So I was gonna detail the whole “batgirl” controversy much more, especially the taxes part, but it got a bit bogged down with speculation and rumors and other such things. The Batgirl movie was not cancelled for “tax deductions and write offs”. The government doesn’t simply reimburse a film’s production budget because it was wrote off. Since the studio is loosing a significant amount of money by not releasing the film, regardless of the whole tax situation, the reason it was cancelled was due to the content of the film itself. Now since I haven’t seen the film, I won’t say why I believe it was cancelled, but there’s quite a bit of speculation online. Could be the quality, political stuffs, anything. But yeah, it wasn’t taxes.
Thanks for this. As an accountant/tax preparer, my blood pressure spikes whenever someone says "tax write-offs." It never means what they think it means.
@Marshal Marrs no, no mkst people agree and you're right in your prediction. I predict the mainstream entertainment industry will be in shambles by the end of the decade
@Marshal Marrs I really, really hope you're right. I'm tired of the constant remakes and woke propaganda Hollywood is shoving down our throats. Something needs to change.
@Marshal Marrs do you have any basis for this ? it seems to me like inde filns are getting more and more pushed twords the sidelines compared to big buget fims like marvel.
It's funny how one of the excuses they're using for cancelling so many shows is that they want to keep HBO an exclusive premium brand and they only want the highest quality shows. But at the same time, they're planning to merge HBO Max with Discoveryplus next year, with such premium exclusive content as Honey Boo Boo, the Duggars, and Toddlers and Tiaras. Also, they're trying to make $3 billion in budget cuts while their new CEO is getting a compensation package worth $246 million.
I feel like its worth pointing out all the long-time lifers that built HBO up from a premium cable service you could only get in NYC, to the powerhouse that brought us The Sopranos were given the boot when AT&T acquired Time Warner. Ted Turner didn't kick these people out. Jeff Bewkes didn't either. AT&T, on the other hand, DID.
What HBO Max did to animated shows and creators is beyond absurd. There’s no way the amount of money they saved was worth the complete loss in public faith in the service
Bro they don't give a damn, peoples lives and work apparently have a cost, and right now that cost is a few extra pennies, human life will NEVER mean more or be more important than money to these companies 🤷🏿♂️
Bro they don't give a damn, peoples lives and work apparently have a cost, and right now that cost is a few extra pennies, human life will NEVER mean more or be more important than money to these companies 🤷🏿♂️
its not just HBO Max. Its all of them. Netflix especially. it seems like streaming services hate animation. Netflix, Disney+, HBOMax etc are canceling and taking off a bunch of shows including their own in-house productions because they dont want to pay the actors royalties. there is a strike going on because of this
The level of incompetence needed to get to this point in WB’s demise (considering their library is stacked with content that people love) is truly something to behold.
I feel like nobody has really thought through how stupid AT&T anti net neutrality plan so I want to just play out how that would have gone AT&T: hey I see that you don't have our services so now you can't see WB content Average Consumer: well I guess it's time to cancel HBO Max AT&T Wait I never said you had to cancel it why not just buy our services Average Consumer: because I already signed to a contract that would require me to take a fee to get out of and I don't want to go through the ordeal of changing my internet provider plus Netflix and other streaming services already has more than enough content to keep me content
The worst part of it all was how brilliant HBO max was at first. The way they split up their movies was really smart. Focusing on TCM and CN and Adult Swim and Looney Tunes and Studio Ghibli
The whole write off tax loss just doesn’t make sense to me as a tax accountant. Pretty common misconception people have that everything is a “tax write off”. No company in their right mind would go into in endeavor for a taxable loss. IRS losses are more strict than normal GAAP losses. You can’t deduct losses from lost sales or any of that only expenses already incurred. Even then, you’d be pretty stupid not to release it and recoup some of the money because you will deduct it either way. Tax write off argument is so stupid and the people that believe it need to research it themselves.
If Dwayne Johnson ends up saving WB, he will be able to write his own check in Hollywood. They'll build a statue of him the size of the WB watertower at WB studios.
It’s been a 6 years since this channel became Tyler’s, but even after such a long time, I still can’t decide for the life of me whether this channel is serious or a complete shitpost lmao
That's the sad part they themselves sort of didn't. They made mistakes ya however the ultimate blame is on the merger companies yanking them in other directions.
Snydercut alone is worth more than anything the Disney/Marvel/Starwars/Fox/DNC/San-Francisco-pedo-Chior/Applebees corporation incorporated has made in the past 20 years, and Disney's animated content is on VHS in full at any yard sale. Disney Pus was 2nd place long before Lightqueer happened.
thats kinda been the plan of companies that merge for at least the past decade or more, whenever two companies merge they usually go into debt doing so. After the merge is finalized they "recoup" the costs by firing employees and getting rid of stuff that cost the most money, among other things. In this case we can see the extreme end of such a merger, theyve fired employees, gotten rid of shows they were paying residuals on and gotten some tax write offs. Of course this has all blown up in their faces because one of the worst thing you could do to a streaming service is get rid of shows you own that have been on there for a long time. People tend to lose faith in your product when that happens.
The disaster that was GOT 8 is what did it, they were all set up to have a Westeros franchise cash cow and it just was dead after that. If it had ended well if there were more seasons and more hype for spin offs HBO would be sitting pretty
That is just sad. Warner went from being Disney's top competitor, to spit balling ideas in hopes something sticks. Reminds me of the whole Nintendo and Sega feud
The CN executives are the same people who think having 30 straight episodes of Teen Titans Go every single day to this day is a good thing, yet they also were smart enough to see this as a terrible decision.
Teen Titans Go has a higher viewership than Aventure time, it took the number 2 spot of most watched cartoon on CN in 2018. I get that you dislike it, but children (whom are many) loved it.
A couple of things here. The Batgirl movie cancellation had to do with a one time tax write off for assets acquired in the merger. That had to be done sometime before August so that has a lot to do with the abrupt timing (this write off is in addition to other depreciation). Zaslov (the new head honcho) is on the record as favoring unscripted content (aka reality TV like Honey Boo Boo) as opposed to scripted stuff (like West World, Raised by Wolves...etc). My thought is that he is vastly out of touch with his audience...VASTLY. Then there is the whole CW fiasco. Contrary to what anyone would say, these super hero shows that they cancelled en mass were wildly profitable due to the deals they had with Netflix for streaming rights after the season was broadcast. Netflix was paying BILLIONS (with a B) for those streaming rights, that doesn't even take into account many of those cancelled shows were close to airing long enough to get picked up in syndication (another no brainer cash cow). I can't look at that decision to mass cancel basically the whole network as anything but an ego thing that they just didn't want Netflix to have the content and better to cancel it than let Netflix pay you billions of dollars. I agree...I think I could do a better job running this mess.
Focusing on fake reality TV has got to be the worst decision, that stuff is dying out. It's not the 2000s anymore and there's a million vloggers and live streamers for free online.
Seems ironic given they seem to be auctioned off some of their stuff........which Netflix could get and this get content and even a bit of good PR potentially (Which given their constant insanity and stupidity, they desperately need.).
It's such a shame that a company like Warner Bros. with a legendary library of films and shows as well as popular IPs has always been ruined time after time because of the terrible desicions of their parent companies. Honestly, a lot of this bullshit could've been prevented if they just stayed independent after realizing about the massive disaster that the AOL merger ended up being.
Right like Warner Bros had the potential to be as much of a household name as Disney. They had so much content it could of been it’s own independent streaming platform. The fact that they censor stuff on HBO is also mind boggling as one of the biggest advantages of streaming vs live tv is that you don’t have to do that anymore. Example being South Park and how they just straight up pulled certain episodes
@@sarinabina5487 Yeah, but it will be extremely difficult for the company to start from the ground up at its state. After the big amount of shit that everyone else has done to it, I don't think it could stay afloat by itself for now. Damn, if the AT&T merger was a bad desicion, the Discovery merger was a fucking trainwreck.
@@Pocosebas I mean, they're kinda not doing well, but at least they know how to keep themselves stable. They have the big advantage that at least they don't have to pay for the horrible desicions that their parent company do because they're pretty much independent. But I know where your comment comes from. They make so much amount of trash and overproduce so much stuff to the point where it's just really annoying to see that it's getting a lot of money for doing bad stuff.
