Peter Biskind says the golden era of cable/streaming TV is over thanks to cost cutting and a reduced taste for innovation. Maybe so. But along the way he says this:
In 2023, HBO had a whopping four shows up for outstanding drama series, including the eventual winner, “Succession,” as well as “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and “House of the Dragon.”
This might seem like proof that the original disrupter is back on top. But there’s a problem: The HBO we once applauded as the avatar of quality programming no longer exists in its previous form. As a result of the current mania for mergers, WarnerMedia, which owned HBO, merged with Discovery in the deal that created Warner Bros. Discovery. In the process, its streaming arm was rebranded. HBO Max, its new moniker, was reduced to, simply, Max, a hollow handle suggesting, at best, “more” or “most” — but certainly not quality.
Can someone explain this to me? Everyone went absolutely batshit over Warner's rebranding of HBO to Max. It's inexplicable. Rebranding happens all the time. Maybe the new name is good, maybe it's bad, but it's just a name, not a destruction of all that was good and pure about the company.
And yet, that's how people took it. What's the deal with this?
the problem wasn't the name change per se. it's that botching the rebranding (running away from a popular and prestigious brand for what seemed like weak reasons - the most persuasive being that parents were supposedly put off by the concept of "HBO" and reluctant to sign up, because they associated it with violent and sexy content) was a conveniently illustrative example of how blinkered HBO management had become, and indicative of how their bad judgment was going to have an effect on more consequential matters.
while the changes to the product that accompanied the rebranding ended up being relatively minor, they weren't nonexistent, and people had valid reasons to be annoyed by them:
-Max offered a premium pricing tier to get 4K movies with Atmos sound. this apparently came free with HBO Max, meaning that the suits were now charging people more to get what they were used to getting for free.
-Max also apparently took a bunch of low-viewership films off the service without notifying customers, in what looked like a textbook case that many people worry about: idiot MBAs are in the position of being the custodians of the world's cultural heritage, they don't care at all about that heritage, and they will memory-hole films out of practical existence just to save a trivial amount of money.
Yah, this.
I still subscribe to Max, because they have a lot of great content. (I'm in the midst of rewatching The Wire, and being reminded what an awesomely great show it was.)
But I worry about the future there, because they have made some bizarre and silly decisions that make me wonder about the caliber of their management.
It is dumping old stuff (everywhere) that cheeses me off. We went from "everything anywhere" to lots of stuff you just can't see. We had to buy a used DVD of "Dogma," for example.
Dogma isn't a great example because Harvey Weinstein personally owns the rights to that film. Kevin Smith has tried to buy the rights from Weinstein, but apparently Weinstein isn't allowed to profit from the sale now that he's in prison, so he refuses to sell the rights, leaving Dogma in, well, Limbo.
I like Max, although I am concerned about some of the changes like dropping a number of series and movies from the site. However, the price increase was a big pain and not primarily for the money, though that bites also. Video quality is a really big deal for me and Max was removing the ability to stream in 4K and Dolby Vision, which are super important to me, from the standard subscription. (HDR--high dynamic range--like HDR-10 or Dolby Vision is generally an even bigger video quality improvement over non-HDR content than 4K is over HD. BTW, while I am an audiophile and headphone hobbyist, I don't care about Atmos because, since I live alone in a small apartment, I only listen through a high end headphone setup.) However, I received access to Max because I subscribed to HBO through my Verizon Fios cable account and this did not allow me to upgrade my Max subscription to the new higher tier that would include 4K and Dolby Vision. I had to get a new Fios plan (which was an incredibly confusing process) and cancel HBO (and Showtime--it is abandoning its streaming service and moved its content to Paramount+ which I already subscribed to, so the Showtime subscription was unneeded). I then took a standalone subscription to Max for the top tier that includes 4K and Dolby Vision. My cable bill dropped a little, so right I'm paying about $13 less with Fios/Max then I was paying just for Fios. But that'll change.
It's like they renamed Kleenex DJ Snotmop, for the younger, hipper demo because they think that's the demo that associates Kleenex with moms.
Excellent metaphor.
Also, they cancelled the last season of Westworld and then pulled it off the site entirely.
