CHICAS PRODUCTIONS: Hulu

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. But in the last three years its economy has collapsed. Hunger has gripped the nation for years. Now, it’s killing people and animals that are dying of starvation. The Venezuelan government knows, but won’t admit it!!! Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are also dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year. Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country - 7% of the population.

Showing posts with label Hulu. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Netflix's net gains nettle networks and theater owners...

Netflix seems to be aggravating everyone but the 40 million people who subscribe to its service. The company that started as an innovative deliver-DVDs-by-mail service has become a major player in the television industry, scaring and angering competitors in the process.

This autumn has brought landmark moments for the folks at Netflix. The company has bought rights to reruns of the Showtime series "Dexter," keeping exclusive rights out of the hands of its streaming rivals Amazon Prime and Hulu.

They shook up the Emmy Awards by garnering nominations for the Netflix original series, "House of Cards" – a first for an online-only production company. They have surpassed cable heavyweight HBO in number of U.S. subscribers. And they have ticked off movie theater owners by insisting that theaters should not have the exclusive right to debut new films.

PHOTOS: Horsey on Hollywood

At the 2013 Film Independent Forum, Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix, said consumers should decide where they want to see a new movie. "Why not premiere movies on Netflix the same day they're opening in theaters?" he asked.

The theater owners' response was that such a development would be the ruin of their business. Netflix already killed off the DVD rental trade, they said, and they do not want to be the next to go the way of blacksmiths and buggy whip manufacturers.

HBO and Fox executives have also criticized Netflix, challenging the company to do as everyone else in the business does and release ratings numbers for their programs. If the Netflix original series "Orange Is the New Black" truly is as popular as Netflix claims, the cable rivals ask, why not prove it with the numbers?

PHOTOS: Billion-dollar box-office club

To that, Sarandos has sharp rejoinders. For one thing, he says, slavish attention to overnight ratings undercuts creativity. (He is a guy who buys entire seasons of shows without even seeing a pilot.)

For another, Netflix is not seeking advertisers, the people who are most obsessed with ratings. And, finally, Netflix does not need a ratings service to provide them with solid numbers; they already know exactly when each subscriber clicks a mouse or track pad to call up another episode of a show.

Netflix is playing by its own rules and, in the process, may be changing the game for everyone else.

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Study: Only 14 Percent of Cable Customers Satisfied; 73 Percent Want a la Carte

PwC finds that though customers want changes, they aren't willing to pay much for them: "With TV in such a state of flux, companies must revisit their business models," says PwC analyst Matthew Lieberman.

A la carte television programming is a popular concept among consumers who presume they'd save money by ditching channels they don't watch, but given that only 38 percent would be willing to pay more than $3 per channel each month, it's not likely the idea will catch on with TV providers who aren't inclined to stray from bundling. Not at that price.

Hollywood, Take Note: Here's What TV Viewers Really Want (Guest Column)

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman Doesn't Expect A La Carte Cable Law

A new study out Wednesday from PricewaterhouseCoopers says that 44 percent of consumers would like a total a la carte system and that 73 percent of consumers would prefer a la carte or at least more customization of packages than is currently offered. Only 14 percent are satisfied with the status quo.

When it comes down to it, though, even customers who want such changes aren't willing to pay much for them. Sixteen percent, for example, say they won't pay more than 99 cents a month for a channel they want, while 24 percent will pay $1.99 and 22 percent will pay $2.99.
At $8 a month per channel, the highest option offered in the PwC survey, only 5 percent say they'd pay up.

The survey also indicates that 57 percent would not pay more than 99 cents a month for access to an individual show each month, while 20 percent would pay $1.99 and 12 percent would pay $2.99. Only 2 percent would pay $8 a month for a show.

Despite the lowly amounts that surely would be dismissed as unfeasible by distributors and content providers alike, TV executives would be wise to note the popularity of the a la carte concept, says PwC entertainment, media and communications analyst Matthew Lieberman.

GUEST COLUMN: Hollywood, Take Note: Here's What TV Viewers Really Want

"With TV in such a state of flux, companies must revisit their business models," says Lieberman. "The winners will be those that offer custom services or curate content in the most appealing ways."
For its study, PwC also held focus groups. "I have a bunch of channels that just sit there," one participant said. "If they could take them off and lower my bill each month, that would be great."
If given the a la carte option, 65 percent say they would subscribe to 10 or more channels, the most popular being basic cable offerings, followed, in order, by premium cable, sports, lifestyle, news, premium sports and children's programming.

The comprehensive PwC report also explores ways that consumers currently watch television, how they discover new shows and the amount of advertising they're willing to view in lieu of subscription fees. In regard to the latter, the rule is simple: The smaller the screen, the fewer the number of ads viewers will tolerate.

