Show Vs. Business

SvB:One of these services is going to go away

January 12, 2023 Theo Harvey | Mr Benja
Show Vs. Business
SvB:One of these services is going to go away
Show Notes Transcript

This week Theo and Mr Benja discuss how  Streaming TV is costly, and people probably want to pay less. Is something about to change?


Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and  Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.

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Mr Benja: Are we are? Are we on? Are we live? 

Theo: All right, we're on. We are alive. Let's go. 

Mr Benja: Let's go, let's go. 2023, baby. We're jumping back in it. YouTube style. How you feeling, man? 

Theo: Feeling good, man. Feeling good. Let's talk about it, man. What we get into today? 

Mr Benja: You know, I I gotta tell you, the first thing that I basically did in 2023 was, that I let H B O max stay on my subscription list.

I was supposed to cancel it and not pick up again until, I don't know, maybe Hot D season two came out or something, but I got nothing I wanna watch in H B O Max and they just got me for another month.

Theo: Oh man, that sucks. Dude. That sucks. . Well, guess what? Same thing happened to me. Disney Plus I was trying to cancel or renew before they went up in their prices.

I missed out on it. So now I'm paying way more than I should be paying for Disney Plus, so it's. Yeah, the streaming services are killing us, man. Killing us. 

Mr Benja: They wait, they got you for a year, cuz you did the yearly, right? 

Theo: Yeah, they got me for the yearly. But I forgot to renew before, I think it was like December 3rd or something like that, to lock it in at the lower price point.

So, oh, I, I missed that. I missed that. I missed that deadline. And so now, or I had to pay the you know, I think it's like a hundred bucks now. So for the yearly subscription for Disney plus. 

Mr Benja: Okay, so if you're in the middle of your subscription, you could've just said, I wanna renew, like right now. Gimme a year right now, and you would've gotten a year at the lower price.

Ah, okay.

Theo: Absolutely, absolutely. So so yeah, so I'm like, you man. So, and then, yeah, and I've been canceling subscription services too, so, so yeah, man, this, this is real, man. This is real. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. You were telling me on the business side that streaming services are, they're trying to, you. Tighten up in their finances and do some new things.

What, what are they doing right now? 

Theo: Oh man, . What is going on? Streaming World man. I mean, you know, they call it the great correction when Netflix basically stock plummeted like 40% back in May. And basically they found out that subscription services. , they're expensive to put on all this content out there for folks, and it's very hard to make these profitable.

And so when Netflix started losing subscribers because of competition and all that, people kind of freaked out. And so now a lot of these subscription services, when at one time it's all about growth. have now pivoted more to, you know, sustainable, profitable growth. And unfortunately the only company that is profitable at this point is Netflix,

Even the great Disney Plus is losing money right now on content for streaming services. 

Mr Benja: That, that seems, that seems wild. And when you think about all the streaming services and the news they're putting out there about all of them, like, oh, you gotta get this service and this service. Some, your regular person, a lay person would just think that, oh yeah, they're just rolling in money now, but they're not.

Theo: Nah, man. Not about any stretch of imagination. I mean, I think, you know some unheard number, I think it was like 17 billion net Netflix spent, Disney spent like 7 billion on content TV for TV shows and stuff. Like, and, you know, some of these shows we watch, I mean, look at Loki, right? That, that was a, you know, a lot of money was spent in cer certain areas.

So these, these TV shows aren't cheap and producing them hasn't been, , but it's just, it's, it's just fascinating what's happening in the streaming world. And so not only are they seeing the, the, the expenses of creating the content, but they're seeing the expenses of keeping the content. Cuz if they keep it, there's, there's, you know, requirements for resi, residuals, you know, payments to actors, you know, there's payments to keep the, you know, the, the.

the, the, the content, like your favorite content, worst world on the servers. Oh. And so they cut my, they cut my Westworld mother. Go ahead. So H B O and other folks are starting to realize, you know what? Well, HBO O Max is really bad at this. They're going back into their library, which is one time, Hey, we wanna keep 'em active and going.

They've decided to say, Hey, you know what we're. Cut 'em off the service. Right. And what they're probably gonna do is probably repackage it and sell it off to another su, you know, another subscription service to make money off of it. As opposed to just sitting in their servers. Yeah. And having to pay residuals and all this other stuff in backends.

to people who create the content. So it's kind of like they, they're moving from a, a cost center to a profit center right. With this content. And so it's kind of interesting. But yeah, man, they're, they're looking at ways to cut costs and they're looking at ways to, you know, minimize the, the, you know, it really is all about cutting costs at this point.

Mr Benja: okay. So, well, Netflix is the only one that's profitable and I suppose Disney Plus has, its. There's a whole marketing reason for having Disney Plus exist, right? I don't know if they've really integrated their commerce in there. I've seen some things happen where, you know, where they're trying to build in e-commerce into their product, but I, I see Disney Plus as being like a marketing thing for a lot of their properties.

What I, I don't know what the rest of these cats are gonna do besides Netflix and, you know, Disney. 

Theo: Yeah, good point. I mean well, you know, a lot of them, even Netflix right, to kind of help generate additional revenue. Yes. The, you know, the angle to go after merchandising, integrating that into their, I think you told me Amazon is starting doing that little, little bit better, right?

