(no subject)

[olivermoss]

In addition to all the the blows to scripted TV from a number of networks dropped their scripted departments entirely, the HBO debacle is leaving some shows with no legal way to access them.

It's like every network wanted to be another Netflix instead of just licensing their shows to Netflix or Hulu. Now they are all pivoting to just reality TV with claims of it being more profitable, but I don't think that's the whole story. Big IPs are and dedicated fanbases are huge money makers. I think they all burned so much money trying to overcrowd the streaming market that they can't afford to do much else.

There are a lot of implications for fandom as scripted TV is on a huge downswing and more and more shows become available via piracy only. Not sure what those implications are, but they exist.

I'd make lists of networks dropping scripted TV and shows becoming unavailable and classic media we only have due to piracy... but I am still trying to find my scattered braincells. My fever is now down, at least as long as I keep taking tylenol. What I will say is that's is funny that there is a big push for TNT to bring back Will due to the sudden popularity of Jamie Campbell Bower... but even if there was enough demand, there is no place for the show to go back to. TNT has dropped it's scripted department entirely.

Also, the creator of Infinity Train updated his twitter bio to say "Creator of #InfinityTrain, a show that got pulled from hbomax and can now only be pirated. I post frogs in hats."

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I think this is the first time that we've seen a streaming service do this to shows that it had (and retains) the exclusive rights to, even though there's plenty of pre-streaming precedent with shows/movies that simply had no legal release. (Or haven't had a legal release since VHS or the like. Or with games... so damn many video games that haven't been playable outside of a system that hasn't been produced in 30 or 40 years, yet with IP owners that fight any attempt at emulation.)

I definitely feel like this has some implications for fandom... like you, I'm not sure what they ARE, or what those ultimate effects will be... but it feels like it's gonna be somethin'.
Will it be something more like older fandoms, where fandom itself sustains the interest in a property? (And passes around pirated files?) Or will it mean simply that fandoms die out that much faster, because no one is going to join the party late, because they literally CAN'T view the canon material unless they pirate it.

If this becomes common - streaming services utterly scraping series that don't do well by whatever metric, for the tax write-off or just so it isn't taking up space on the service... how many shows WILL completely vanish? For a while it was common for there to at least BE DVD/Blu-ray releases of a popular streaming show... but it's far from something you can count on, especially for the "low-performing" series that are most likely to go away.

Neither here nor there, but I'd already been wondering if Disney will pull a "Disney Vault" thing with any of their original series (for MCU or Star Wars or other stuff.) I remember that being a Thing for a while - get this classic on DVD NOW or else it's back to the "Disney Vault" for ten years, and your kids will miss out! I wonder if they'll try something similar with their streaming properties. Cycle through available series so that you have access to different things at different times. "If you cancel your subscription for next month, you'll miss your window to watch xyz..."

I've got a lot of feelings about this stuff, and just haven't really made them coherent yet.

[olivermoss]

There has got to be a ceiling on how much low-budget reality-blurring TV people can handle. I just wish I had a handle on where it is. Also, you don't need to be a network to make a 'reality' program for people to follow. Mr Beast has done some reality programming and people on TikTok follow Sorority pledges like it's a game show. Not to mention family vloggers.

I'm a poor judge of such things because I don't see the appeal most of the time. Outside of Project Runway and one other show I don't have much interest. But, from what little I do understand, there is only a tiny amount of interest in rewatching old seasons of Big Brother or whatnot. Meanwhile, Friends, Stargate, old Star Trek, etc tend to be remonetized a lot. I feel like the whole 'reality tv is more profitable' is only true from a very limited POV. Also, much like certain types of video games, there is a hard limit on how many people will play in a year. Kinda like MMOs take up more brainspace and people tend to only play their MMO, which is why the Live Services model video games tried to pivot to failed hard, the way people need to track reality TV plots and characters... people tend to watch fewer... unless I am very wrong but that is what I've always heard.

Also there is a hunger for written stories. Look at the appetite for fanfic. People want actual stories.

I don't know what will happen, but something will.

I feel like LGBTQIA+ content has less mainstream appeal and is at most risk of disappearing. But, most of pre-internet preservation piracy I know of was mostly just geeky media in general *glances at Buckaroo Banzai poster* and a lot of indy horror.

[mistressofmuses]

That's a good point - tiktok is basically FULL of "reality" programming of various kinds, and so is youtube. Family vloggers of every subtype, pets, animal rescues, travel vlogs, makeover makeup videos, DIY projects... any and all of that can arguably fit that same "reality" genre.
Like, yeah, I guess it's low-budget enough that it's harder to take a loss, as compared to scripted prestige shows with seven-figure budgets, but... at some point there HAS to be a cap on how much people give a shit at all, right? R-right??

I tend to like stuff like... ghost hunt shows, which sort of fall into the same category. They give me that "yell at the TV" fix that some people get from sports, lol. And once a year I do get into Bake-Off, haha. There are a couple other exceptions, but the vast majority of it is background noise at best. It's nothing I'd make a point of sitting down to watch, and mostly avoid.
And yeah, almost none of it (even the stuff I like - Bake-Off, Alex is into "Alone" - has much rewatch value. If I've seen how the cake turns out, there's relatively little interest for me in watching it again.
Meanwhile, scripted shows or movies can be rewatched many times. So you're right - I think it's a really narrow view that reality tv is more profitable, because that's not factoring in longevity at all. Unless they just count on there being enough of a firehose of cheap shit that you never run out. That still seems like a limited audience.

