It’s “shakeout” time as losses of Netflix rivals top $5 billion
arstechnica.com
Disney, Warner, Comcast, and Paramount are contemplating cuts, possible mergers.

The world’s largest traditional entertainment companies face a reckoning in 2024 after losing more than $5 billion in the past year from the streaming services they built to compete with Netflix.

Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Comcast and Paramount—US entertainment conglomerates that have been growing ever larger for decades—are facing pressure to shrink or sell legacy businesses, scale back production and slash costs following billions in losses from their digital platforms.

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“TV advertising is falling far short, cord-cutting is continuing to accelerate, sports costs are going up and the movie business is not performing,” he said. “Everything is going wrong that can go wrong. The only thing [the companies] know how to do to survive is try to merge and cut costs.”

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
    33·
    1 year ago

    Reading between the lines, the days of adfree streaming are coming to an end.

    Assuming this continues, expect the big player to start including ads and, the next step will be removing adfree plans entirely.

    Get you torrenting and Usenet skills up to par. You’re gonna need them.

    • Masterbaexunn@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      Had Hulu with ads a couple months, the worst part about it was that they push the same 3-5 ads, over and over and over.

      Been back to sailing the high seas and never been happier. Even the shittiest YTS download looks better then “4k” streaming services. Their product just is horrible.