It’s really sad what’s has been going with HBO Max Animation lately (And with the entire Western Animation industry). I know they can create amazing cartoons, even the best ones ever made. They have all of the resources, the budget, all of these amazing and talented artists and animators and yet they choose not unlock that potential of this incredible medium because Hollywood sees it as something dumb, just for babies. Animation deserves better treatment than this 😔
It's not that Hollywood sees it that way. Hollywood cares about money. It's that Hollywood correctly sees that the general public in America (the west's largest single English-speaking market) and the rest of the west, by and large, see it that way (except comedy, which is the sole domain in which western animation is allowed to thrive - not just to push up the occasional promising shoot). Animation has infinite potential, probably more potential than any other video medium, but until the conception of animation in the average American's mind is something other than "Swiper no swiping!", "Doh!"... it's not going anywhere amazing in the west. Anime fans fighting the good fight, if it puts anime in the public consciousness at all, also typically just ends up adding ""UwU dont touch me there onii-chan" or some other cringey anime trope to the list of things people think of when they hear "animation". Even those "promising shoots" that western animation pushes up every once in a blue moon tend to have prepubescent protagonists - the fact that they have a character who can be accurately described as a "protagonist" at all being what makes them promising - and they are, ostensibly, still "kids shows" and/or heavily reliant on comedy (Steven Universe, Adventure Time, etc). The west has put out what amounts to a couple passable shonen series, but I'm drawing a blank on western equivalents to seinen anime. Actually, *maybe*... Ugly Americans was a show - it just came to mind and office comedies are nothing if not seinen - but then again, it's more-or-less a pure comedy that lacked any of the dramatic aspects SU and AT had... and also wasn't that popular.
I've lost faith in western animation everytime it feels like it's one steep forward it's two massive steeps back. I guess it's time for me to move onto anime
@@maninanikittycat4238 Anime isn't any better. It's popularity is arguably making the industry worse. While the animation industry here in America isn't amazing, it's practically heaven in comparison to the industry in Japan. Horrible working conditions and absolutely abysmal pay are the backbone of an industry that pumps out hundreds of projects every single year, and it's not going to get better. It's like a train moving at ever increasing speeds until it crashes into a million pieces.
I really hope the internet pushes more hollywood and tv old guard like this to die out faster and the FCC stops rubber stamping mergers so these dying behemoths don't get to ruin everything else on their way out.
The worst thing about this is that we were SO CLOSE to a revival to western animation. Welp, guess it's back to indie. Edit: Man, this has destroyed me more than I thought. I mean this is my DREAM, I've always wanted to be in the animation scene for all my life. Now I don't know if western animation will be around when I go job hunting. God damn it, I don't even feel mad anymore, im just numb.
That's probably the worst part. CN and Adult Swim have been where new 2d animation is born for a decade and now we're back to just anime and random Disney and Nick gems.
I hopped off the hbo train when they separated themselves from boxing. I know it wasn't just the suits at hbo that came to that conclusion (promotions, investors, front/back end finance) but to throw over 40 years of quality boxing programming in the can was a huge blow to the network. Some might not agree, but as a fight fan, it was cool to know you was getting prime fights throughout the year. It's always been many places to watch fights. Boxing is the only sport that came on almost every night of the week. 🥊🥊🥊🥊 and we enjoyed it all, from Tuesday night fights, to the bigger shows. Edit: hbo just had that certain charm and detailed vision when it came to presenting the fight game. They just hit different 🥊🥊🥊🥊
This is why every time John Campea praises these moves by David Zaslav, I KNOW he's buggin & just impressed to see an exec welding THAT much power to undo the mistakes WB made with HBO Max that he was the biggest movie industry YTer taking a loud vocal stance against
The animation on Netflix is on average good to great , you are mistaken in this. Hilda, Kipo, cup head are great, boss baby is for small children but is good, the animation films are excellent like Klaus, voyage to the moon, etc. I hope Netflix hires a lot of these hbo animation personal.
@@NoName...... You're talking quality control and you bring up Amazon? Not saying they have bad first party shows, but they truly let anything on Prime Video
HBO Max back catalogue of HBO shows, Warner and MGM classics, Cartoon Network and so on, is a truly fantastic one. They have the most well-rounded catalogue of all streaming services
@@ksaraf23 I hope that at least the fusion of HBO Max with Discovery+ will have together everything that both services already had, the whole catalogue. And I hope that people who signed HBO Max can be automatically transfered to the new service.
@@unncommonsense I know that, but Warner Bros. still has the rights to MGM's pre-1986 catalogue, as MGM didn't own it anymore, it had already been sold to Warner Bros.
With one of my favorite shows (Infinity Train) being removed from HBO max, its ONLY distributor, I feel like this stunt is hopefully going to cause a revival of online piracy, which is seriously the only way to watch the show Infinity Train.
It never really went away, but most of the progress really was in anime (community subtitles, advanced encoding, organization and tagging, etc.). Crunchyroll and the few other sites did such a bad job that the dedicated fanbase out-developed them. Cartoon media hasn't had quite such a bad time on streaming services, so there hasn't been the same levels of development. Bee and Puppycat's second season snafoo was certainly a point where a need started becoming clearer, but this might indeed be the last straw for many. I hope at minimum contracts start including required physical release. It's what keeps anime so alive and well archived.
This is the only reason I really subbed to HBOMax and canceled my sub today. They had IMO the best place to stream animation from Close Enough to Harley Quinn to the classics of my childhood. I'm seriously less and less sold on streaming and using the cloud in general because these services haven't given me a reason not to have trust issues.
As someone who works in finance for an entertainment company I great appreciate the correction in the edit. Sometimes people mention they get a tax benefit like it magically makes the numbers work, tax benefit or not it's still bad for business to waste $90M to save $30M in taxes. I would add another benefit to not releasing it, is keeps the BS clear in future years. Content gets expensed over years so expensing it all now will make 2023+ better.
(A) they either survived however they're budget is massively reduced due to the budgetary issues with warner discovery rn and focus on imports and maybe even live action again kinda like what happened to them in 2009 sames goes with adult swim and boomerang (B) they get shut down disney channel style and move all of their old and newer content on discovery plus or even a new streaming platform (C) they get shut down and cartoon network only exist as a name only there will be no replacement they just die
If WB goes down it could all get bought for pennies on the dollar by a big European or Canadian "content" rights-holding firm. Which actually wouldn't be too bad seeing how these types of companies actually tend to be very well run and are enormously profitable. It would even probably be easier to watch those shows if this happened vs. the current situation.
The fact that Uncle Grandpa is the only show that survived from Discovery's raid on Cartoon Network shows in HBO Max is equivalent to Kirby escaping from the World of Light in Smash Ultimate. Uncle Grandpa is the living embodiment of the average Florida man.
the fact that the group who decided to remove certain shows valued the dumpster fire that is Uncle Granpda, but thought Infinity train of all things deserved the axe?
@@violet_skrs Except Uncle Grandpa did get removed from HBOmax too, it just so happened that one episode that was taken down last was "Fleas Help Me" which people immediately memed on as a cry for help, and his only other remaining appearance was in the Steven Universe crossover
I’ve said it many times regarding HBO Max and I’ll say it again, considering that the many higher ups under Zaslav were not happy with this, most notably CN’s higher ups who said that what Zaslav did was a horrible idea, they should simply campaign to get rid of Zaslav. Roy E. Disney did such a thing when he was sick of Eisner’s BS and look where it got the Walt Disney Company during the 2010’s. It worked with Disney so why not do it with WB? Other than that, if I was Zaslav, I would’ve just tried to get many of those HBO Max exclusives to be given reruns on cable, like on HBO’s channels, Discovery Family, Cartoon Network, TBS, etc. instead of pissing off everyone. Also have upcoming HBO Max originals maybe moved to premiere on HBO itself.