And for real - people want STORIES. The kinds with plots and actual characters! The appetite for fanfic, the existence of Kindle Unlimited and such... there is absolutely the desire for that, and I think it's shortsighted to pretend that it's somehow a negligible desire.

Yeah, queer content is probably most at risk, or most likely to be considered an "easy" loss. Though when it comes to preservation, it tends to be easiest to find the things that someone somewhere was very passionate about. Geeky stuff and indie horror makes perfect sense in that context, lol. Geeky genre stuff is probably still the most likely to be "preserved" in that fashion.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it also feels like part of the appeal of reality is the social experience of 'omg that happened' which means niche stuff is going to provide more community and also stuff is going to get dated fast.

I saw an article not long ago about companies hiring writers in lower cost of living areas just to churn out a specific kind of het-omegaverse werewolf serialized porn because of sheer demand. Poorly written, same formula, etc, doesn't matter. People want stories and people want what appeals to them. People might become more dug into finding/obtaining shows or fandom might become more book focused if scripted TV continues to fall apart because everyone wanted to be their own Netflix. It's like... the market and demand is there, it's just that the industry reorganized in a way that it can no longer monetize that need / reach larger audiences. They split the viewerships badly.

[mistressofmuses]

Oh, very much. So much "reality" stuff is very in-the-moment, which is also part of why that rewatchability is so low. It's not just the fact that you know what happens/who wins/etc.; it's that a not-insignificant part of the "reality" is extremely bound to the time in which it happened, and part of the appeal is lost when it's detached from that immediacy.

Geez, that doesn't surprise me. I bet one of them is that "Dreame" company that I occasionally get FB ads from that consist of stolen art tacked onto horribly written Not Like Other Girls Is Gonna End Up With The Asshole Love Interest werewolf porn.
But yeah, people want stories, even if they're predictable and formulaic. And while there are "characters" in the sense of personality archetypes in a lot of reality shows... it's not the same thing.

The splintering of streaming into a good ten+ different subscriptions seems like it's already prevented a fair number of things gaining much longevity in terms of fandom... I'm sure there could be fandom that I'm simply missing. But I hear about how some AppleTV or Paramount Exclusive show are really good, and they fall into the spec-fic-but-also-drama genres that often appeal to the fandomy crowd... yet I don't hear a peep about it in any of the fandom-y spaces I'm in.
To be fair, those are services I don't subscribe to, so I haven't watched those shows, so I'm also not seeking out what fandom there may be for them. But even so, there are tons of shows that I've never watched an episode of, yet I hear about everywhere in pan-fandom comms or by way of the people I follow on tumblr.

But that's very much it - the potential viewership has been DEEPLY splintered, and very little winds up with the critical mass to really take off with fandom. A few do. Stranger Things. Good Omens. But a lot more don't. Then shows get cancelled, pretty much ensuring they'll never get MORE of a following, and none of the streaming services seem able to admit they shot themselves in the foot.
Same with movies, to be honest - as more and more films don't even get a theatrical release, and instead go straight to a streaming platform exclusive. Maybe sometimes that works out and brings in new subscribers, but like... I didn't LIKE most of the Paranormal Activity movies, but they were good popcorn horror flicks, and we saw almost all of them in theaters. But the most recent is a Paramount exclusive, so... I just won't ever see it.

I do wonder if fandom will pivot towards books, or if piracy really will just have a much bigger resurgence... Either or both seem plausible. Or fandom will just be even MORE a case of huge juggernaut fandoms that can sort of sustain themselves and comparatively little else.

[olivermoss]

D+ just pulled a Disney where the sequel is about to come out. *googles* Avatar! They've pulled Avatar with the sequel finally happening soon. Yeah, that is some serious shenanigans.

Everyday I am happy MCU has lost it's hold on me so I don't need to put up with D+ nonsense on top of everything. I did get it briefly to watch Falcon and Winter Soldier. The promos looked good, but the actual show did not work for me and had weird implications for the MCU in general.

I am vaguely aware that Roku has some original this fall that I will want to see, but I keep forgetting what so... Yeah, they do rely on fandom's fondness for certain properties to be a sealed in audience, but they've pushed too far and it no longer works. I have access to Stranger Things, Star Trek and Good Omens. That *shouldn't* be a flex, and yet it is. It's not even a good flex. I feel like I'd get more side-eyed if I said that in most company.

The splintering sucks. There is a lot of old media that should be really cheap/accessible, but instead they aren't. Also, how can films become serious classics, major IPs that are part of our culture, with everything this splintered?

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, that is MAJOR shenanigans. Fucking hell.

I am honestly SO glad that I don't care about the MCU. So glad. (Same with Star Wars.) As much as I may periodically glance wistfully at the juggernaut fandoms with no shortage of content... I am so glad that there's nothing I care about so much that I have to deal with D+. (I'm still tithing to the Disney monster with Hulu, but that still feels less direct.)