Because Amazon, everything's store, you know, having. Prime can integrate more seamlessly with some of that stuff. But you know, really they've all been kind of doing this advertising tier, right? That's been the big, you know, thing that they all went down the path of with, hey, this is a cheaper per month fee, but you gotta watch commercials, right?

And so I think Netflix out the gate, has had some, some, some stubbles and some stumbles and Foleys and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know how many people uptick, you know, took up on that have. taking Netflix the, the, the ad here. Have you looked at that? 

Mr Benja: Ads make me cry, man. For a long time I, I stomached my way through them, but then at some point, I, I, I went home actually and started watching like network TV with my family, which I hadn't done for years.

Mm-hmm. . And I was like, this, this is garbage, man. I, every two seconds it's like, Are you suffering from? I'm like, oh God, you know the cable stuff and then watch it. Watch next week for blah, blah, blah. The way they talk, the way it's so fake and I couldn't do it anymore. So I went home and. , like since then, I, that's, I told you I picked up YouTube premium.

I couldn't do that either. Had to get the, get rid of the ads there and I just feel, I feel so much more at ease and at peace with 

Theo: myself. Man, you know what you put me on, man? Remember I said I would never, I , I would never buy YouTube premium. I used to laugh at you man. And it was like one time I was, I've been watching a lot of content lately on business and stuff and you know, people have this long form content.

and you're getting these crappy commercials like every so often. He's just like, I, I just, I just couldn't do it anymore. So I bit the bit the bullet in and when they subscribed to premium. So but yeah, I'm in the same You know what actually do man, , you're right. It's just like you can just go through content like a beast and you can download like you told me.

That's been awesome. So but anyway, I think the whole point of it is just, Streaming services. You know, having ads on streaming services just suck. I mean I remember I used to get Hulu and they were the first ones to have an ad tier and you know, we'll try to watch a TV show. I mean, and the com commercials are repetitive.

That's even worse than having commercials. It's the same commercial every, you know, 20 minutes. He just like, oh my God, I saw this commercial like eight times. And so , that's what's, you know, driving me to kind of pay for stuff. But, you know, some people don't care, man. Some people don't care. So it's, it's gonna be interesting.

Real quick, did you know they have a, a category for, for streaming services? That that's all they do, which is ad supported tv? Wait, what do you mean? It's called fast. , like the two B the, the or the free tv, I think that's what it's called. Oh, okay. Right, right. Yeah. It's basically they put a lot of TV shows on there and even movies in some places, and you can watch for free, but you're gonna watch commercials.

Right. And so this is a new category that a lot of folks are kind of, a lot of streaming services are trying to go down a path up, and it's called fast, you know, free ad supported television. . And so that's all it's supposed to do, right? It's not trying to charge you subscription or anything. And they even have some original content coming on those services.

So it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, who takes those, you know, I think there's a, there's a market for that. I'm just not one of them. But I don't know. Maybe our listeners are , you know, some of 'em may like that kind of. But as someone who has been enjoying this free content, or, or not free, but basically add free content, free, I.

Yeah. I just can't go back, you know? Even 

Mr Benja: after the price increases, 

Theo: huh? I know. You know, and then that's why I'm being more selective about what I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna be like, you, Mr. Binge, I'm gonna like, you know, get a wheel and spin it and just be like, you know, let's go have some good concert this year.

Mr Benja: Yeah. It, no, it's actually kind of fun because it reinvigorates me to kind of watch and try new things while it's there. Yes. Which is the interesting side effect I didn't think about at the beginning. I was getting like, Like I, I got AMC Plus just because of the amount of zombie material they had on there.

I know, I know this is weird, but I like watching zombie movies when I'm trying to work cuz you don't really have to think about 'em too much. And there's always this impending doom. So it's like, man, I gotta work them. Zombies coming, I gotta work. So it's, I know it's dumb, but on AMC plus they have Walking Dead.

Walking Dead, like, revived. The, the high school version of Walking Dead. Walking Dead Beyond. There's, there's like six different shows. 

Theo: Fear of Walking Dead. Yeah, 

Mr Benja: exactly. There's so many 

Theo: of them. But speaking of which, you know, walking Dead Did End is a run. Finally did you watch that last episode? 

Mr Benja: Yeah, that last episode.

Did you, did you I, I watched, did. 

Theo: I tried to, man, I, I was trying to do the run up to it, man. I forgot how slow that show is, man. , I was just like, I fell asleep on it like three times. . 

Mr Benja: That's why it's great. To watch in the background ? Nah man. It's, it's not just lean back television. It's lean back and fall asleep on your ass.

Television , there's no, there's no leaning into walking Dead, man. 

Theo: Yeah. This is a quote from H B O Max. They gonna have, you know, lean in and lean out tv. Right. You know and yes, that is definitely lean out and lay on the ground. Yeah. So 

Mr Benja: I need to watch at the end of that though, they basically, , you know a hook for the, their spinoff series.

Of course. So I think there are two actually spinoff series that they see. I, I was paying so little attention that I was like, oh, okay, spinoff. And I didn't even remember how it was gonna be structured, but there's at least one coming. 

Theo: Oh yeah. All the major characters getting spinoff, right. I think Mean, see I know a little bit, Michelle and Lincoln, I think they're gonna have their own spinoff.