A bit of context missing from you bringing up the Roy Disney part. The few reasons that worked is because Eisner was a year away from having his executive contract expire so there was a ticking clock and he had a sympathetic chunk of shareholders, which we should not ever confuse for non-share holding customers because they have different material demands, to cause Eisner to "voluntarily" resign. All of this where Disney was losing money for a few years and had a not-to recent hostile takeover from Comcast that almost worked so there was already blood in the water to get shareholders pissed off with him. Unfortunately at the moment there isn't that much evidence of shareholders having a similar amount of discontent and there's no indications that Zaslav's job is in jeopardy with them or the Board of Directors. It's far likely based off his behavior that if this was tried the board and Zaslav would cut the legs out from the opposition and there'd be little shareholder interest to rock a boat that's been shaken up so much already in the past 3 years.
@@Trekpanther The thing is, I feel like the decision to put Zaslav in charge is BECAUSE he was very successful with reality TV while at Discovery, and that's his wheelhouse. And for what its worth, reality TV is cheap to make and draws a crowd. Too bad its garbage.
HBOs first sign of struggle was passing off “Masters of the Air”. The third mini-series in the Band of Brothers family of shows, a series that very much helped kicked HBO into the big game. The success of the show at the time was huge during a turbulent time for “premium” channel services. This now is Apple TV’s first major project and will likely make some significant impact in their streaming service subscription count (they agree, as they’ve spent nearly $250 million on it). This decision was made in 2019, or at least finalized in 2019 which likely means it was made much earlier. Anytime a entertainment company starts to dump off its flagship content, especially such highly acclaimed content, it becomes evident there’s likely some deep flaws occurring.
Message to Media Corporations. "Shitting the bed is not better than not shitting the bed." Trying asking what will attract people to your yard. Not what will trap them in your walled garden. That is an abusive relationship. It's why people hate you.
The TV streaming services are a walled garden in structure however, without exception (maybe not counting RUclips and copycats ). The music streaming services show the alternative, where distributors are separate from the producers. But it is hard to imagine things will change.
I have to disagree about the animated shows on HBO Max having low viewership. Infinity Train was one of the most highly viewed shows on service. There’s no good reason for it to have been removed.
Even if some shows have low viewership individually, they add variety to the service, which keeps some groups subscribed (and it is cheaper than covering all their bases with new shows). Amazon has some absolute B-schlock in their library, but it costs them almost nothing to keep it licensed and as long as some people keep those movies in their watchlist, saying "I want to watch this weird movie some day, since it is free on Prime" (leading them to not cancel their Prime subscription), it has served its purpose.
It's not that it has low viewership it's that it's viewership is low COMPARED to the movies and other stuff on hboMAX Which in itself, by cinema standards, is astronomically low Infinity Train had decently high viewership for a tv show, but note that it's high viewership is counted for the entire series, not just individual episodes
Some days I look on in despair as Disney acquires everything . . . But then I look at Warner Bros and I realise why. Whole industry is run by idiots who are paid way too much and don't know what they are doing.
One aspect that seems unnoticed is that Warner since AOL was in huge debt, AOL sold it for that low because it was more profitable to them and get rid of that debt With streaming services they can get a stable income, just not what companies expect (which is ALL the existing money in the world) Zaslav's decisions for sure are petty, but mergers have an intended purpose, even the ones that at face value don't make sense This isn't an excuse because why should I defend a multi million company? But it's an understanding as to why they f**k up so regularly
Fun fact, AOL never sold Warner Bros. The company made out of AOL and TimeWarner's merger continued till they merged with AT&T. It's just TimeWarner realized that they've fucked up and removed AOL from their name and while off loading AOL sometime in the late 2000's to Verizon if I recall correctly.
@@lifeguardpanda Also, technically, AOL *bought* Warner. They were the senior partner. Which is both hilarious, and sad. Also, that means the debt from the acquisition likely mostly stayed with the AOL segment.
It really is amazing when a multi-billion dollar company becomes so incompetently managed that it doesn't seem like an exaggeration to say that you could pick someone off the street at random and believe they could do better.
@@BuetifullPersun This incompetence has nothing to do with the content and everything to do with the marketing and distributing decisions, which is why it's such a shock that you could believe a random person off the street could do better - it's not a field you expect random people to have any skill in.
Thanks for the video essay. HBO Max doesn’t stream in many countries outside of the Americas. In NZ, they license their content to Sky Television and TVNZ, who host Warner Bros content on their own streaming platforms. Not enthusiastic about what streaming service Warner Bros Discovery plans to launch internationally. They have made too many blunders.
I cant wait for when the time comes in a few years when we all come back to this video and wonder how he guessed the WB Chipotle merger so far in advance
HBO was consistently my favorite streaming app through the pandemic. even if just for watching reruns of Mr. show and flight of the Conchords it's worth it for me.
I really enjoyed how brand new movies would show up in high definition blu-ray quality on the high seas on day one. I miss the stupid decisions desperate Hollywood execs made during covid.
This might be different but them cancelling Raised by Wolves was so tragic as it was one of the best, different shows I’ve watched. Got my friends roommates of very different personalities to get so invested, it was a show lots of people could get into seemingly
As a religious person who watched that show , there was really nothing about it that was really cool or unique, all they did was .they retold the garden of eden story from a sci-fi POV but god was the villain and satan was the good guy. It was thematically weak and allegorically fluff
During the Pandemic it was perfect to put movies on streaming services but as soon as recovery occurred they should've made movies theaters exclusive once again
I for one, am all for streaming services dying and becoming 1 or 2 just like when it was only Netflix and Hulu. I hate how many streaming services there are now. Its the same as the cable I stopped paying for
absolutely agree. it was wonderful for about a couple years and then the greedy bastards saw they could make a million of the same app, divide the shows, and maximize the profits and we all suffer for it :)
That's why I have zero streaming services, and still have cable with a DVR. I did the math, and it costs me far less to stick with cable that it would for me to subscribe to multiple streaming services. When it was just Netflix, it would have made sense to cut the cord. Now that content is high decentralized and spread across multiple streaming services, I find that it's no longer logical to end cable.
Same. I hate capitalism as much as the next guy. I just wish all those animators didn’t have to suffer for Warner-Discovery’s incompetence and greed. They deserve better.
@@Dave102693 Whoa dude, thanks for the tip! I was aware of the existence of Tubi TV. I wasn't aware that there were other free streaming services available. I still wouldn't cancel my cable TV. But subscribing to a few free streaming services might not be a bad idea!
"Am I saying I could have done better? Yes, I do" The executives in high positions in big enterprises are not dumb, they are unscrupulous. This case is just a small example that the mentality of these powerful people is still the same of the 2008, because they know that their bad practices don't have consequences for them, neither financially nor criminally. And, as last resort, there is always government money to save the companies when things go too bad. The bill goes to the poor to pay.
HBO, you have brought us so much greatness. An era may be over... The Wire, Sopranos, BoB, Six Feet under, Sex and the City, Deadwood, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Oz, Generation Kill, GoT, Westworld. And of curse all the comedy specials.
I just hope DC finds a new home. 50+ years under Warner's ownership has seen some really good times, but, the bad times far outweigh the good. Truth is Warner's never really known what to do with DC. I'd like to see them under leadership that does.
All I can think of is to have DC and WB break up into a bunch of smaller companies, literally the only way I can see Detective Comics becoming functional once more. (Also, Dark Horse makes good shit and I want to see them not be restricted by WB anymore.)
@@kavky if the mouse buys it. On one hand end game 2+ directors cut & knuckles. On the other hand… the government stepping in and probably shutting it down and pointing out: BIG MONOPOLY
Look into what Todd McFarlane is doing with the latest Batman one-shot comic with having say over the merchandise that goes with it, if he plays his cards right and finds a backer, he could buy DC and right the wrongs
They have so much potential. Someone with more than two braincells and the Batman IP alone could be more profitable than them. For the sake of my childhood memories, I hope they fix the mess they've made.
I'm so pissed Close Enough got cancelled. I genuinely loved the show and was looking forward to it going a long way. I've been following it since it was announced for TBS. I'm still so pissed.
