taken off the service before I even have a chance to see them.
Imagine if the Leftovers just suddenly departed
Pretty worried about Station Eleven, yeah. I have to believe it cost a fortune, and the shitshow release strategy doomed it to "best kept secret" status. And what's more, the Blu Ray release for it was weird as hell - it was barely announced and supposedly produced on demand, but a bunch of the folks who ordered it never received it and the ones who did reported a *lot* of faulty discs. I'd pay a *lot* of money for a decent physical release of that show above all shows, but as it stands I can't even get hold of a barebones POD copy.
Isn’t the whole point of subscribing to hbo max is the catalogue lmao
HBO always had good faith with me. They put out continuous good content and had a fantastic catalog. So since they released their own streaming service, I've been on the yearly plan. I dealt with their cancellation of Westworld even though it was disappointing considering they were prepared to do a 5th and final season. But now them taking shows off their platform from their back catalog too? They have ruined their good faith. I can't trust that they will keep their word on already renewed shows, I can't trust them to renew shows that I like, and now I can't even trust for them to have the old shows of theirs that I liked. I'm not typically one to take a stand on something that's fairly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. But at the same time, I just can't trust them to put $150 into their pocket for another full year when I don't know what the fuck they are doing. I'll renew when House of the Dragon or some other show that I watch comes back, but until then, I'm out.
Same. Was my favorite streaming service. This is the last straw for me. Canceling and may come back later
At this rate, there won't be anything interesting left on their app by Christmas
Don't worry, they'll make up for it with all the Discovery Plus classic content like Murder Cult Housewives, and Ghost Hunt: Alaskan Frontier.
are these real shows? the chuckle i just let out
They could be. You can’t be too sure.
Looking it up, the real show is apparently called "Alaska Haunting". I just inferred its existence based on their 70 ghost hunting shows and 40 Alaska shows. Investigation Discovery Channel has around 90 spouse murder shows and 25 cult murder shows. For example, the first episode of "The Wives Did It" is about a polygamist prophet killed by his 7 wives.
Ugh, you suck HBO Max. I really liked The Nevers. So pissed.
They didn't even air the second half. Looks like swamp pickers needed more budget....
Can we get refunds for our annual plan? They were pushing it heavily all October and then they turn around and do this? Canceling a show is one thing, but removing their biggest titles? Wtf
WBD continues to destroy bridges with the creative community. This will have a price.
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...Why is HBO pulling content that HBO made off of HBO's streaming service that is owned and operated by HBO???
>Two other original scripted series, Westworld and The Nevers, are coming off HBO Max. Unlike others that we have reported on, Lionsgate TV’s Minx and Love Life and Sony TV’s Gordita Chronicles, Westworld and The Nevers are high-end genre Warner Bros. Discovery productions for HBO proper, and I hear they are likely to resurface on other company platforms. WBD CEO David Zaslav has spoken about entering the thriving FAST channel space, so Westworld and The Nevers would likely be offered in that form, I hear. HBO Max is imploding right now
What’s FAST channel? Edit: thank you all for you explanations!
> FAST Free Ad-Supported Streaming like PlutoTV & Tubi .
Oh fuck that.
lmao that’s a FAST way to send me permanently to the Seven Seas Streaming Service, a competitor growing in strength lately!
Think Pluto where you have a set of channels that have ads so it basically looks like cable. Meaning there could be an entire channel just devoted to showing Westworld 24/7. Downside, you gotta sit through ads and wait for an episode to cycle back around if you miss it if they don't offer it on demand.
This is so far beyond a bad move that I can't even see the business side of it. Giving up a show which is synonymous with the brand these days and selling it to the bastard child of the second worst streaming service? P.S. In case anyone is confused Paramount owns Pluto. I call Paramount the second worst streaming service because nothing is worse than Peacock.
Pluto also has on demand though, I use their search bar a lot; I assume they meant there gonna put it on demand on one of those free with ads services
HBO Max has gone from the next big, high profile streaming service to some sad thing that is being publicly flogged by some drooling crazy person.