Mm-hmm. . And then what's the, the other guy Rick with the bat? Yeah. Oh yeah, Rick, that's what I meant. Oh, Rick and Michelle. And then the guy with the bat, what's his name? Nicon. Negan, yeah. Negan and the other character, they're gonna have to, they're going New York City and fight some zombies.

So, yeah, I mean it's, you know, everybody has a universe, man, this watching, this gonna go on forever, 

Mr Benja: so, yeah. Okay. This is the thing we talked about before with all these streaming services, is that, and it's, it's kind of the premise for you know, my, the group that we have, the Hero Movies group, it's like, can you have this property that is so compelling that you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna pay however much a month for this one or two, these one or two properties, you know, these killer apps, these, like, we know what Disney's is, basically Marvel, star Wars.

If you want in with all that, you go to Disney Plus you know, I don't know what Netflix has, but they just keep on. Giving people stuff to, it's kind of the default. So that's that. But I don't know. Is anybody going to HBO Discovery thinking, boy, I need some home fix up all the time. 

Theo: I don't know. Yeah.

You know, and, you know, I mean, since we're kind of the kind of state of streaming TV right? In 2023 is kind of what we're kind of thinking through. I would agree, man. You know, differentiation is key. You know how you stand out, but you know how you survive. And but I think, you know, the, the, the top three, right?

I think Disney, Netflix, you know, H B O. They definitely have shown themselves to kind of be differentiated, you know, now the challenge with H B O, they're being run by, or H B o Max by David Zoff, who's been doing a lot of interesting things over there and cutting things and changing things around.

And that culture, H B O has proven itself to create quality shows. I mean, it just ended what's that? White, Lotus, you know, season two that got a lot of buzz out there. They're about to release. The last of us, you won zombies, right? Zombies are coming back. Oh yeah. Last of us. I don't know. Are you excited about that?

Did you play the game? 

Mr Benja: It's video game related and that trump's being zombie related, so I'm gonna call it garbage. Aw. Even before I've seen it, I'm gonna call it 

Theo: garbage. It's on HBO Sunday Night, baby. That's, that's, that's prime Look. You watched Mayor of Easton and not, and, and I would, that's nothing I would never watch.

But it ended up being really good. Yeah. So I put, I. I put Sunday night on H B O at nine o'clock against anything on television. . I mean, they just know. They just know that, I mean, yes, it's, it's like you said, zombie. It's video game based. It should not work. But if anybody can make it be premium and, and they, and they perfect to pick the perfect time to do it, there is no, you know, the Walking Dead is essentially over now, right?

And so, yeah, HBO just sliding in there at the right time. So, so so Prestige Zo. Horror. Hey, why not ? 

Mr Benja: You know, I'll, I'll check it out, but I gotta, I gotta shake that video game production stank out of my, my 

Theo: mind. It's, did you play it at all? 

Mr Benja: No. I, I played a little bit of it, you know, as a, just to see what was going on with the actual game itself.

Like, okay, what's this about? How are they doing hide and cover or whatever. And it seemed interesting, but I never actually stopped and got, . 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. It was a big hit. I mean, so, so yeah, we'll see. But I think H B O but the challenge is I think the brand is getting you know, diluted. Yeah. Because the discovery, which is a, basically a, you know, reality television, you know, type of network.

And the, the rumor is they're gonna regain Discovery Plus and H B O Max, it's just one thing called Max, and that's gonna be crazy. It's like, what is going on? So it's like, you know, we got, you know, we, we talked about this, right? It's kinda like you're trying to sell Lexuses at Walmart. Right. You know, it's just like, you know, ro it's just like this doesn't match, right?

It is, yeah. It's you got quality television and then you got, you know, Dr. You know, Dr. Pimple Popper right next, right next to it. So it's gonna be interesting to see. But what about the other streaming service? I'm still, I'm sorry, I'm just 

Mr Benja: laughing at Dr. Pimple Popper that when I first learned about that, I was just, it was hilarious to.

Theo: Yeah. As you should man. So so anyway, so more to come on those things, but what about the others? You know well let's talk about, we always talk about Amazon and, and maybe Apple a little bit separately. I think that, I think they'll be fine, but, you know, what are your thoughts on, on both those , you know, streaming services.

I mean, which one do you have 'em both Still It's kind of like we, it's almost like they're defacto. We kind of always have to have them cuz they, they, they that shows you that we don't care about the streaming services cuz what the core offering they have is something that we do care about. And so, but Amazon and, you know, apple tv, what are your thoughts on, on them and streaming services and, and all that?

Mr Benja: Oh yeah. Amazon, I, I would've, I would've dropped a long time ago if it wasn't for the fact that it's Prime. And I was, I was actually, no, I was actually thinking about dropping Prime, right. Uhoh, because I have to, I have to look at the entire slate of everything I'm creating and saying, okay, what can get dropped off so I can focus on my creation the best?

That's like how I like to think about creation and I had to, I had to look at Amazon and say, what are you really offer? and I found a lot of things I could get on walmart.com, target.com. Mm-hmm. You know, some of my office supplies and stuff, I get 'em from Staples or eBay is a great place for office supplies and whatnot.