Great video, I enjoyed it especially being reminded how AT&T overpaid for this. There is no money in these streaming services, more to say accurately, there is no profit in streaming. Paramount+ and even Disney+ are losing billions a year. Unless they cut down on cost heavily (mainly limited new content), the only way HBO Max can make a profit is by getting to 400-500 million subscribers and increasing the service to maybe $50 a month. That's not going to happen, because if they jack up the price, it's just cable again and HBO Max would lose subscriptions by the millions. No profit in streaming.
i originally had HBO because my goal was to rewatch the DCAU but i didn't realize that Batman itself is like 200 episodes. that's not counting the 100 plus episodes each for Superman, Justice League and Beyond.
Projects get cancelled when new people take over, so that the people from before who started those projects don't get the credit and the new people can't be blamed if it bombs. This seems the most likely explanation for Batgirl getting canned. Edit: this is why I shouldn't comment before finishing the video.
So like when a new lion moves into a new pride and kills all of the cubs of the original leader of the pride? Except digitally and the cubs are animators
Something to keep in mind.. what outsiders tend to see as 'ego' is really just another case of 'money'. executives are generally more concerned about their personal brands than the brand they are overseeing. the video briefly talked about not wanting projects of the old guard and instead projects with their name associated with it.... but really, that isn't 'ego', that is the type of personal branding and association that advances your carrer.. so.. yeah.. money.
The fact that they squished HBO Max and Discovery+ together, changed the name and skyrocketed the price only to leave Discovery+ as its own service is the most baffling corporate move I've ever seen.
Content wise HBO MAX has been top tier when it comes to streaming services. It's maddening to see the service-and the overall legacy of the Warner, HBO, and DC Comics brands-so devalued by the CEO of a company that produces actual garbage. I also find it absolutely hilarious that Zaslav would announce a grand 10 Year Plan to "fix" the DC ip and then greenlight a sequel to the 2005 'Constantine' film. That was a film that was not a "hit" during its original release. Wasn't a critical darling. Was notable for being nothing like the source material. And ultimately barely broke even at the domestic box office. Like, whut?
Dude Constantine has the largest cult following. The first Constantine didn't make as much due to the competition that was in theaters and no one knowing anything about Constantine but everyone is excited to see a sequel that's been long over due
@Paul Stoleriu I'm a person...who enjoyed 'Constantine' as a film but thought it was a piss-poor adaptation of the John Constantine character from the comics. If it had been called 'Demon Fighting Guy' or some other random shit, cool. But it's not Constantine.
i love how executives and higherups keep proving over and over again they're in postion because they have the money and not that they're smart or anything
One thing that no one seems to mention is that the service just doesn’t actually work. Fine if you watch on mobile there aren’t any problems. But try watch on your tv, computer, or stream on tv from your phone and nothing works. It crashes every 10 minutes, buffers every 2 minutes. Every other streaming service works. I’ve had multiple accounts, multiple tvs, multiple isps, hell even multiple states. But it just always lags, crashes, and buffers
I think what kills me the most about all the animated shows getting axed is two-fold; -First, They made ***no*** attempts to renegotiate *anything* with *anyone*, to the point where literally the actual staff on the shows, the ones being paid these supposed expensive remittances, only found out with everyone else. No one even thought about renegotiating the high rates, and just hit "delete" on a lot of shows that were loved by their viewers and staff alike. To give you a perspective on just *how* horrible of an idea this was, multiple staff from these shows have outright openly committed piracy to keep them watchable. Like, they just deadass actually made and shared massive Google drives full of all the episodes, and didn't obfuscate anything. Now, there certainly was some "FUCK YOU HBO" energy to this whole thing, but pretty much everyone, both openly and in private, was far more concerned with keeping the shows watchable. *These people were openly willing to commit actual crimes to keep these shows watchable without having to go to risky pirate sites.* They cared about that WAY more then they cared about the money. If the execs up top has even just sent out a single feeler to see if renegotiation was on the table, they could have avoided this whole fiasco and only removed a few shows at best, *and* have someone else to point blame towards for said removal. Instead, not only did they burn bridges with thousands of creators, lose 20 billion in market cap, and tank their reputation, but now all these creators are airing out the horrible business practices and abuses they were subject to while making these shows, both further tanking the reputation of the company and making it harder for them to do this in the future. -Speaking of reputation, Secondly, though these posts are all gone now, HBO Max was actually trying to pivot itself into "The animation platform" once GoT ended and they needed a new cash cow. They recognized that general audience and mature animation was a massively underserved Niche in the west, and that the anime industry was on the decline, leaving a massive hole full of money and dedicated fans out in the rain, so they decided to basically embrace this new niche first by tapping into nostalgia about the DCAU and Animaniacs, and then by moving focus onto their popular existing animated properties like Adventure Time and Steven Universe. They went into this Niche hard and fast, and actively pushed that Warner Bros was moving back into animation, and moving back hard. Between Netflix canning most shows past season 2, Disney+ not really caring much about new animation outside of what they were already making, Hulu just not having much animation, and Nickelodeon being too kid focused, there was actually a real sense of hope among animation buffs for a while. Hell, under the Harley Quinn episodes on the pirate site I used, some people said they were only on the site to use the forum-like comments and the community, and were watching animation legally for the first time in literal years, and actually paying for the service. Animation, which has the biggest piracy """problem""" of any media, where even successful projects like Netflix's She-Ra reboot """lose""" a lot of viewers to piracy, was actually getting more actual new subscriptions on their platform then ever before, because they actually seemed to be investing in the success and giving people what they wanted, finally. They weren't gonna pull a Netflix by canning a show after 2 seasons if it wasn't stranger things levels of successful, and they weren't gonna trash a show because they purposefully made it fail because of internal politics like Disney did (RIP every successful Disney show sent to Disney XD to die a horrible death because of "low ratings" on a channel that not even a million people had access to one one cable service when they got multi-million views on the main channel. Wander over Yonder and Gravity Falls deserved so much better.) It seemed like, for once, instead of the animation community having the rug pulled out from under them once the studios felt like it, people could trust HBO Max would actually care about animation. And then they pulled the rug out and deleted thousands of hours of animation so quickly some people were in the middle of episodes when they were deleted. Aside from that one episode of uncle grandpa that stayed up for an extra 30 hours, the animated shows vanished just as quickly as the genuine good will they spent four years building did. I have genuinely never seen a community go from outright praising a corporation to actually planning on vandalizing the execs homes and cars in such a short time span. That is how this move lost them 20 billion and counting. And they fucking deserved every bit of it.
Because you are wrong, HBO got almost same revenue as Disney and Netflix. HBO is not only HBO max. They get a lot of money from normal tv , games, commercial. The cinema pay quite a lot of the money to.
Literally went to watch Harry Potter yesterday on HBO Max only to find it was shipped to only be found streaming on Peacock. This explains it, well here's to the Rock and GRRM to saving an entire 99 year old corporation. Hope it works out for them
For me it’s quite the contrary. While they have removed many of the unpopular animated shows, hbomax and Wb are the only one keeping variety of serious, well written, adult themed shows in the present day. Many of the others like Disney+ , Netflix and Amazon are just garbage.
To me the worst part of all this is the fact that HBO Max had just gotten to new countries in Europe and got immediatly announced to be shut down and turned into something else. Like they’ve just gotten people used to the brand of HBO Max and many people view it as pretty much the best streaming service quality wise. Hoping they’ll get their shit together and things still turn out better.
I don't pay attention to a lot of this stuff so I am shocked Warner Bros is in such a bad position and was really surprised when I saw they were merging with discovery. It is quite incredible the position they are in now and I am curious if this was will cause such a giant from before to fail.
I was actually hyped for the Scoob Holiday Special because it was written by Paul Dini and it was pretty much an expansion of the flashback scene from the first film, the best part of it. Having grown up with A Pup Named Scooby Doo, I was interested in seeing a new take on the gang as kids.
I do really appreciate you putting this in a video and yeah it's absolutely ridiculous what they did to the animated shows that are basically stuck in limbo. Both the creator of close enough and I think Infinity train basically hinted on Twitter that if you want to see the seasons that were locked on to there that you should just pirate it. I mean I'd be more than willing to buy a box set of both shows I enjoyed them and we watched Infinity train recently before they took it down... It really boggles my mind
On the bright side if things just keep going down hill perhaps they’ll be forced to sell their various copyrighted IPs. Obviously all the big stuff is gonna be bought up by other companies but perhaps there’s some smaller stuff that might be fun to buy the rights to on principle. Everyone can own their own little piece of Warner media history.