Yeah, I do hear periodically about series on various services that sound interesting... but I'm not going to add three or four or seven additional streaming subscriptions just to watch those things. (I was gonna with HBO! Now I really don't want to!) But for real - I feel like that's a conversation that comes up bizarrely often at work, just comparing who has what streaming services, haha.

No kidding! There is so much stuff that shouldn't be difficult to find or to watch, but instead everything is locked behind a paywall! And very much so - it's hard to feel like we're going to have the same concept of classics and cultural touchstones... because everything is locked away for a smaller and smaller audience. I guess there's a hope that FOMO will kick in and suddenly more people are going to subscribe to your service so that they won't miss those classics-in-the-making... but I'm not sure that's really a sustainable model.

Even beyond true fandom-fandom it'll be interesting to see how this does change the cultural landscape. There's so much nostalgia right now for the 80s and the various media properties that have become classics... but I don't know that there's all that much now that will inspire that same longevity, particularly as things *stay* locked to a smaller audience.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, they are kneecapping some of their properties by not letting them find an audience or become cultural touchstones.

The Stargate only streaming platform flopped. Using Community's last season as canon fodder for a new service flopped. There was also some shenanigans around Star Trek Discovery that put me off watching it when it was new. Fandom will re-buy the same things over and over and do lots to get at content, but they have found the giddy limit. Right now I am like 'Leverage is my ride or die, if I can have two I also want Stranger Things'. I will drop everything else if I need to or if they piss me off. I mean, imagine paying a monthly fee for access to one show or IP forever? I can't.

[mistressofmuses]

They really are! I get that everyone wants their exclusive clubs, and the keep hoping for more members... but considering even the top streaming subscription numbers... there will be far more people who CAN'T watch a given property than who CAN. That's going to make it difficult for anything to really hit that critical mass to become those absolute cultural classics.

And I get that I sound like some damn crunchy hippie talking about, like, the art, maaaaan, but... it's really doing a disservice to art as culture. Pop culture is such a thing, but without wide accessibility, it's hard for things to really become a part of that. (MCU and Star Wars aren't going anywhere, I'm sure... but that's based in part on a whole lot of inertia behind those properties and characters, too.)

Oh jeez, there have been so many platforms that have just bellyflopped after trying to bet that one single show is going to be a big enough draw, when... that's REALLY unlikely, and it seems like that would be obvious. And yet!

There is pretty much no property that I'd be interested in paying a subscription for forever. It's like the move from owning software to subscribing to it, and just as much of a nope for me.

[olivermoss]

The original way Discovery was going to be streamed was going to be SO much more money than it typically costs to buy a full season. They just incentivize me to grab a sub for a few months, binge and cancel.

And actually... *cancels Paramount* Halfway through the next season of Strange New Worlds I'll be back.

[mistressofmuses]

Ah yes, I remember that was the issue with Discovery, initially.

I feel like if I DO end up with any additional subscriptions, that'll be what I do, too. Just binge the couple things I was interested in, and then bail for six months until there's something else I care enough about to pay for.

[mxcatmoon]

Are people going to have to start taping things again? No, a lot of current fans won't be able to make that change as they are creations of convenience, they'll just stop consuming the product and yeah, I'm guessing those fandoms will suffer. They got everyone used to having almost everything one could ever want to watch available via streaming - no need for buying physical copies or even saving anything to DVR (and it's not a physical device one owns, but a pseudo DVR that vanishes if one quits the service).

Consumer culture gets ever more out of control. People may want to start buying episodes of their favs again if the option is available. You never know. I own copies of everything I love, except for my newest, Leverage. I too have fallen under the convenience spell of not needing to, that it's always available somewhere when I want to watch it.

It's really sad to hear that scripted departments are going away. On the other hand, maybe fandom has too many choices, is spread too thin, and moves too fast. Perhaps a return to less content might be beneficial. We'll have to wait and see I guess.

The only time I ever had HBO Max was when it came free with my ISP so I don't watch their shows, but I do have Discovery+ and I'm not happy about the merger. I guess the price will be going up (being so cheap is a big reason I'm able to have D+).

[olivermoss]

Right now a LOT of people are offering Infinity Train downloads so maybe we will return to more of a 'cult classic' mindset with media where we just refuse to lost certain things. It's just not something people have had to worry much about for a while. When Amazon started to become a thing access to media got so much easier. It was an explosion of access, especially to niche stuff which had been so hard to find.

Infinity Train fandom in tenacious. We'll have to see what happens.

Also gone are 200 episodes of Sesame Street that were, afaik, made from public funding. Lost Media peoples are serious about Sesame Street stuff. So, that is also going to be interesting. HBO even buying those episodes was controversial partially because, again, those were mostly US taxpayer funded with some grants from charities thrown in.

[mxcatmoon]

Good for them! I'm sure there will always be a group of fans who refuse to just accept the loss of their fav shows. The tenacious ones will survive, as always.

It's not cool at all about those Sesame Street episodes. :(