Yeah, pulling it off the site was a dick move, in my opinion. I looked forward to re-watching the third and maybe second seasons to try to figure out what was going on.
(Please excuse my coarseness.)
The fifth season was supposed to be the finale of it and I was really curious what they could possibly do at that point.
Yeah, that annoyed me as well since I hadn't gotten around to watching Season 4 (though I intended to eventually). TBH, I always thought that Westworld was an overpraised critics' darling. I thought it very well produced and acted, but ultimately am extremely self-indulgent mess. (In that way, it kinda reminds me of the current critical darling The Curse on Paramount+/Showtime. Except Westworld was infinitely more entertaining. I've watched about half of it (and intend to finish) but much of the time I'm scratching my head and wondering why the critics love it so.)
It wasn't really a rebranding. HBO was a relatively small TV/film studio that put out a small, high-quality set of content and charged a premium for it on Cable TV. Max is a big aggregator like Hulu with content of varied quality. If you log in to Max you can still find the "HBO" content.
IIRC it went something like this:
- HBO's owners wanted to do a subscription service that cut out the cable companies
- they didn't think HBO had enough content to justify a stand-alone bill
- they created HBOMax and padded it with lots of filler content, hoping to use the HBO brand and catalog to get early subscribers
- HBOMax was rebranded to Max and people lost their minds.
The fact that HBO gets so many nominations probably says more about Emmy voters. The average successful broadcast network show gets 6-9M viewers. An original episode of Yellowstone gets 10-13M viewers. The average HBO show is lucky to get 2M viewers, but is likely watched by more Emmy voters than a broadcast network or basic cable show. Sure, sure, Abbott Elementary gets a lot of love, but I would say it's an outlier. That said, it is definitely true that broadcast networks stopped taking chances. Three nights of television are programmed by Dick Wolf and another night is mostly NCIS shows.
It says they tend to have different tastes than the viewing public. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
I'm personally cheesed off Better Call Saul didn't win a single one of the fifty eight Emmy nominations that show has received over the years. Lunacy,
No, it’s better taste 100%. You wouldn’t know it of course, keep watching brain dead nonsense like BCS. It’s perfect for your intellect.
So it says Emmy voters have brain function that random idiots don’t?
What’s wild is that this is almost certainly true AND the Emmy voters are STILL also dumb as rocks.
The general public is filled with complete morons with sludge in place of their brains. Like you, for example.
I tried getting in to Yellowstone but soon gave up. The show is shallow thoughtless mass market pulp. It is not in the same league as Better Call Saul or Reservation Dogs, mass popularity notwithstanding.
The trademark of HBO is much reduced in its current configuration and whatever goodwill value the name carried it’s mostly lost. Is not even clear what HBO stands for except for the old productions. The way I see it, this was anti-competitive takeover to reduce competition and kill an existing brand.I also agree that the MAX name by itself lacks a certain cache but that could be mitigated with a strong content and a better screen presence which now is just simply jarring.
Because they blew up a few billion worth of brand equity in order to create what seems to consumers to be a me too product.
Strong brands drive revenue by
- driving choice
- a premium
- and loyalty
For example: customers might pick the more expensive polo underwear tshirt over fruit of the loom but it’s likely a nearly identical product potentially even made in the same factory.
As this thread highlights, they basically blew all of that up.
But I also agree we’ve gone through the golden age of streaming since everyone was over investing to win market share. Now that the industry is facing consolidation, budgets are dropping bigtime, layoffs at Disney, Netflix, etc… Membership fees are also rising after reamaining mostly steady for a few years.
We’re all about to get less for more money.
We’re all about to get less for more money.
It's not all bad. We're going to get more commercials!
a lot of people are assuming that MAX will be less interested in producing quality programming and focusing on broadcast-grade offerings
the article makes the case that streaming services are pursuing advertisers and will start producing mass market pablum so as to not alienate the advertisers
i signed up for MAX but will cancel if they turn it into CBS; they don't care of course since the broad middle is where the money is
there's an interesting bifurcation where streamers are targeting middle america while car and drug companies are aiming at the top 25%; i guess because most people can afford $15/mo for streaming but they have a harder time financing an $80k truck or suv
"MAX" is too generic; there's no distinctive corporate identity. Not much different from Musk's changing Twitter to "X".