HBO had a lot of Batman animated content. Including a radio only Batman show where Commissioner Gordon from the Batman movie played the Batman. They had a Batman vehicles program. They didn't need another Batman animated series to get lost in the shuffle.
@@3Guys1Video Uhh.. yes, yes it is. Rangz of power is the perfect example of what happens when a studio decides to go woke. The show bombs and people shit all over it. If you can't see the relationship between that and faltering viewership then idk man.
When the services merge I want to see the statistics of "scripted good" vs. "honny-boo-boo shit" when it come to watching, even when it come the Discovery-only stuff the audience will pick something better if given a choice. At least Zaslav treat the theaters better than Chapek.
@@Dave102693 We need another rural purge, but also urban stuff are getting gutted this time because we can't take more Family Guy, Big Mouth and Ryan Murphy shows.
@@Dave102693 Reality TV is very profitable, because you don't need to do nearly as much behind the scenes work for the same amount of content. But it's content that's usually very disposable.
Even with all this mess. HBO Max still has a better film selection than any other major streaming service out there. Maybe they are losing money hand over fist, but hey I have an incredible watch list on that platform.
Im a big fan of HBO max. It has so many good shows and movies, having the whole DC brand is a huge appeal to me. It really is a shame to see what Warner Discovery is doing to it. But these problems go back further than when they merge. Warner Bros botched the DC cinematic universe badly haven't really been able to recovery since.
Warner Bros Discovery just annihilating everything from streaming even the company itself. Worst corporate idea in history of entertainment. Bad news to HBO Max, I already cancelling my subscription because of that. I'm hoping us fans to step up and shutting David Z.'s corrupted even embolismic mind before he'll destroy everything. #SaveWB23 We need to stop this.
And I just learned that not only that Warner Bros. Discovery got Sued, but I also found out many people including analysts predict that, As reported to Hollywood Reporter, Comcast Will acquire the studio in 2024.
I feel like if we saw everything David Zazlav saw and heard when he took over we would understand why he would cancel Batgirl. Might not agree with it but at least it’s an answer. Now the removal of the shows is dumb.
So I was gonna detail the whole “batgirl” controversy much more, especially the taxes part, but it got a bit bogged down with speculation and rumors and other such things.
The Batgirl movie was not cancelled for “tax deductions and write offs”. The government doesn’t simply reimburse a film’s production budget because it was wrote off. Since the studio is loosing a significant amount of money by not releasing the film, regardless of the whole tax situation, the reason it was cancelled was due to the content of the film itself.
Now since I haven’t seen the film, I won’t say why I believe it was cancelled, but there’s quite a bit of speculation online.
Could be the quality, political stuffs, anything.
But yeah, it wasn’t taxes.
Thanks for this. As an accountant/tax preparer, my blood pressure spikes whenever someone says "tax write-offs." It never means what they think it means.
Also you left out the one good thing about this service that they seemed to keep was Studio Ghibli.
*losing
Also, I would like to see a video on this topic specifically
@@Nathanatos22 theres not much more to say about the topic that he hasn't already talked about
Batgirl was obviously cancelled because it was dogshit.
"Am I saying I could have done better? Yes, I do"
Respect for admiting it
@Marshal Marrs no, no mkst people agree and you're right in your prediction. I predict the mainstream entertainment industry will be in shambles by the end of the decade
@Marshal Marrs I really, really hope you're right. I'm tired of the constant remakes and woke propaganda Hollywood is shoving down our throats. Something needs to change.
@Marshal Marrs do you have any basis for this ? it seems to me like inde filns are getting more and more pushed twords the sidelines compared to big buget fims like marvel.
@@DeltaFRFX Hate to break it to you, but Indie films were "woke", long before mainstream Hollywood started including those themes in its movies.
@@3faltigeralexandro nah. Not compared to Disney at least
It's funny how one of the excuses they're using for cancelling so many shows is that they want to keep HBO an exclusive premium brand and they only want the highest quality shows. But at the same time, they're planning to merge HBO Max with Discoveryplus next year, with such premium exclusive content as Honey Boo Boo, the Duggars, and Toddlers and Tiaras.
Also, they're trying to make $3 billion in budget cuts while their new CEO is getting a compensation package worth $246 million.
I feel like its worth pointing out all the long-time lifers that built HBO up from a premium cable service you could only get in NYC, to the powerhouse that brought us The Sopranos were given the boot when AT&T acquired Time Warner.
Ted Turner didn't kick these people out. Jeff Bewkes didn't either. AT&T, on the other hand, DID.
Honey Boo Boo sounds like the name of Hannah Barbera show
@@alchemistofsteel8099 It would have been better if it was.
Are you actually aware at how small a fraction 246 million to 3 billion is? Like did you fail math or do you actually have a learning disability?
@@KingThrillgore Rome, Sapranos, and GOT. Possibly the dream lineup fo shows for a program
What HBO Max did to animated shows and creators is beyond absurd. There’s no way the amount of money they saved was worth the complete loss in public faith in the service
Well given what we know, they didn't even save any money, the stunt cost them a shitload more.
Bro they don't give a damn, peoples lives and work apparently have a cost, and right now that cost is a few extra pennies, human life will NEVER mean more or be more important than money to these companies 🤷🏿♂️
Bro they don't give a damn, peoples lives and work apparently have a cost, and right now that cost is a few extra pennies, human life will NEVER mean more or be more important than money to these companies 🤷🏿♂️
but I know where the money will go, into the fire, and the same with your soul!!! 🔥
its not just HBO Max. Its all of them. Netflix especially. it seems like streaming services hate animation. Netflix, Disney+, HBOMax etc are canceling and taking off a bunch of shows including their own in-house productions because they dont want to pay the actors royalties. there is a strike going on because of this
The level of incompetence needed to get to this point in WB’s demise (considering their library is stacked with content that people love) is truly something to behold.
I feel like nobody has really thought through how stupid AT&T anti net neutrality plan so I want to just play out how that would have gone
AT&T: hey I see that you don't have our services so now you can't see WB content
Average Consumer: well I guess it's time to cancel HBO Max
AT&T Wait I never said you had to cancel it why not just buy our services
Average Consumer: because I already signed to a contract that would require me to take a fee to get out of and I don't want to go through the ordeal of changing my internet provider plus Netflix and other streaming services already has more than enough content to keep me content
Artists tryin to do good work vs loudmouth cockswingers. Tale as old as time.
The worst part of it all was how brilliant HBO max was at first. The way they split up their movies was really smart. Focusing on TCM and CN and Adult Swim and Looney Tunes and Studio Ghibli
The whole write off tax loss just doesn’t make sense to me as a tax accountant. Pretty common misconception people have that everything is a “tax write off”. No company in their right mind would go into in endeavor for a taxable loss. IRS losses are more strict than normal GAAP losses. You can’t deduct losses from lost sales or any of that only expenses already incurred. Even then, you’d be pretty stupid not to release it and recoup some of the money because you will deduct it either way. Tax write off argument is so stupid and the people that believe it need to research it themselves.
The IRS: something’s not right
Tax accountant is such a sell out job lmao
@@Dv8l hate it all you want, rarely does a nation's population build highways and sewage systems for free. that's what taxes are for
@@Dv8l pays well and super secure and in demand? Works for me.
@@inter5123 not saying its a bad thing, id be indifferent to getting that job if i were you
If Dwayne Johnson ends up saving WB, he will be able to write his own check in Hollywood. They'll build a statue of him the size of the WB watertower at WB studios.
God that would get meme'd to no end.
“Clint Eastwood? Tom Hanks? Nah step aside for the Rock”
@@zombieranger3410 Mf Hollywood Hill is overshadowed by the western US' version of Lady Liberty.