I'm like, you know what? I don't need, I, I, I don't know if I need Amazon. And a lot of their prices aren't the best anymore. They're still just getting people on the service and everything. But then I found a great deal on some highlighters, so I was like, you know what, that's a two do $2 for a box of highlighters and it's gonna show up tomorrow.

Give it to me. And I kept, Amazon had nothing to do with streaming selection, but I'm keeping Amazon just because , it's, it's 

Theo: Amazon dog. Yeah, man. You know, Walmart is becoming a big player, right? In this, you know, e-commerce space, Walmart Plus, and you know, shout out to my ex-co college grad school roommate Tori.

He's running their kind of a digital marketing efforts over there. So Walmart is doing some big things, I guess, trying to compete against Amazon. And I did read, you know, I don't know if you saw it, they had laid layoffs from the bigger layoffs, 18,000 folks. Mm-hmm. . And then they also said, you know, during the pandemic they probably hired more people than they should have.

they're operating, you know, income was basically, operating costs were around 18 billion. And then they had to slash that down to 1.5 billion, right? Because they just hired too many people during the pandemic. They like, oh wow. Everybody's gonna order everything from home from now on forever. . But nah, dog, we're going back to, we're going back in these streets, man, after the pandemic.

So and you know, that's a whole. Narrative. I, I listened to a podcast earlier and it talked about that. It's like, Hey, you know, is the narrative change where we thought the pandemic was going to be a shift to these new way of living, right. You know, everything's gonna be remote, streaming's gonna take off.

we're gonna order everything from Amazon or, you know, our, our food delivery services. And really what they said, that's not the case. It wasn't an acceleration of all that. It was more like a bubble where people were like, kind of had to do it. But now that we're back in these streets, man, you know, people are like, eh, you know, I'm out , I don't wanna go places.

So it's, it's, it's gonna be interesting to see how Amazon, everyone, you know, Navi, navigates, you know, these, this, this downturn. You know, it's interesting. 

Mr Benja: slight detour into the, the real world of things. And you know, maybe actually related to why streaming isn't, isn't going to be doing as well. If people are cutting costs and they're not staying home as much they're going out to places like, like Macy's and, and Barnes and Noble, I mentioned Barnes and Noble, because they, they've just scheduled 30 more new stores are opening like physical stores really, and.

they're really bolstering their physical store economy. And that's like, Hey, this is where we get our bread and butter. You know, Barnes and noble.com is just kind of a side thing, but they really get a lot of their money from people coming in during the holidays, buying trinkets sitting down at their, their little cafes and Starbucks or whatever they have in store.

And Macy's is doing a similar thing where they're trying to become more of an experiential place in the malls. , they have a bunch of they have a bunch of stores within stores, so they've reinvigorated toys of us as a store within Macy's, which is interesting. 

Theo: Yeah, I saw that. They, I, I, I saw that I was at Macy's where was that?

North Carolina I think. And then I was like, wait a minute, toys Rs, and I looked it up. Yes, they bought the brand licensing, you know, branding for that. And so they put tho that, that brand in there. I thought Gary V was talking about he's gonna buy that, you know, these legacy brands. I think another. Yeah, he was too slow.

Cause there's another legacy brand that's dying. I saw bed Bath and Beyond. They're, they're, they're on the death phones. They, they're falling for bankruptcy. So, so yeah, it's tough times out there man, for legacy brands if you don't pivot and, and, and, and create different experiences. But, you know, just thinking about this, you know, and we, we do things like this on the spot all the time, but you're right, man, it's like you know, I'm, I'm getting deeper into, you know, creative space on, in, on YouTube and myself now this year.

And you know, I know you're doing, you've been doing a lot for years now. You see these high, high level YouTubers, man, they basically live this thing. I mean, they have a, like, like a Mr. Beast. You have a warehouse or you, and where you just wake. From your bed, you go take a shower in the same room, you go work out in the same room, and then you just get in computer and create content all day.

And, and that's what they live. Their life is totally online, right? And then, you know, you go have a bifurcation. People like, man, I don't wanna live my life like that, right? , I want experiences. And so I think we're gonna see kind of this interesting world where it's like, you know, either you're fully online.

or you're fully offline, right? There's like no in between because it's like, you know, that's what you worked at, that's what you do for work. Then vacation, you're taking retreats in the middle of nowhere, right? and so, or seeing glamping or, you know, doing those little, you know, crazy things. Well, 

Mr Benja: yeah, I mean, and you know, that's, that's a new twist on the work-life balance thing, right?

Where it's like, am I just living online? Am I just. , everything that happens, I just kind of, Hey, instead of putting it in my notes application on my phone, let me just spout it out to the universe on TikTok. I found myself doing that with, with Facebook and, and Instagram. If I just have a thought, I used to put it in my notes and say, Hmm, that's interesting.

Now I kick it out to my Instagram stories and I'm like, Hey man, I like zombie shows and da da da da, and I'll get some responses. And people were like, okay. So. It's, it's kind of this weird changeover where Alex Wolf, she's like a philosopher, young philosopher kind of person. She just explained this and was like, yeah, there is no, for a lot of people, especially younger people, there is no separation.

There is no, I'm online or I'm offline. It's just a thing. Mm-hmm. , it's like, it's not like I have electricity. I don't have electricity. Electricity is just a part of your. . So that's how online is to a lot of people. . 