I suppose the ultimate absurdity would be if a company with a clear, memorable, identity - think Wells Fargo - changed their name to "THE"
I signed up for HBO. A goodly number of first run movies, some older movies and high quality original shows. It's not the Max name as much as I have a hard time actually finding HBO and everything is cluttered up with HGTV, reality tv and things of that nature. Tons and tons of reality shows and crap I don't like and don't want. It's like turning Apple into Walmart and going 'What? See that tiny little space in the back, that's the Apple Store.It's still there.'
Ugh. I just canceled it. But it's not the name change as much as HBO really isn't there any more.
As to the rebranding, perhaps some execs liked “The Great Race” and were wanting an excuse to say “Press the button (For) Max!” … it was, as it happens, a Warner Bros. picture.
That, or they intended to treat it like the Grinch’s dog…
Someone explain to me the fascination with White Lotus.
Honestly, I can't get past the undertones of colonialism of:
- White people occupying upper management;
- At a hotel that caters to White guests;
- In a place that has ongoing confliction of tourism supporting colonialism.
Would a huge flashing neon sign that says “THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BAD PEOPLE” make it any more clear to you?
How dense can one really be? How explicit does something have to be for you to pick up on it?
This is why nothing can be nuanced anymore, morons can’t pick up on nuance and so they say stupid, idiotic things. Like your post for example.
Personally I'm pretty tired of melodramas about bad people. White Lotus kind of just smashes you over the head again and again with it's judgements. Take that ruling class phony liberal elites!
Hey fucking dipshit who can't comprehend: You still haven't explained the fascination with the show.
Oh, also, you've misidentified the nature of the characters. All of them have shades of bad and good. That you see the world in black and white reflects poorly on your intelligence.
Just to reiterate the point: You're a fucking dipshit who can't comprehend.
Seemed symbolic of the triumph of marketing over quality.
It's David Zaslov.
"Prior to his stewardship of HBO, Zaslav had a reputation for cultivating and promoting reality shows and lifestyle content, which he saw as low-risk and more profitable than scripted shows. And because of this, many critics feel that Zaslav is more concerned with the bottom-line lowest common denominator than the premium content that HBO is known for."
(He takes venues with quality programming and turns them into shit.)
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/kevin-wong/hbo-max-discovery-plus-merger-explained
The sudden switch by the networks to "reality" and "lifestyle" programming made me basically give up broadcast teevie. Except for PBS. Lots of PBS. (And the cartoons on Fox; full disclosure).
That's the thing about the new OTA broadcast. I grew up with 4 channels and three networks. Now I can pull in 43 channels.
And five of them are PBS.
Those are the words I was looking for. It's filled with lifestyle and reality tv shows and I signed up for HBO. Fuck that shit. If I wanted that, I would have signed up for it.
Is Kevin kidding?
Here's an idea - let's rebrand Coca-Cola as [pick random word] and see how that works out.
HBO was too expensive for me before streaming and too expensive for me on streaming. Fuck Zaslav too.
it's not the name change, it's the mountain of trash you have to wade through now.
Ding, ding, ding!
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
I definitely didn't go batshit over it but it was kind of annoying. It wasn't just a rebrand, it was a whole new app you had to download on all your TVs and family's devices, deal with new login names and passwords, etc. Definitely a first world problem and not a bid deal. It just seemed like an unnecessary hassle, especially since they had just done this a couple years ago when they changed the app from HBO to HBO Max. Why the need for three completely different apps in the span of a few years?
I had been on the fence about cancelling my HBO subscription for years. Frankly I despise all of their "quality" dramas. Every one of them is a dark soap opera. Even the comedies. I am completely over contemporary serial dramas as a form and that is pretty much all HBO has to offer.
The Max rebrand required me to install a new app and create a new login and other mumbo jumbo for like the third time in 5 years, so that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I cancelled HBO and have no regrets.
HBO has none either.
"ChatGPT, explain to me what bikeshedding is"...
People who like quality programming are very defensive of the little that exists.
People who watch housewives, Kardashians, and naked people in the woods really don't give a shit what channel it is on.
On Max, the latter is a tidal wave of dreck swamping everything else.
Now let's return to the first point . . . .