I now have a reason to see the black adam movie
With Kevin Hart standing waist high giving him the high five
It’s been a 6 years since this channel became Tyler’s, but even after such a long time, I still can’t decide for the life of me whether this channel is serious or a complete shitpost lmao
Little bit of A little bit of B
Yes
To answer your question, yes
@Emotional D Away with you! Away!
Care to fill someone that has no idea in on how Tyler came to own this channel and even more important WHAT was this channel before?
The especially tragic thing is before all this HBO max was the best streaming service available
What AT&T was trying to do was essentially vertical integration without any idea of how vertical integration actually works
WB has the best library and IP, next only to Disney. How did they manage to screw it up?
That's the sad part they themselves sort of didn't. They made mistakes ya however the ultimate blame is on the merger companies yanking them in other directions.
Snydercut alone is worth more than anything the Disney/Marvel/Starwars/Fox/DNC/San-Francisco-pedo-Chior/Applebees corporation incorporated has made in the past 20 years, and Disney's animated content is on VHS in full at any yard sale. Disney Pus was 2nd place long before Lightqueer happened.
thats kinda been the plan of companies that merge for at least the past decade or more, whenever two companies merge they usually go into debt doing so. After the merge is finalized they "recoup" the costs by firing employees and getting rid of stuff that cost the most money, among other things. In this case we can see the extreme end of such a merger, theyve fired employees, gotten rid of shows they were paying residuals on and gotten some tax write offs. Of course this has all blown up in their faces because one of the worst thing you could do to a streaming service is get rid of shows you own that have been on there for a long time. People tend to lose faith in your product when that happens.
The merger was the screw up
The disaster that was GOT 8 is what did it, they were all set up to have a Westeros franchise cash cow and it just was dead after that. If it had ended well if there were more seasons and more hype for spin offs HBO would be sitting pretty
That is just sad. Warner went from being Disney's top competitor, to spit balling ideas in hopes something sticks. Reminds me of the whole Nintendo and Sega feud
at least sega has a visible future
@@dinosaurusrex1482 The fact that Sega out of everyone nowadays has a biger grasp on the future than WB is kinda funny to me
@@dinosaurusrex1482 what future? I haven't followed SEGA closely for a while.
@@realfangplays sonic, bayonetta, persona
@@dinosaurusrex1482 Yakuza and so much more
The CN executives are the same people who think having 30 straight episodes of Teen Titans Go every single day to this day is a good thing, yet they also were smart enough to see this as a terrible decision.
well y'know, stopped clock and all that
Well yeah teen titans go is garbage but it's what puts food on the table for CN.
But this is about a streaming service. Plus they had barely any say in this.
Teen Titans Go has a higher viewership than Aventure time, it took the number 2 spot of most watched cartoon on CN in 2018.
I get that you dislike it, but children (whom are many) loved it.
@@BazzBrother maybe because they aired everyday nonstop in 2016
"isn't the amount that the studio is paying in residuals to the actors and writers way too much" hasn't really aged all that well...
A couple of things here. The Batgirl movie cancellation had to do with a one time tax write off for assets acquired in the merger. That had to be done sometime before August so that has a lot to do with the abrupt timing (this write off is in addition to other depreciation). Zaslov (the new head honcho) is on the record as favoring unscripted content (aka reality TV like Honey Boo Boo) as opposed to scripted stuff (like West World, Raised by Wolves...etc). My thought is that he is vastly out of touch with his audience...VASTLY. Then there is the whole CW fiasco. Contrary to what anyone would say, these super hero shows that they cancelled en mass were wildly profitable due to the deals they had with Netflix for streaming rights after the season was broadcast. Netflix was paying BILLIONS (with a B) for those streaming rights, that doesn't even take into account many of those cancelled shows were close to airing long enough to get picked up in syndication (another no brainer cash cow). I can't look at that decision to mass cancel basically the whole network as anything but an ego thing that they just didn't want Netflix to have the content and better to cancel it than let Netflix pay you billions of dollars. I agree...I think I could do a better job running this mess.
Focusing on fake reality TV has got to be the worst decision, that stuff is dying out. It's not the 2000s anymore and there's a million vloggers and live streamers for free online.
Seems ironic given they seem to be auctioned off some of their stuff........which Netflix could get and this get content and even a bit of good PR potentially (Which given their constant insanity and stupidity, they desperately need.).
It's such a shame that a company like Warner Bros. with a legendary library of films and shows as well as popular IPs has always been ruined time after time because of the terrible desicions of their parent companies. Honestly, a lot of this bullshit could've been prevented if they just stayed independent after realizing about the massive disaster that the AOL merger ended up being.
I'm just waiting for the moment this happens to Disney, corporate greed will destroy the company
hopefully after this they'll stay independent
Right like Warner Bros had the potential to be as much of a household name as Disney. They had so much content it could of been it’s own independent streaming platform.
The fact that they censor stuff on HBO is also mind boggling as one of the biggest advantages of streaming vs live tv is that you don’t have to do that anymore.
Example being South Park and how they just straight up pulled certain episodes
@@sarinabina5487 Yeah, but it will be extremely difficult for the company to start from the ground up at its state. After the big amount of shit that everyone else has done to it, I don't think it could stay afloat by itself for now. Damn, if the AT&T merger was a bad desicion, the Discovery merger was a fucking trainwreck.
@@Pocosebas I mean, they're kinda not doing well, but at least they know how to keep themselves stable. They have the big advantage that at least they don't have to pay for the horrible desicions that their parent company do because they're pretty much independent.
But I know where your comment comes from. They make so much amount of trash and overproduce so much stuff to the point where it's just really annoying to see that it's getting a lot of money for doing bad stuff.
It’s really sad what’s has been going with HBO Max Animation lately (And with the entire Western Animation industry). I know they can create amazing cartoons, even the best ones ever made. They have all of the resources, the budget, all of these amazing and talented artists and animators and yet they choose not unlock that potential of this incredible medium because Hollywood sees it as something dumb, just for babies. Animation deserves better treatment than this 😔
It's not that Hollywood sees it that way. Hollywood cares about money. It's that Hollywood correctly sees that the general public in America (the west's largest single English-speaking market) and the rest of the west, by and large, see it that way (except comedy, which is the sole domain in which western animation is allowed to thrive - not just to push up the occasional promising shoot). Animation has infinite potential, probably more potential than any other video medium, but until the conception of animation in the average American's mind is something other than "Swiper no swiping!", "Doh!"... it's not going anywhere amazing in the west. Anime fans fighting the good fight, if it puts anime in the public consciousness at all, also typically just ends up adding ""UwU dont touch me there onii-chan" or some other cringey anime trope to the list of things people think of when they hear "animation".
Even those "promising shoots" that western animation pushes up every once in a blue moon tend to have prepubescent protagonists - the fact that they have a character who can be accurately described as a "protagonist" at all being what makes them promising - and they are, ostensibly, still "kids shows" and/or heavily reliant on comedy (Steven Universe, Adventure Time, etc). The west has put out what amounts to a couple passable shonen series, but I'm drawing a blank on western equivalents to seinen anime. Actually, *maybe*... Ugly Americans was a show - it just came to mind and office comedies are nothing if not seinen - but then again, it's more-or-less a pure comedy that lacked any of the dramatic aspects SU and AT had... and also wasn't that popular.
I've lost faith in western animation everytime it feels like it's one steep forward it's two massive steeps back. I guess it's time for me to move onto anime
@@maninanikittycat4238 Anime isn't any better. It's popularity is arguably making the industry worse. While the animation industry here in America isn't amazing, it's practically heaven in comparison to the industry in Japan. Horrible working conditions and absolutely abysmal pay are the backbone of an industry that pumps out hundreds of projects every single year, and it's not going to get better. It's like a train moving at ever increasing speeds until it crashes into a million pieces.
I really hope the internet pushes more hollywood and tv old guard like this to die out faster and the FCC stops rubber stamping mergers so these dying behemoths don't get to ruin everything else on their way out.
The worst thing about this is that we were SO CLOSE to a revival to western animation. Welp, guess it's back to indie.