Theo: Yeah, that's a good point. And you know, these, these, these influencers, you know, making millions and stuff off of, you know, the content they create.

But I, I like that, you know, and thanks for that advice. I'm gonna, you know, I'm trying to think of how I'm gonna do stories. Yeah. I got a ton of ideas. I put on my, on my iPhone notes and I'm like, well, you know what, lemme just you right? Lemme just put that out there. You told me this before, so I'm gonna gonna take, take you up on that and just put it out there and see what resonates.

And that can help me create better content too. See what resonates more. , 

Mr Benja: it totally reduces the stress of like actually having to think about a lot of stuff. Like Twitter is a great throwaway place. You can just have a random idea and you can fart it out to Twitter, and I get like random responses from people that, that follow me, but never interact.

And you're like, huh, why did that resonate with this person? Months later, I'll have another similar tweet and that same person will respond. And I'm like, okay, when I say this, it's connecting with these types of people. When I say this, it connects with these types of people. So, yeah. Really interesting.

I want to know how all these streaming services are gonna start integrating that because the way they are now, I think we're going to see some more, some more changes in the future. I don't know exactly who's playing with it. I know Netflix is always pioneer. Have you heard of that new Kaleidoscope thing they did?

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that one? I mean interesting. 

Mr Benja: Gimme your perspective, gimme your perspective or overview really quick of how Kaleidoscope works. 

Theo: Yeah, from my understanding, basically it's, it's, it's a, the way they created it was that you could watch any episode, any order except for like the last episode.

And so, and still kind of makes sense out of it. And so it, and, and they kind of put it around the motif of a, like colors. And so each. Episode was named after color. And the high level thing is, is is basically a simple, you know, bank heist type of movie, right? Mm-hmm. or TV show. And so, you know, get the crew together, you know, double crossing each other, you know, trying to figure out how to, you know, get into the.

You know, high security bank vault and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it, it is, is a basic simple premise. But the way to kind of deliver was with these unique, you know, episodes to kind of let you can mix and match and they, and the, and the theory was that you could watch any order you want or Netflix would deliver to you any order.

So I don't know. Did you watch it, Mr. Bitch? I mean, so high level. I thought it was an interesting concept. I didn't think it brought anything. To the concept. I think what, what, what was good was that they had pretty decent actors in it, you know shout out to Gus Spring showing up, you know? Okay.

So 

Mr Benja: when you watched it, did you, did you know that was how it was structured going in? I, I, 

Theo: I was kind of hard to explain the marketing to explain it well to me. You know, kind of going in, I was like, okay, there's colors and they, they, they said you could, they gonna put in different orders and the way you watch it, it's gonna change the, I didn't understand that concept till I kind of read some stuff first.

But so it, it, it probably needed a better job of explaining that. But did it draw me to, yeah, it draw me, got me interested enough to go check it out. Okay. Because I, I 

Mr Benja: think that was part of the, the marketing scheme where they didn't want people to know exactly what was happen. and, and I saw this play out on Twitter because I'd forgotten all about it.

I heard about it a while back, but then when it came out, I'd forgotten about it. So when I saw, when I saw people on Twitter talking about it, somebody was like, wait a minute. I watched this fir this first and this first, and I thought this was supposed to happen next. And then of course, the person replies to that person.

It's like, no, no, no. If you watch this, see what what? What's happening is, and some people in the comment thread were completely confused as. . No, this episode comes after this episode. So this is the way it works. Mm-hmm. . And I was like, interesting. So I started digging into it a little more and people are now creating all these lists of here's the best order to watch it in, or here's the order to watch it in.

If you want this type of story, if you want like more of a a person personal arc, you know, you watch it this way, you want more of a heist buildup, you watch it this way. And I'm like, Okay. I don't know how well it worked, but there's, it's got the buzz that I suppose they were looking for and they tried something new with it.

So I, I haven't checked it out, but I, I definitely will. I want to get back on Netflix. Check that out. Yeah. 

Theo: Yeah. Let me know what you think. . Yeah. So it's one of those things. So, so from a business standpoint, right, marketing, you know, helps, right? With these type of things and trying to do something innovative, right?

Differentiate a product, you know, in a market that could be crowded and releasing it, you know, early in January helped too. So distribution, you know, timing, you know, setting, you know, trying to change the product a little bit and getting the conversation started. . Perfect. So it, it, it, it did what it's supposed to do.

Right. And didn't really have any major stars or anybody, you know, drawing you to it. So yeah, Netflix, kudos to them. Keep doing experimentations like this, and I think they'll still keep their lead against the other streamers. So speaking of which, so, you know, apple tv you know, I think.

They're still rolling. Are you still watching Apple tv? You said you have Amazon Prime or Apple tv? 

Mr Benja: Nah, I, I dropped Apple TV after I saw the Jason Maoa show where he's blind. That's, I see, see, yeah, man, I love that. 

Theo: The only person I know that watched that show, man. But I know, check it out one day. 

Mr Benja: No, it's, it's not, it's not great, but I was like, yeah, I'm 

Theo: watching.

