Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:39:42 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Well, That's HBO Buggered Then

Started by Blumf, July 10, 2018, 12:29:09 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Blumf

AT&T bought up Time Warner, which owns HBO, and now they're thinking about making it more profitable...

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/att-wants-to-overhaul-hbo-says-it-isnt-profitable-enough/
QuoteAT&T has been the proud owner of HBO for less than a month, and it is already considering an overhaul that would see HBO produce more video that can compete for the attention of smartphone users. AT&T wants to boost revenue both in advertising and subscriptions, even if that means upending HBO's longtime strategy of producing a relatively small number of high-quality shows.
...
"It's going to be a tough year," Stankey said, according to the Times article. "It's going to be a lot of work to alter and change direction a little bit."

So, it'll be the usual merger dance: First off, fire a load of people, then, stop making the kind of shows that put HBO on the map.

Oh well, at least we've got Netflix and Prime for now.

spamwangler

I recon they will just accelerate the volume of tits per episode, until it's just a screen packed tightly with compressed disembodied tits, the muffled sound of acting faintly audible from the seething, heaving mass of knockers

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

"How can we get more golden eggs out of this goose?"


BlodwynPig


Malcy

I see HBO like an American BBC. Any show I've watched from them has been nothing short of brilliant. And often one of my favourites.

6 Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the amazing OZ. Hope it doesn't go down the shitter. Would this mean that they might have add in the shows? I think they don't at the moment.

Z

HBO haven't exactly been producing much in the way of hits (commercial or critical) in recently years though.
Which isn't to say they've been totally shitting the bed, The Deuce has a strong chance of growing into something really good.
I personally like a lot of their smaller efforts by relative newbies a lot too (e.g. Insecure and Looking, Girls too tbh). I suspect HBO are very good at pairing raw younger talent with experienced people in all aspects of production to help them along in a way that Netflix either hasn't a notion of or your Aziz Ansari's and the like actively turn down the option of.

Enrico Palazzo

Quote from: Z on July 10, 2018, 11:07:00 PM
HBO haven't exactly been producing much in the way of hits (commercial or critical) in recently years though.
Which isn't to say they've been totally shitting the bed, The Deuce has a strong chance of growing into something really good.
I personally like a lot of their smaller efforts by relative newbies a lot too (e.g. Insecure and Looking, Girls too tbh). I suspect HBO are very good at pairing raw younger talent with experienced people in all aspects of production to help them along in a way that Netflix either hasn't a notion of or your Aziz Ansari's and the like actively turn down the option of.

High Maintenance is great too.

Golden E. Pump

Oz, The Wire, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones. That's quite the catalogue. I'd say they're probably the best at TV.

Mister Six

Quote from: Blumf on July 10, 2018, 12:29:09 PM
Oh well, at least we've got Netflix and Prime for now.

And that's really just Prime, if you're looking for consistent quality. Netflix will throw cash at any old shit, so for every BoJack Horseman you have an Iron Fist and a Gypsy.

bgmnts

God just thinking about Oz makes me want to pluck out my own heart with a rusty bread knife.

Is there a more depressing, grotty show?

Shaky

Quote from: bgmnts on July 11, 2018, 02:44:24 PM
God just thinking about Oz makes me want to pluck out my own heart with a rusty bread knife.

Is there a more depressing, grotty show?

Gogglebox.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Golden E. Pump on July 11, 2018, 02:13:35 PM
Oz, The Wire, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones. That's quite the catalogue. I'd say they're probably the best at TV.

None of them as good as Pie in the Sky.

remedial_gash

Quote from: bgmnts on July 11, 2018, 02:44:24 PM
God just thinking about Oz makes me want to pluck out my own heart with a rusty bread knife.

Is there a more depressing, grotty show?

Probably not, but didn't it go to shit after Simon Adabisi died? Think I gave up after that.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: remedial_gash on July 11, 2018, 11:00:56 PM
Probably not, but didn't it go to shit after Simon Adabisi died? Think I gave up after that.
Towards the end it jumped the shark, back and forth, about fifteen fucking times

gib

Quote from: bgmnts on July 10, 2018, 01:14:30 PM
Capitalism strikes again!

would make the Guffaw thread for me but i'm really pissed so it doesn't count

remedial_gash

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 11, 2018, 11:22:56 PM
Towards the end it jumped the shark, back and forth, about fifteen fucking times

Probably should have persevered, and after that news that HBO might be fucked I looked it up on IMDB , is every HBO actor British? Ok in Oz it was only Simon and murderous cunt Kareem Said but they have form (HBO).

They've never bettered The Larry Sanders Show, but then nothing has.

a peepee tipi

Oz is a hoot, the bit where Tobias straight up berserker barrages Patrick Starr  is gritty drama at its finest.

I love the first episode but it's just silly fun for me from there on, never thought dicks and rape could be so entertaining admittedly. Older brother spent time in a maximum security prison in the 90's, hellish stories of what you'd expect from the American prison system. I remember him regularly laughing at Oz, shit I'm thinking about Leon appearing suddenly at the end of a wedding line shirtless and in a leather vest before opening fire on the bride and groom and it's making me laugh, whereas we had to stop watching The Wire because it would made him physically squirm. Hard not to let that color your view of the show

Carry on

Hobo With A Shit Pun

Quote from: Mister Six on July 11, 2018, 02:40:35 PM
For every BoJack Horseman you have an Iron Fist and a Gypsy.

Herbert Hoover would wisely choose to stick with "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage", ignoring the third promise.

imitationleather

Quote from: a peepee tipi on July 12, 2018, 10:49:17 AM
Oz is a hoot, the bit where Tobias straight up berserker barrages Patrick Starr  is gritty drama at its finest.

I love the first episode but it's just silly fun for me from there on, never thought dicks and rape could be so entertaining admittedly. Older brother spent time in a maximum security prison in the 90's, hellish stories of what you'd expect from the American prison system. I remember him regularly laughing at Oz, shit I'm thinking about Leon appearing suddenly at the end of a wedding line shirtless and in a leather vest before opening fire on the bride and groom and it's making me laugh, whereas we had to stop watching The Wire because it would made him physically squirm. Hard not to let that color your view of the show

Carry on

My personal rule for Oz is:
Utterly amazing up to the middle episode of Season 4.
Total, total, total, total, total shite from then on.

In many ways s04e08 would have made a perfect final episode, with lots of plot strands coming together and finishing, rather than what we actually got at the end of season 6: a two-hour special involving loads of crap brand new characters you didn't give a fuck about because they'd rather foolishly spent the entire previous couple of seasons killing off almost everyone of note. s04e09, where the news crew spends a night in the prison, is one of the worst episodes I have ever seen of anything, and really set the tone of what was to come.

George Oscar Bluth II

Aw man, imagine how good The Wire would have been if they'd optimised it for watching on a smartphone screen on my commute and it had only been 5 minutes an episode. Brilliant!

Quote from: remedial_gash on July 12, 2018, 12:15:10 AM
Probably should have persevered, and after that news that HBO might be fucked I looked it up on IMDB , is every HBO actor British? Ok in Oz it was only Simon and murderous cunt Kareem Said but they have form (HBO).

British actors are cheaper. Genuinely, that's the reason. To get top American acting talent you're competing with network TV there and Hollywood. Top British actors are paid a pittance in comparison for being in, like, BBC One cop dramas or whatever.

mothman

Is that correct? They're considered cheaper? Given how protectionist the Yanks are about... well, everything, I'm surprised that's been allowed to happen. Aren't there scale rates for guest actors etc.?