TV online is dominated by Netflix to the tune of 63 percent, while 49 percent go to the websites of the TV networks for their online viewing, 35 percent to Hulu, 28 percent to Amazon Prime, 25 percent to iTunes and 24 percent to HBO Go. Three percent go to Pirate Bay.

Only 14 percent say they prefer a web service for their TV viewing, but 31 percent acknowledge that the availability of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others decreases the value of television to them.
PwC found that 55 percent of TV viewers use their mobile devices while watching television and, of those, 56 percent use them for activities specific to a particular TV show.

Lieberman said focus groups revealed that consumers want more programming guidance from TV service providers. For now, 59 percent say they find new shows through recommendations from friends or family, 45 percent through channel flipping and 42 percent via advertisements. Only 4 percent discover new shows through social media.

Not surprising, DVRs are hugely popular, with 57 percent of consumers saying they record most of their shows for later viewing. Ten percent say they engage in "binge viewing" and 7 percent acknowledge that they often record shows but never watch them.

PwC surveyed 1,008 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 59. Seventy percent of the respondents have cable TV, 41 percent have Netflix, 26 percent subscribe to satellite, 18 percent use Amazon Prime, 16 percent use iTunes and 8 percent use Hulu.

"This study shows that during the next five years, an even greater portion of viewing of and interaction with TV and film content will take place on multiple screens and devices," says Lieberman. "Hollywood must adapt accordingly."

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How Much TV Is Too Much TV?

As the Television Critics Association press tour winds down -- Friday is the last day -- one mostly exciting but partly troublesome theme has been unavoidable.

TCA 2012: Jenji Kohan, Mary-Louise Parker Reflect on Final Season of 'Weeds'
There's a lot of original scripted content looking to get noticed. And the vast volume of it, growing aggressively the past few years, is making it harder for cable channels to stand out and find an audience.

TCA 2012: TV's Winners, Losers and What Was Overheard

Obviously we're in a full-blown 52-week television season with no signs of letup. What that means for viewers is that their options have increased significantly, but so has the sense that they can't keep track of it as it piles up on their DVRs. Never has it been harder for niche cable channels to plant their flag and capture the attention of viewers. And while it might be a great time to be a voracious lover of television, with options galore, for content providers there's a lot of money at stake in this original scripted Renaissance.

On Tuesday, Hulu was at TCA touting its streaming options, which include a new Larry King talk show and the continued importing of British series such as The Thick of It, Rev and Misfits, plus the Israeli series Prisoners of War, which Showtime's Homeland is based on. Hulu also has a travel series called Up to Speed, hosted by Timothy "Speed" Levitch and directed by Richard Linklater.

At the same time Hulu was here, Netflix (which did not present at TCA but likely will soon) was in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters, touting its original content. The streaming service had Weeds creator Jenji Kohan, who is making Orange Is the New Black, a series about a woman's time in a minimum-security prison; Eli Roth, who is making the murder-mystery series Hemlock Grove with Famke Janssen; and the cast of cult comedy Arrested Development, which will have a high-profile season on Netflix before making its movie. Arrested Development has generated tons of buzz, as has the 2013 premiere of the David Fincher and Kevin Spacey project, House of Cards.

TCA 2012: HBO Execs on Larry David, Aaron Sorkin and the Future of 'Game of Thrones'
Whether any of that works remains to be seen – Lilyhammer, the series Netflix got its feet wet with, is still available on the service, but there's no truly accurate way to tell how it has performed (reviews were mixed). Nevertheless, this next batch is even more content for viewers to choose from, and this time it's a lot more high profile.

On Wednesday, back at TCA, new and returning series were presented by BBC America, including the much-anticipated second season of The Hour, plus a new espionage series called The Spies of Warsaw with David Tennant, based on the books of Alan Furst. But the big push for the channel is Copper, its first original drama, created by Will Rokos, the Oscar-nominated writer of Monster's Ball, who also has written and produced for Southland. The period piece is set in 1864 New York City (Five Points, Fifth Avenue "and the emerging African-American community in northern Manhattan) and centers on post-Civil War cops. It's co-created by Tom Fontana (who will be the showrunner) and executive produced by Barry Levinson.

HBO also presented at TCA on Wednesday, but the major push was the repositioning of Cinemax, which started a year ago with the launch of Strike Back, a series that garnered a surprising amount of critical acclaim and kicks off its second season later this month.

TCA 2012: 'Copper' EPs and Cast Tout BBC America's Big Budget Scripted Original
Kary Antholis, president of programming for Cinemax (and HBO miniseries), said the plan was to "distinguish the Cinemax brand as a premium destination for entertaining, cinematic and compelling original series."

