from the enshittification-ahoy dept
Now that streaming subscriber growth has slowed, we’ve noted repeatedly how the streaming TV sector is falling into all of the bad habits that ultimately doomed traditional cable TV.
That has involved chasing pointless “growth for growth’s sake” megamergers, imposing bottomless price hikes and new annoying restrictions, undermining labor, and cutting corners on product quality in a bid to give Wall Street that sweet, impossible, unlimited, quarterly growth it demands.
Last week Warner Brothers announced it was up for sale; ushering forth yet another acquisition or merger after literally two decades of terrible, harmful mergers (AOL, AT&T, Time Warner, Discovery) resulting in endless price hikes, layoffs, and dysfunction. And if as on cue, the company announced they’d be once again hiking prices on their HBO (Max Extreme Plus) streaming video service:
“HBO Max’s ad plan is going from $10 per month to $11/month. The ad-free plan is going from $17/month to $18.49/month. And the premium ad-free plan (which adds 4K support, Dolby Atmos, and the ability to download more content) is increasing from $21 to $23.
Meanwhile, prices for HBO Max’s annual plans are increasing from $100 to $110 with ads, $170 to $185 without ads, and $210 to $230 for the premium tier.”
The move comes after Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav spent much of last month whining about how the company’s streaming service was “way underpriced.” Despite the fact the company has raised prices every year for the past three years. Zaslav himself has been endlessly criticized for his soaring compensation package that’s never been commensurate with any sort of actual leadership skill.
Again: these are executives all out of original ideas, boxed in by Wall Street’s demand for impossible, endless growth. They can’t deliver consumers and labor what they want (better pay, better product, lower prices, better customer service), so execs have to resort to financial trickery, price hikes, and megamergers to goose stock valuations and provide significant tax relief.
They’re not building or improving anything, they’re just engaged in an elaborate shell game where they shuffle things around and pretend they’re savvy deal makers.
If you’re not familiar with what happens next: Warner Brothers is sold (probably to Larry Ellison and Paramount/CBS, which is already laying off people from its latest merger). The massive debt load triggers even more layoffs and additional price hikes, the quality of the overall product continues to deteriorate, and annoyed customers flee to fee alternatives, including piracy.
At that point the executives responsible blame everything but themselves (generational entitlement! VPNs!) until companies are finally forced to face evolutionary disruption by more convenient, cheaper alternatives, at which point the execs responsible have taken their bag and failed upward to other companies. And the cycle repeats itself all over again.
Filed Under: consolidation, david zaslav, journalism, media, mergers, streaming, video
Companies: hbo, warner bros. discovery