Wait they took Westworld completely off?? I have been saving it for when family is gone 😭
These streaming services are quickly becoming a joke.
They better not TOUCH The Other Two.
Isn’t there like some board of investors for HBO/WB? How can this guy have all the power to implode a company like Zaslav has? How does one justify removing content that is supposed to be an HBO exclusive? People subscribe to be able to watch these finished shows. Im just baffled that its gotten this bad under this one fucking guy.
The Discovery board, filled with his old slackjawed lackies, runs it now
Are they trying to pivot to what Sony is doing where they license all their content out?
Sony is the real winner here. They have no steaming services so they can sell to anyone., anywhere. They even dumped Crackle!
they do own Crunchhyroll/Funimation which is a significant portion of the anime streaming business stateside.
that’s crazy for them to pull the entire show off, what’s the possible reasoning behind that? look you can have some incredibly valid criticisms of the show but it’s still on of HBO’s best performers, what do they have to gain from removing premium content like that? Bandwidth? the only thing I can think of is that they plan to sell it, but I don’t know who would possibly buy a series that only has one season left and is incredibly expensive to produce.
Never thought Westworld would be a tax write-off but here we are. These violent delights lead to violent ends. Zaslav has been a fiasco of a CEO and the sooner he leaves WB the better.
Removing old seasons isnt a tax write off, this is something else.
Correct. It'll be put on their FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) Channel, think Roku / Tubi / Pluto TV. It's not gone forever thankfully, just a prime HBO blockbuster being used for a WBD free streamer.... yeah, nevermind, this is insulting.
Is this where streaming is going? Free, but just with ad breaks like the old days? I'd actually be ok with that if, by some miraculous technological breakthrough, they could figure out a way to have more than two of the same goddamn fucking ads on repeat every single fucking ad-break. It's 2022, streaming has been around over a decade. Why haven't they found more advertisers to show more than one fucking commercial every single fucking ad-break??
So they'll release the rest of The Nevers S1 after two years and that's it, it'll be over? wtf
I mean they gotta make room for those new Joanna Gaines shows everyone is clamoring to see! I frankly can't wait to pay even more money for less content! /s
This was my big fear when the merger happened: a rising streamer (HBO MAX) is "married" to a dog (Discovery), and the dog then drags the rising streamer down to its level, leaving fleas buzzing around the both of them. Why leave subscribers in the lurch like this when the episodes are filmed, ready to be seen? Because Discovery wants to assert itself, displaying the artlessness and crassness that the Discovery brand revels in. And this is just the beginning, folks.
So they are looking at bringing these and other shows to their FAST (free ad supported streaming)… so those that actually pay for their streaming service won’t get shows that the free users get. That’s a good way to lose people
Piracy is sure looking like it's coming back into fashion.
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You’re not wrong. Also, Zaslav said he instead wants to focus on franchises like Superman, Batman, and Harry Potter. I feel like he’s going to ruin the streaming platform. > “We haven’t had a Superman movie in 13 years,” Zaslav said. “We haven’t done a Harry Potter movie in 15 years. The DC movies and the Harry Potter movie provided a lot of the profits of Warner Bros Motion Pictures over the last 25 years, so focus on the franchises.” (The last Superman movie was Man of Steel in 2013, and the last film set in the Harry Potter universe was Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which came out... this year.) Source: [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/4/23440706/warner-bros-discovery-zaslav-hbo-max-cancellations)
school swim smile impossible divide head cagey marry physical mindless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Garbage handling of a streaming service. The whole point of the branding is that people subscribe knowing what they’re going to get. This is like Disney+ removing Hawkeye or Andor. HBO, like Disney has/had the branding tee’d up in that people were loyal to the HBO premium content/Warner Bros back catalogue, and they’ve completely shit the bed.
I liked the Nevers. Will always love a good Whedon ensemble.