Edit: Man, this has destroyed me more than I thought. I mean this is my DREAM, I've always wanted to be in the animation scene for all my life. Now I don't know if western animation will be around when I go job hunting. God damn it, I don't even feel mad anymore, im just numb.
rip bozo😔
That's probably the worst part. CN and Adult Swim have been where new 2d animation is born for a decade and now we're back to just anime and random Disney and Nick gems.
It's only for children and gay people, that's what the corpos think.
@@Horatio787 A fate worse than death...
@@Horatio787 can you summarize that
I hopped off the hbo train when they separated themselves from boxing. I know it wasn't just the suits at hbo that came to that conclusion (promotions, investors, front/back end finance) but to throw over 40 years of quality boxing programming in the can was a huge blow to the network. Some might not agree, but as a fight fan, it was cool to know you was getting prime fights throughout the year. It's always been many places to watch fights. Boxing is the only sport that came on almost every night of the week. 🥊🥊🥊🥊 and we enjoyed it all, from Tuesday night fights, to the bigger shows.
Edit: hbo just had that certain charm and detailed vision when it came to presenting the fight game. They just hit different 🥊🥊🥊🥊
This is why every time John Campea praises these moves by David Zaslav, I KNOW he's buggin & just impressed to see an exec welding THAT much power to undo the mistakes WB made with HBO Max that he was the biggest movie industry YTer taking a loud vocal stance against
I truly feel sorry for all of the animation studios that got screwed
Maybe they can go talk to Netflix now
@@AshrakAhmed Hell no man. Netflix has god awful quality control. Amazon's the last hope now
The animation on Netflix is on average good to great , you are mistaken in this. Hilda, Kipo, cup head are great, boss baby is for small children but is good, the animation films are excellent like Klaus, voyage to the moon, etc. I hope Netflix hires a lot of these hbo animation personal.
@@NoName...... You're talking quality control and you bring up Amazon? Not saying they have bad first party shows, but they truly let anything on Prime Video
@@AshrakAhmed Netflix is treating animation like shit right now the same as HBO Max and other companies
HBO Max back catalogue of HBO shows, Warner and MGM classics, Cartoon Network and so on, is a truly fantastic one. They have the most well-rounded catalogue of all streaming services
Which makes its downfall even more tragic.
@@ksaraf23 I hope that at least the fusion of HBO Max with Discovery+ will have together everything that both services already had, the whole catalogue. And I hope that people who signed HBO Max can be automatically transfered to the new service.
"Mar 17, 2022 - Amazon has closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, the companies said Thursday."
And they're now gutting the back catalog. The main reason I even bothered with HBO Max is vanishing.
@@unncommonsense I know that, but Warner Bros. still has the rights to MGM's pre-1986 catalogue, as MGM didn't own it anymore, it had already been sold to Warner Bros.
With one of my favorite shows (Infinity Train) being removed from HBO max, its ONLY distributor, I feel like this stunt is hopefully going to cause a revival of online piracy, which is seriously the only way to watch the show Infinity Train.
As if piracy ever left.
Ahoy, me mateys
It never really went away, but most of the progress really was in anime (community subtitles, advanced encoding, organization and tagging, etc.). Crunchyroll and the few other sites did such a bad job that the dedicated fanbase out-developed them. Cartoon media hasn't had quite such a bad time on streaming services, so there hasn't been the same levels of development. Bee and Puppycat's second season snafoo was certainly a point where a need started becoming clearer, but this might indeed be the last straw for many. I hope at minimum contracts start including required physical release. It's what keeps anime so alive and well archived.
This is the only reason I really subbed to HBOMax and canceled my sub today. They had IMO the best place to stream animation from Close Enough to Harley Quinn to the classics of my childhood. I'm seriously less and less sold on streaming and using the cloud in general because these services haven't given me a reason not to have trust issues.
@@snowfox7739 Yes, I wanted it for the animation, too.
Well, guess it's one less subscription.
Too many streaming apps it’s overwhelming.. theyre better off selling or idk renting their shows to other bigger streamers like Netflix or Hulu
As someone who works in finance for an entertainment company I great appreciate the correction in the edit. Sometimes people mention they get a tax benefit like it magically makes the numbers work, tax benefit or not it's still bad for business to waste $90M to save $30M in taxes. I would add another benefit to not releasing it, is keeps the BS clear in future years. Content gets expensed over years so expensing it all now will make 2023+ better.
"You can make an argument that they lost $20B to save $3B". That would be a stupid argument for many reasons.
Cartoon Network had produced good shows that are classics and now I find myself fearing what might happen to all of that.
(A) they either survived however they're budget is massively reduced due to the budgetary issues with warner discovery rn and focus on imports and maybe even live action again kinda like what happened to them in 2009 sames goes with adult swim and boomerang
(B) they get shut down disney channel style and move all of their old and newer content on discovery plus or even a new streaming platform
(C) they get shut down and cartoon network only exist as a name only there will be no replacement they just die
🏴☠️
All of the past treasures is accessible if you want, and always will be, you just have to travel the seven seas.
If WB goes down it could all get bought for pennies on the dollar by a big European or Canadian "content" rights-holding firm. Which actually wouldn't be too bad seeing how these types of companies actually tend to be very well run and are enormously profitable. It would even probably be easier to watch those shows if this happened vs. the current situation.
@@irtbmtind89 Which Canadian or European content rights holding firm(s)?
The fact that Uncle Grandpa is the only show that survived from Discovery's raid on Cartoon Network shows in HBO Max is equivalent to Kirby escaping from the World of Light in Smash Ultimate.
Uncle Grandpa is the living embodiment of the average Florida man.
the fact that the group who decided to remove certain shows valued the dumpster fire that is Uncle Granpda, but thought Infinity train of all things deserved the axe?
@@violet_skrs Except Uncle Grandpa did get removed from HBOmax too, it just so happened that one episode that was taken down last was "Fleas Help Me" which people immediately memed on as a cry for help, and his only other remaining appearance was in the Steven Universe crossover
@@violet_skrs uncle grandpa fucking slaps bro
At least regular show is still on.
@@violet_skrs dont disrespect my homie Uncle Chadpa like that
I’ve said it many times regarding HBO Max and I’ll say it again, considering that the many higher ups under Zaslav were not happy with this, most notably CN’s higher ups who said that what Zaslav did was a horrible idea, they should simply campaign to get rid of Zaslav.
Roy E. Disney did such a thing when he was sick of Eisner’s BS and look where it got the Walt Disney Company during the 2010’s. It worked with Disney so why not do it with WB?
Other than that, if I was Zaslav, I would’ve just tried to get many of those HBO Max exclusives to be given reruns on cable, like on HBO’s channels, Discovery Family, Cartoon Network, TBS, etc. instead of pissing off everyone. Also have upcoming HBO Max originals maybe moved to premiere on HBO itself.
When even HIGHER UPS are telling you this is a bad idea. It is a VERY bad idea
Problem is because of the merger crazyness everyone got shuffled around and effectively nobody knows their coworkers anymore
Honestly Zaslav has screwed so many people over that I could genuinely see this happening
A bit of context missing from you bringing up the Roy Disney part. The few reasons that worked is because Eisner was a year away from having his executive contract expire so there was a ticking clock and he had a sympathetic chunk of shareholders, which we should not ever confuse for non-share holding customers because they have different material demands, to cause Eisner to "voluntarily" resign. All of this where Disney was losing money for a few years and had a not-to recent hostile takeover from Comcast that almost worked so there was already blood in the water to get shareholders pissed off with him.
Unfortunately at the moment there isn't that much evidence of shareholders having a similar amount of discontent and there's no indications that Zaslav's job is in jeopardy with them or the Board of Directors. It's far likely based off his behavior that if this was tried the board and Zaslav would cut the legs out from the opposition and there'd be little shareholder interest to rock a boat that's been shaken up so much already in the past 3 years.
@@Trekpanther The thing is, I feel like the decision to put Zaslav in charge is BECAUSE he was very successful with reality TV while at Discovery, and that's his wheelhouse. And for what its worth, reality TV is cheap to make and draws a crowd. Too bad its garbage.