It won't be easy to get out of HBO's shadow or shake off the old "Skinemax" moniker, but Strike Back was a successful start and the channel will follow in October with Hunted, "a conspiracy action thriller set in the world of corporate espionage," starring Melissa George (In Treatment) and created by The X-Files alum Frank Spotnitz (who also helped on the first season of Strike Back). Then, in early 2013, the channel will premiere the new series Banshee from creator Alan Ball.

Perhaps to drive home how hard it is to stand out in a crowded field, the pay cable channels Encore and Starz came to press tour Thursday, with the spotlight firmly on Boss, the Kelsey Grammer series starting its second season Aug. 17. Although many critics found Boss to be compelling if uneven, the performance of Grammer was brilliant from start to finish, but he was snubbed for an Emmy (something he noted at TCA).

Starz also made inroads with the Sopranos-meets-Mad Men style of Magic City, a series that really found itself near the end of its recently completed first season. Both Boss and Magic City built on the profile the channel created with Spartacus (it has other offerings in 2013, including Da Vinci's Demons from creator David S. Goyer).

TCA 2012: Larry King On His New Hulu Show and CNN's Ratings Woes

The question is, how do these series stand out in a crowded field? How do they reach a viewing audience seemingly overwhelmed with options? There's obviously a lot of money at stake. BBC America needs to come off as more than just a retransmission service for its Brit parent. Starz has to up its game to compete with HBO and Showtime. And Cinemax has to get more series on its bench to be taken seriously as a separate, worthwhile entity from HBO.

The plus side to all of this is that there's an incredible amount of quality in the marketplace. More scripted series means more people employed, just as it means a higher profile upon success for each entity producing the shows. But none of this is going to be easy. These channels are going to have to steal audience from more established outlets, which puts pressure on channels such as Showtime, HBO, AMC and FX to keep product in the pipeline or risk losing traction – and relevance – with the viewing audience.

It almost makes you think it would be crazy to get into the scripted game. And it just might be, since sustaining this amount of content will rely on generous advertising budgets, creatively effective promotion and serious online and social media components.

We're about to find out what the threshold is for how many series dedicated viewers can keep up with. Godspeed, everybody.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

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Hulu to Launch in Japan...

UPDATED: Content deal includes "CSI" franchise and marks the streaming firm's first overseas expansion.

TOKYO – Hulu will launch its first international operations with a subscription service in Japan, offering streaming of CBS shows, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI Miami, CSINY, NICS and 90210, under a content deal with CBS Corp..

'Modern Family' creator: Why I took on Hulu

Analyst: Selling Hulu Would Be `a Mistake of Epic Proportions' for Entertainment Giants
The ad-free service will allow unlimited access to movies and a library of shows, including Numb3rs, Star Trek and Twin Peaks, for 1,480 yen ($19) per month from web-connected TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets and PC's "With the launch in Japan, Hulu is focused on adding meaningfully to the entertainment choices available to Japanese consumers, while providing a valuable new channel for distribution, increased consumer reach and incremental monetization for our premium content partners," said Johannes Larcher, SVP of international for Hulu.

Hulu announced in August that its first overseas operation would be in Japan, and opened an office in Tokyo, though no further details were given at the time.

"We're thrilled to have CBS's world class content be part of Hulu's first international market and their new venture in Japan," said Armando Nuñez, president, CBS Studios International.

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Analysts Warn of Possible Downside of Digital Boon for Entertainment Giants...

While such Hollywood conglomerates as CBS and Viacom beat earnings expectations due to deals with the likes of Netflix, BTIG's Richard Greenfield warns that the "love affair with digital licensing may not play out as anticipated."

NEW YORK - Digital distribution deals for library content with the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.com boosted CBS Corp.'s, Viacom's and Comcast-controlled NBCUniversal's latest quarterly financials, which they reported this week.

Wall Street analysts agreed that a good part of the upside earnings surprises particularly of the two Sumner Redstone-controlled entertainment giants was due to digital revenue and profit. But some of them also wondered whether there will be a risk and long-term downside to the boon in the quarter.

"Digital drives the upside," Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang said about Viacom's Friday results.

BTIG's Richard Greenfield estimated the entertainment giant's quarterly revenue boost from content deals with Netflix and Hulu at around $70 million. And Wang said: "The upside in the quarter was driven by high-margin digital revenues, for example deals with Netflix and Hulu, which accounted for 10 cents per share, or around 80 percent, of the variance with our earnings per share estimate."

Similarly, Barclays Capital's Anthony DiClemente highlighted that CBS reported "a very strong second-quarter in part driven by incremental revenue from its digital media deal with Netflix."
"Of the media companies that have reported this week, Viacom, CBS and Comcast handily beat expectations in part due to the high-margin flow-through of new deals with Netflix and/or Hulu," Nomura analyst Michael Nathanson summarized in a report late Friday. "Two other companies – Discovery and Time Warner – have resisted these "big" jumps into the online water and did not produce the same sized domestic surprise."