Yeah. You know, it's like they don't have a lot of content, right. It's like, you know, it's like they really shows like once a quarter seems like, or maybe once every other month. But the other show I I, I like on it is Mythic Quest about the video game. Oh, yeah, yeah. Company, right? So they season three . 

Mr Benja: I did I did, I did watch that.

I was, I was, I was so ready to hate on myth quests, but I give it to him. They did a good 

Theo: job. They got you. They got you. Yeah. Yeah, they got you. So, yeah, so, but you know, Amazon and Apple ultimately will be okay in the streaming war because this is a rounding era for 'em, right? , they're just like, you know, it, their core business models are almost trillion dollar businesses, and Amazon's apple's played.

It is a trillion. 2 trillion, trillion dollars worth of iPhones out there, right? From a market capitalization standpoint. So, you know, Apple's doing okay, but and then Amazon, you know, I think it's one of those things where I think it was a pet project of Jeff Bezos, so I don't know where it's at now, but I think, you know, they're still keeping along.

So do you wanna dig into the bottom basement real quick on these other streaming service? 

Mr Benja: I might need to get Hulu because it's got chainsaw man on it. That's a, that's some anime chainsaw, man. It's, it's very, very serious. Right. I gotta get, I got, so I gotta get it for at least a month to plow through that.

And then there's probably some episodes of bleach I should watch on there too. 

Theo: Well, real quick on what's happening in Disney, I mean, so, you know, we talk about discovery, H B O Max, you know, merging. Yeah. Disney, I don't know if you noticed, but I, well, you haven't noticed, but I have Hulu and Disney, they made me match my password, so I need to have the same password for both.

Disney Plus and Hulu now. So preparing the way for, you know, when they ultimately integrate the services or, or create some kind of, you know, Hulu, you know, Disney adult version or something like that, they probably wouldn't call it, that keep the brand safe, but you know, they're trying to integrate it on the backend when they, they're making you, you know, keep the same password if you and I, I don't have e espn s ESPN plus, but I'm sure it's the same way cuz you know, they sell those as a bundle usually.

Yeah. Hulu. Disney Plus and ESPN plus. Yeah. And so I think, you know, they're starting to, you know, I think this, and Disney is trying to create this, you know, ecosystem of, of, Hey, we got sports, we got this, we got that right. Boom. You know, who can win? You know? 

Mr Benja: Oh, you know what I, I forgot to mention also Netflix was doing the, the Chris Rock.

Yes. 

Theo: Live. Yep. It's gonna be live. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. I was thinking about when, when you mention ESPN plus, he got me thinking about, you know, the live sports that Amazon's trying to muscle into. And now Netflix is doing it with their comedy, which is their thing. So get a bazillion people together to watch Chris Rock all at once live.

Theo: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Well, you know, who else you. Is winning there. The streaming world. Your old friend YouTube Premium, they got N F NFL Sunday Ticket

You see that news? That was big news man. Yeah, I mean, you know, so the, these streaming services, you know, we saw Amazon dipple and dabble on Thursday night football. Now YouTube has gotten it and you know, all. Sports, they don't care, man. Whoever's paying the most and the streaming services is where it's at.

So I, I predict, you know, YouTube has got N F L now too. Amazon's got N F L, you know, I think it's only a matter of time. Matter of fact, it's only a matter of time that you know. Network. They, they just can't compete. They don't have enough money, and so they may have to just, you know, concede that the streaming service is gonna have live sports that people wanna 

Mr Benja: watch.

Is that, is that, is any of that slated to be extra or as part of the service as it exists? 

Theo: You know, it's gonna be extra brother, not, I don't know, man. They're gonna figure some way to squeeze the money out, right? I mean, it's Google too, man. All those analytics behind it, man, they're gonna figure out something.

So I, I don't know yet with the, the Strat, you know, what they're trying to do. I mean, I mean, think about it though, if Amazon, they, they seem good numbers with it, with their you know, Thursday, even though some of the games have sucked this year for Amazon, but I'm sorry to. Yeah, but Sunday direct ticket, that's, that's huge.

You're gonna get all the lot Sunday games and you can get, I think they have the red zone which was popular for a lot of fancy football players, cuz you can see what happens in the last 20 yards with touchdown. , you know, for any game that's being played. And so it's kind of cool if you watch that, it's just nothing but touchdowns, but you can kind of keep accurate count of your, your players for fantasy football,

So I think you know, it should be, you know, a big get obviously with Google and what they're trying to do in their aspirations for the streaming wars. But, you know, still anemic service right now, right? I think me and you, the only ones have YouTube premium . 

Mr Benja: Yeah. 

Theo: Yeah, exactly. More to come on there. What else?

Yeah. And then, you know, sports, as we're talking about sports, you know, you heard the news about Netflix and, and what they're doing with Nike. They're going to have their own kind of Nike channel, so you're gonna start seeing workouts and stuff on, on, on Netflix. So, but Netflix 

Mr Benja: doing it first, fir, the first thing I thought of was, you know, they're trying to kill Peloton.

Like while it's already down. Yeah, why not? Like you walked past the guy out the street, help me. It's like, yo, I'm, I'm gonna take this guy's money. . 

Theo: I'm surprised someone just has bought Peloton yet. That's just, that's amazing to me. I don't know. Why not just buy 'em? Why I help, man? How big, how 

Mr Benja: big are they?

