Warner Bros CEO Laments ‘Terrible’ Streaming TV Experience’ He Created, Proposes More Shitty Mergers And Price Hikes As The Fix
from the incompetent-failsons dept
We’ve mentioned repeatedly how the AT&T–>Time Warner–>Discovery series of media mergers were some of the most destructive and pointless business efforts ever, resulting in tens of thousands of layoffs, the cancellation of endless popular programs, higher prices for consumers, and a shittier overall product.
One of the men at the heart of this dysfunction has been Warner Brothers Discovery CEO Davide Zaslav, whose outsized executive compensation packages keep skyrocketing despite no limit of bumbling. He’s highly representative of a streaming video industry that’s on the fast track to enshittification, where execs think “innovation” means big mergers, price hikes, shittier content, and crackdowns on password sharing.
At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference last week, Zaslav thought he would give some deep thought into what’s wrong with modern television. Zaslav laments what he calls a “a terrible consumer experience” across television, apparently oblivious to the fact he’s been directly responsible. His big complaint is there are too many choices and too much competition:
“The marketplace is really challenged with too many players in the market,” Zaslav said. “When people turn on — the consumers put on their TV, it’s a terrible consumer experience. In almost every market in the world, there’s just way too many choices. And you’re googling, ‘Where is it? How do I get from one to the other? How do I get into that platform?’”
Zaslav is partially right: streaming has become a fractured and confusing landscape of a myriad of different companies all rushing to the trough. Content licenses and catalogs shift without warning making it difficult to impossible for many consumers to find what they’re looking for on any consistent basis.
But Zaslav’s “solution” to this hasn’t been innovation; it’s generally been more shitty mergers like the terrible ones he’s overseen so far. He’s been an avid Trump supporter because Trump doesn’t believe in things like media consolidation limits or functional regulatory oversight, stuff Zaslav’s been excited about because he thinks it will usher forth a wave of new, unprecedented media consolidation.
Zaslav’s other ingenious solution for the streaming shitshow he helped create? More price hikes:
“The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and and streaming quality — we all we think that gives us a chance to raise price,” he said. “We think we’re way underpriced. We’re going to take our time.”
This is fairly delusional, coming from the guy who shifted HBO from The Sopranos to stuff like Fuckboy Island. It’s not clear he even sees that he’s demanding more money for shittier product, while simultaneously stripping away perks and functionality.
Guys like Zaslav fancy themselves savvy dealmakers but the irony is they’re not even particularly good at predatory capitalism. They’re fail upward overpaid brunchlord types who are engaged in a sort of weird performance for very short lived quarterly gains. Almost always at the cost of longer term company survival and a steady erosion in brand perception and customer loyalty.
The kind of stuff TV consumers actually want: cheaper, easier plans, improved customer service, more features, better designed apps, and better content — don’t sync up with the quest for impossible quarterly growth, which is why Zaslav actively opposes such things. It’s effectively the same sort of thinking that has doomed traditional cable companies.
By the time the check truly comes due for Zaslav’s mismanagement, he’ll be either headed out the door for retirement or jettisoned by yet another pointless merger (like the potential looming CBS/Ellison acquisition of Zaslav’s company, which is what all this seems to be pointed to). More consolidation, worse product, higher prices, all on repeat, with nobody in the extraction class facing accountability or learning a single useful thing from the experience.
Filed Under: competition, consolidation, david zaslav, media, mergers, prices, streaming, tv, video
Companies: warner bros. discovery
Comments on “Warner Bros CEO Laments ‘Terrible’ Streaming TV Experience’ He Created, Proposes More Shitty Mergers And Price Hikes As The Fix”
I’ve turn my Zaslav-English translator on:
“there’s just way too many choices” = Please allow merges
“too many players in the market” = To buy WBD
“it’s a terrible consumer experience” = And then fire me
“And you’re googling” = Because I’m tired to pretend I know what I’m doing.
Oh, they learned a few things. “Here is how to walk away with a skip-load of money”. They learned that quite well.
I’m old enough to remember when TLC went from being The Learning Channel to airing shows about a dude whose nards were so big he had to wear a hoodie upside down to carry them around in and even this programming heel turn threw me for a loop.
Zaslav isn’t to blame.
It is every single consumer that bends over for it.
Re:
You’re pretty fucking stupid.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it forever: the endpoint of unregulated capitalism is legal theft. That’s the ultimate profit maximization and cost minimization.
Scams are a type of theft.
Streaming entertainment is fast becoming a scam, if it wasn’t already.
Cancel your subscriptions. I promise, you won’t miss anything. Go get a good book and read it somewhere comfy outside.
Like a nuclear reduction agreement...
If copyright hadn’t messed up what is available in the public domain, we might have more opportunities for better streaming options.
Zaslav could free the content from the Warner libraries and encourage other media companies to do the same.
Enshittification of services, meet piracy
All this is going to do is drive more people to the seven seas. People are slowly waking up to enshittification of products that they’re using (cable and streaming services in this case) on a daily basis and don’t want to pay more money for a crappier product.
I actually agree with him!
I totally support consolidation in the streaming market, because I’m already practicing consolidation:
I pay for Netflix. Period.
Any company that wants my money should license their stuff to Netflix, because that’s the only streaming company I will ever use.
I’d happily pay $50/mo for a Netflix that had everything. Instead, I pay them ~$18/mo and pirate everything else I want to watch.
Zaslav
Before Cable.
3-10 channels, depending On Town/City.
Cable come in and Wow, MAYBE 20 channels.
Weel all the corps THINK, that if they can make More channels, they can Show more Shows, and get More Adverts to people.
200 channels later, when the Corps Keep running out of SHOWS to Show, and everything repeats, OVER AND OVER on THAT corps 10+ Channels. Then sell those shows to Another Corps, channels.
ITS the System YOU CREATED. It got So Boring that Someone had the IDEA to Broadcast OLD shows. that had NOT seen the light of Day for 10-20+ years.
NOW we have a Star trek Channel. Sit and Rot in a Chair Watching ALL the Shows created.
WHAT you arnt saying.
Is that you Arnt making MORE money(Adverts/ Commercials) for ALL the Channels you have, so you are going to CUT BACK, What you Just Bought.
1/2 your Problem, is the Cost of Cable TV. Its NOT cheap OR FREE. For all the money you Make, Cable is the middleman.
And even as the USA has REAL problems when you Compare COSTS in other countries. Twice as Much for 1/2 the speed. The Internet Is Fantastic. And YOU cant afford to BUY YOUTUBE.
He heard ’90s nostalgia was big now and he figured that meant HBO should go back to showing cheap crap.
Remove exclusivity. Add mandatory mechanical licensing.
Somebody should direct Zas to justwatch.com. That’s how you find where stuff is. Yeesh.
Churning around the platforms and hoovering up whatever is good for 1-2 months before moving on is pretty easy and very cheap. Others may come up with other solutions but there’s no reason to wave your hands helplessly.
Re:
justwatch.com is good but not exhaustive. Its listings for Tubi don’t seem to be complete, for example, and it only seems to list PBS Kids as an Amazon sub-channel and not a free site in itself.