DiClemente added that Time Warner has the largest TV library with over 50,000 episodes and could be next to do deals. "Given the deals that CBS and NBC have struck with Netflix and Amazon, we anticipate TW would tee off a similar deal shortly," he said. "Management indicated ongoing discussions with all of the digital outlets."

Greenfield cautioned though that industry CEOs shouldn't be blinded and argued that too much availability of TV content online could ultimately affect TV viewership.
The title of his comments late in the week: "Media's Online Gold Rush or Catch-22? Who Are The Losers? We Cannot Believe Everybody Wins."

"As the U.S. multichannel video market matures and home entertainment revenues fall, media companies have a new best-friend, called digital licensing," he said. After skepticism about digital distribution just a few years ago, when former NBCUni CEO Jeff Zucker spoke of digital pennies for analog dollars, it now feels "as if everyone in Hollywood's new favorite drug is called "digital" and it appears to be quite addictive."

Greenfield's conclusion: "We would love to think that digital is all incremental - viewing and profit-wise, but our gut says the market/press love affair with digital licensing may not play out as anticipated. Just a matter of when that becomes clear and who gets hurt first/most."
Nathanson similarly highlighted that Wall Street loved the digital boon reported by Viacom, CBS and Comcast/NBCUni. "These digital dollars helped drive 2012 earnings revisions higher," he said.

Just like Greenfield's, his warning contained a mention of a potential negative effect of online availability of content on TV viewing. But he also included a reference to the music industry.
"The swing amongst analysts from fearing digital deals to welcoming them as sources of upside surprise reminds us of a time in our previous lifetime," Nathanson wrote. "From 1998 to 2004, we had the glorious chance to cover the global music industry -the first consumer media industry that was being affected by the emergence of the Internet."

Nathanson recalled that back then most on Wall Street had negative views on music companies as the CD market matured and piracy took its toll. When Steve Jobs and Apple the iPod and iTunes, "for a brief period, the parabolic growth of digital music downloads combined with a short term "improving" decline in CD sales (due to folks converting their favorite CD to their iPods) actually produced a temporary positive inflection in U.S. music sales," he explained.

But music fundamentals continued to suffer. Nathanson continued: "Record stores went out of business as it was hard to compete with 99 cents downloads delivered electronically versus $14 albums. Music companies suffered due to that self-inflicted deflationary act." Meanwhile, Apple saw its stock price grow from $8 to over $350, he added.

"The current content licensing deals make a ton of sense as lower valued shows are now being sold to a greater number of buyers," Nathanson concluded before sharing some advice with Hollywood conglomerates: "Our hope remains for media execs to continue to be vigilant and broker future deals that will efficiently monetize library content, rather than follow an ideal that all digital deals are good."

He even outlined the likeliest near-term risk - viewers changing their TV behavior, which could be "adversely affecting networks that don't offer live, exclusive or premium content."

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Hulu announces plans to launch service in Japan...

Hulu plans to expand its reach into Japan.

On Wednesday, Hulu, the popular online video site, said it would ramp up its international expansion later this year by offering a monthly subscription service in Japan.

Hulu declined to say how much it would charge for the service, or how its program line-up might be different from its free Hulu site or its recently introduced $7.99 a month Hulu Plus subscription service available in the U.S. Those details would be revealed closer to launch, a company spokeswoman said.

"Since the very beginning of Hulu, we have had our aspirations firmly set on serving audiences around the globe," Johannes Larcher, the company's senior vice president in charge of international, said in a company blog post.

"In Japan, we also see an unfulfilled market need with respect to premium feature film and TV content, and very favorable environmental factors to a service like ours, including extensive broadband penetration, smart phone and other internet-connected device ubiquity, and strong consumer interest," Larcher said.

Hulu also is dipping its toe into original productions. On Aug. 17, it plans to unveil a documentary series -- exclusive to Hulu -- called "A Day in the Life" and produced by Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker behind "Super Size Me" and "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold."

In "A Day in the Life," Spurlock spends 24 hours following interesting personalities, including British business mogul Richard Branson, rapper and songwriter will.i.am and comedian Russell Peters.

The company is hoping to make itself attractive to possible investors. The owners of Hulu -- Walt Disney Co., News Corp., NBCUniversal and Providence Equity Partners -- are quietly shopping the 3-year-old service to strategic partners, including Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Netflix's net gains nettle networks and theater owners...

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Study: Only 14 Percent of Cable Customers Satisfied; 73 Percent Want a la Carte

Saturday, August 25, 2012

How Much TV Is Too Much TV?

Monday, September 5, 2011

Hulu to Launch in Japan...

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Analysts Warn of Possible Downside of Digital Boon for Entertainment Giants...

Hulu announces plans to launch service in Japan...