I mean, how much are 

Theo: they? Oh man. Market capital. Yeah, I think there's, I mean, you know, see I could probably figure it out. There's their price. Yeah. Unfortunately. It's like $8 to share, 

Mr Benja: $3 billion market cap. Okay. 

Theo: Yeah. So it is not, yeah, that's nothing for, for some big companies, you know, who's got a little, but, you know, balance healthy balance sheets.

So we'll see more to their, you know, to see what they're going there. You know, what, streaming service. So, so anyway, I talked about, you know, Disney, Hulu coming together, talked about sports. Another interesting service that's doing well is paramount Plus, I know you probably don't have Paramount Plus, but do you know why It's actually Scott, you know, as of September had 46 million subscribers, which puts us, puts them in like roughly the top six.

Well, really the top five. These other ones? I don't know. For why. Yeah, why? Well, okay, so, man, you'd be surprised. Paramount Movies had a hell of a year. Man, think about it. They started, you know, they had Top Gun Maverick, which is, you know, was the top movie until small, smaller movie called Avatar, where the water just blewed out the water , but literally and figuratively.

But Top Gun, you know, a basically almost 40 year old franchise is a 40 year old franchise starring , you know, 50 year old, you know, aging movie star became one 1.5 billion movie and you know, just took over, you know, just storm the internet and movie theaters. . And so that was great for Paramount.

Then they had some hits, you know, with the Kids Hits TV, movies. They had some, some horror films that did well, like Smile. And they have an interesting model where, you know they you know, if it's doing well, you know, they keep it a movie theaters. If it's not, they just, you know, ship it over to Paramount Plus, right?

And so sometimes you'd be surprised, oh, this movie shows up in Paramount Plus I could have waited to see it, you know, later. So, Yeah, so they're, they're doing pretty well, man. Then, you know, obviously they have all the c bs content that's live, that's on the sh on the streaming service. They have a lot of this, this Yellowstone content, which is kind of what they call quote unquote Red State tv.

So, paramount Plus is wait, that's a term. 

Mr Benja: Red State tv. Yes. Why am I not heard of that? I know, I know exactly what you mean. But 

Theo: Red State tv, basically, you know, for the, for the, for the flyover country. Right. You know, it's talking about Montana, you know, cattle rights and having land, and no one's gonna take my land from me.

And, you know, and , 

Mr Benja: you know what I, I jumped in a, I jumped in an argument. I was like, Hey, what's going on? How come you guys don't like these guys are holding up signs and yelling about bbl M and there were a bunch of arguments and I was like, oh man, black Lives Matter. Why is this back in the news? And there was a bunch of people arguing and I came in there arguing about Black Lives Matter.

They're like it's about blm, the Bureau of Land Management, dude. Yes, yes. Fuck outta here. I'm like, oh, . Yeah. Yeah. And it was, that entire crowd was. Red state, flyover state so I suppose they all have paramount. 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. For, for, for, for all the content pertaining to Yellowstone, I think I, I talked about in this podcast about, you know, Kevin Costner TV show and they have a new one called 1823, or is it 1923 with Harrison Ford popping up Hair Marin.

What? So yeah, so go check it out. You know, you wanna see old older, you know, Han Solo, you know, wearing cowboy gear in Montana. Fighting, you know, for his land rights. . There you go, man. You got Harrison Ford on TV show, man. So Harrison 

Mr Benja: doesn't quit, man. He's still out 

Theo: there. Yeah, man. We saw Indiana Jones five is coming out, so we'll see how that does.

But yeah. Yeah, he's in his eighties, dude. That's crazy. Dude, he, he's getting it. So, so yeah. So that's Paramount Plus. Let's see. And then the other smaller ones are really the only other one that you know, well, only thing I wanna say paramount, you know, so they're trying to put things together.

CBS I talked about, and then, Showtime, they're trying to put that in together and Showtime has some, some, some decent content and stuff like that. It used to be a competitor, the H B O, but they, you know, they just couldn't compete, you know? Now I, I call it the there's a show me and my wife used to watch called Power.

I, if you saw that show or heard about it. And so now they create this whole universe built around that power, you know, concept. Basically a drug drug dealing concept, right? So you, you know, you, you never knew, you knew so much about Distros and you know, who's and your connect and all that, you know, that's basically talk, they talk about nothing but drug culture, right?

And and then obviously I, 

Mr Benja: I only know about it because of 50. 

Theo: Yeah. 50 cent and Fit got bmf, right? He produced BMF as well. Mm-hmm. You know black Mafia family and, you know, they're starting to play by actually the, one of the guy's actual son is playing his dad , big Beach, . So yeah, say anyway, so the Showtime is, you know, oh, well that's stars.

Excuse me, man. I'm, I'm saying, I'm saying the wrong thing. I should know that. That's stars. Stars winning all in on the black, you know, kind of. Showtime has got what they got, so, but, you know, and then last but not least, peacock, I mean, you know, it's the little engine that could, but it's, it's, it's fading fast.

It's basically owned by Comcast and, you know, universal, which, you know, N B C and, and they just, yeah. 

Mr Benja: I'm about, I'm about to get that because I need to catch up on Yellowstone, apparently. 

Theo: Yeah. I mean, it's got 15 million subscribers as of, you know, September 9th. , I mean, you know, it's, you know, they cast some original contents.

Okay. They actually do a lot of reruns. That's where the office is located. So, you know, people watch that to see, and they got, someone even mentioned they got, they do like supersize episodes of office or something where you can kind of watch longer versions of it. And so that's kind of interesting. And then I haven't watched it before.

And then a lot of the reality shows from Bravo show on this, if you like a real house wise fan, that's where you find that content. And so, so yeah, peacock. You know, fading fast, but they're trying to, hold on. I just know how to, how long they're gonna survive in this, this market. But yeah, you never know. I, 

Mr Benja: I, I just, I just looked at like the list of top shows on Peacock, and this is for people who don't feel like fiddling with the, you know, with the antenna and the, and the aluminum foil on their tv.

It's got Saturday Night Live, cheers, parks, and. You know, Friday Night Lights the Bel Air Show. Yeah, that's the office. Yeah. Law, law and Order. Svu, that 70 Show. Colombo. Colombo coming in here. , Yellowstone. Yeah, this is, this is Comedy 30 Rock. I get it now. 

Theo: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's basically old TV and, and they also do live sports because they're, you know, it is basically NBC on, on streaming, but but since it's universal, you know, also, so they get access to movies and so you'll see movies pop up on there and stuff, and so it's, oh, 

Mr Benja: I.

learned that Ryan Johnson's got a new peacock show coming out. Mm-hmm. , it's a whole whodunit series, so he's continuing. Knives out kind of essence over here on Peacock. 

Theo: Oh yeah. Poker face. Yeah. With Tasha Leon. So so yeah. Yeah. Good for her man. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be like Murder of the Week with different, it's gonna be kinda like Colombo,

You spoke about Colombo. You remember Colombo back in the day. I just love that show, man. , you 

Mr Benja: come in, my older sister watched it. My, I always having nothing to do with that, probably because of her. I mean, 

Theo: you know, I, I, I got some of it, but it was just the concept, which is a genius to me. They showed you what?

The murder, I mean this, think about it, this is in the seventies, right? Mm-hmm. , the concept was that he showed you who did it, you already knew who did it. Then Colombo would come along and he was solve it, but the way he came in was like, so rumpled up and just like no one, he was just so underestimated and he, but he always figured it out, and, and the guy that he was, he knew did it was always, or the guy or gal.

they would always try to outsmart him. Right. You know, oh, I can, you know, run circles around this dude. And he always beat the ass every time. So, so 

Mr Benja: the concept was it was a closed case and then they came back and. and he's 

Theo: like, wait, no, this case is No, no, no, no, no, no. Well, well, the, the, we as audience members know who the, who, the who the person did.

The person did it 

Mr Benja: already. Oh, so it wasn't a, who done it. It's like, how is he going to solve this? Yes. 

Theo: And every time, you know, because the way he would go around it would be a roundabout way. He was always rumpled up and you know, he was just so unassuming and so that the people who did it, you know, they thought they were smarter, him every.

and they were always trying to, you know, just, you know, trying to lead them off on these tangents or like, oh yeah, you know, oh, whatever, dismiss 'em. And every time he would say, well, you know, well what? But you told me like two days ago that you were going to be there. But you know, I know you interesting.

Yeah, it was, it is kind of interesting con, and this is in the seventies, it was like high concept for, you know, cuz back in day, you know, it's just like, you know, Kojack, you know, he put a, who loves your baby, you know, , he'd go out there and beat up some bug or, you know, so the seventies were real simple when it came to TV shows and movies.

So Colombo was very high concept for the time. 

Mr Benja: Definitely man. Well, cool. This is a. Yeah, I'm, I am now happy with the state of streaming. Somebody's probably gonna die, but it's okay because there'll be a sack of money around for people like Ryan Johnson and Colombo fans. So it should be an interesting 2023.

Theo: I know, man. I'm excited man. So we're gonna do more podcasts like these, man. We're just gonna knock 'em out, man, and give everybody the state of the business and the entertainment from all these different aspects. So I'm sure you know, any thoughts on other things we wanna cover this year? 

Mr Benja: Oh, for the rest of the year?

Yeah. I, I got a couple, but they may be a little too spicy to put in there right now. I gotta see Spicy . I got some spicy, I got some talk about the rock. We might have to do at some point. Yes, 

Theo: we gotta do that. AI taking over for Hollywood. That, you know, there's some, some interesting concepts there.

You know, movie theaters, you know, what's happening, you know, with them. Are they coming back? They're down 30%. Ton of new stuff coming out, guys for the pods. So stay tuned here. We're gonna keep 'em short and sweet, man, but get into like the, the business and the show of it all pretty quickly 

Mr Benja: this time.

Yeah. and let us know if there's, if there's anything that you want to hear you're interested in throw 'em down in the comments. We want to, we want to hear what you're talking about or hear what you're thinking and your perspective's on some of this, because, you know, I've been in the industry Theo's on the business side of, you know, his industry.

So we got our different perspectives, but we want to hear yours too. Bang, bang. I 

Theo: love it. I love it. say everyone. Thank you for listening. Please like and subscribe and comment at Chau vss business on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and also visit us on our website show vs Business.

All right, Mr. Benja. Take care. Peace.