HBOs first sign of struggle was passing off “Masters of the Air”. The third mini-series in the Band of Brothers family of shows, a series that very much helped kicked HBO into the big game. The success of the show at the time was huge during a turbulent time for “premium” channel services. This now is Apple TV’s first major project and will likely make some significant impact in their streaming service subscription count (they agree, as they’ve spent nearly $250 million on it). This decision was made in 2019, or at least finalized in 2019 which likely means it was made much earlier. Anytime a entertainment company starts to dump off its flagship content, especially such highly acclaimed content, it becomes evident there’s likely some deep flaws occurring.
HBO was already big before Band of Brothers.
If anything, The Sopranos was a bigger catalyst in its success
I love how in the editing part "La chica de ipanema" (The girl from Ipanema) sounds in Lo-fi, its awesome. Also, nice analysis
Message to Media Corporations. "Shitting the bed is not better than not shitting the bed."
Trying asking what will attract people to your yard. Not what will trap them in your walled garden. That is an abusive relationship. It's why people hate you.
The TV streaming services are a walled garden in structure however, without exception (maybe not counting RUclips and copycats ). The music streaming services show the alternative, where distributors are separate from the producers. But it is hard to imagine things will change.
I have to disagree about the animated shows on HBO Max having low viewership. Infinity Train was one of the most highly viewed shows on service. There’s no good reason for it to have been removed.
Even if some shows have low viewership individually, they add variety to the service, which keeps some groups subscribed (and it is cheaper than covering all their bases with new shows). Amazon has some absolute B-schlock in their library, but it costs them almost nothing to keep it licensed and as long as some people keep those movies in their watchlist, saying "I want to watch this weird movie some day, since it is free on Prime" (leading them to not cancel their Prime subscription), it has served its purpose.
the answer is simple
people don't respect animation
especially executives
It's not that it has low viewership
it's that it's viewership is low COMPARED to the movies and other stuff on hboMAX
Which in itself, by cinema standards, is astronomically low
Infinity Train had decently high viewership for a tv show, but note that it's high viewership is counted for the entire series, not just individual episodes
@@3faltigeralexandro he didn’t say it was low, he said it was to low to pay for the exorbitant fees they pay to the actors to keep it airing.
.... if it had views they wouldnt get rid of it
Some days I look on in despair as Disney acquires everything . . . But then I look at Warner Bros and I realise why. Whole industry is run by idiots who are paid way too much and don't know what they are doing.
One aspect that seems unnoticed is that Warner since AOL was in huge debt, AOL sold it for that low because it was more profitable to them and get rid of that debt
With streaming services they can get a stable income, just not what companies expect (which is ALL the existing money in the world)
Zaslav's decisions for sure are petty, but mergers have an intended purpose, even the ones that at face value don't make sense
This isn't an excuse because why should I defend a multi million company? But it's an understanding as to why they f**k up so regularly
Fun fact, AOL never sold Warner Bros. The company made out of AOL and TimeWarner's merger continued till they merged with AT&T. It's just TimeWarner realized that they've fucked up and removed AOL from their name and while off loading AOL sometime in the late 2000's to Verizon if I recall correctly.
@@lifeguardpanda Also, technically, AOL *bought* Warner. They were the senior partner.
Which is both hilarious, and sad.
Also, that means the debt from the acquisition likely mostly stayed with the AOL segment.
Yeah but........well a certain villain from a French Game said it best.
"Have I ever told you the definition of Insanity?"
This man understands that existance and adversity- are one and the same.
The Warner Brothers Estate: In time you will know the tragic extent of my failings.
The animators “to fall for such a little thing, a bite of bread”
Ruin,has come to our family-
'the cost of HBO max, measured now in gold, later in blood'
It really is amazing when a multi-billion dollar company becomes so incompetently managed that it doesn't seem like an exaggeration to say that you could pick someone off the street at random and believe they could do better.
Thats what happens when CEO's are hired based on connections friendships and relationships instead of track records or experience
That’s what happens when you go woke
@@BuetifullPersun This incompetence has nothing to do with the content and everything to do with the marketing and distributing decisions, which is why it's such a shock that you could believe a random person off the street could do better - it's not a field you expect random people to have any skill in.
@@BuetifullPersun TL;DR: *WOKE BAD GRRRR, VERY LOUD OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND*
@@alexv3375 Yes, you certainly summed up his point in less words than he initially used.
This is by far the best explanation I've heard on the matter so far. Very well done
Thanks for the video essay. HBO Max doesn’t stream in many countries outside of the Americas. In NZ, they license their content to Sky Television and TVNZ, who host Warner Bros content on their own streaming platforms. Not enthusiastic about what streaming service Warner Bros Discovery plans to launch internationally. They have made too many blunders.
I cant wait for when the time comes in a few years when we all come back to this video and wonder how he guessed the WB Chipotle merger so far in advance
I think I can condense what's happening in WB down to 1 word, and the word is: panic.
Love the Max Headroom clips strewn in the video. Very fitting.
As a huge WB fan, this actually breaks my heart to be honest 💔
HBO was consistently my favorite streaming app through the pandemic. even if just for watching reruns of Mr. show and flight of the Conchords it's worth it for me.
stuff you!
It was the DC animated library and Silicon Valley for me
Same. I got the Hulu+HBO max bundle and I cancelled my Netflix, Amazon prime video, Disney + and Apple TV. I’m tempted to cancel Hulu too.
I really enjoyed how brand new movies would show up in high definition blu-ray quality on the high seas on day one.
I miss the stupid decisions desperate Hollywood execs made during covid.
Bruh they steal people's identity, and defame artists, I'm boycotting them 👏
David Zaslav really wants to compete with Bob Chapek for worst CEO of a major entertainment company
Not even close.
Whoever wins, we all lose
Nah Iger still got them both beat.
This might be different but them cancelling Raised by Wolves was so tragic as it was one of the best, different shows I’ve watched. Got my friends roommates of very different personalities to get so invested, it was a show lots of people could get into seemingly
As a religious person who watched that show , there was really nothing about it that was really cool or unique, all they did was .they retold the garden of eden story from a sci-fi POV but god was the villain and satan was the good guy. It was thematically weak and allegorically fluff
@@novelenterprise Yeah, RBW was cheesy gnosticism. Maybe religious outsiders "ooo, ahh" at that.
These companies will need to come to terms that the streaming market is over saturated.
During the Pandemic it was perfect to put movies on streaming services but as soon as recovery occurred they should've made movies theaters exclusive once again
I for one, am all for streaming services dying and becoming 1 or 2 just like when it was only Netflix and Hulu. I hate how many streaming services there are now. Its the same as the cable I stopped paying for
absolutely agree. it was wonderful for about a couple years and then the greedy bastards saw they could make a million of the same app, divide the shows, and maximize the profits and we all suffer for it :)
I feel that sreaming services needs at least 4 only but the main rule is to stream 1 and pirate the rest
That's why I have zero streaming services, and still have cable with a DVR. I did the math, and it costs me far less to stick with cable that it would for me to subscribe to multiple streaming services. When it was just Netflix, it would have made sense to cut the cord. Now that content is high decentralized and spread across multiple streaming services, I find that it's no longer logical to end cable.
Same. I hate capitalism as much as the next guy. I just wish all those animators didn’t have to suffer for Warner-Discovery’s incompetence and greed. They deserve better.
@@Dave102693 Whoa dude, thanks for the tip! I was aware of the existence of Tubi TV. I wasn't aware that there were other free streaming services available. I still wouldn't cancel my cable TV. But subscribing to a few free streaming services might not be a bad idea!
"Am I saying I could have done better? Yes, I do"
The executives in high positions in big enterprises are not dumb, they are unscrupulous. This case is just a small example that the mentality of these powerful people is still the same of the 2008, because they know that their bad practices don't have consequences for them, neither financially nor criminally. And, as last resort, there is always government money to save the companies when things go too bad. The bill goes to the poor to pay.
It’s almost like Warner Bros is a cursed treasure.
It’s great that you own this extensive fortune of shows, ip’s, etc., but at what cost?
HBO, you have brought us so much greatness. An era may be over...
The Wire, Sopranos, BoB, Six Feet under, Sex and the City, Deadwood, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Oz, Generation Kill, GoT, Westworld. And of curse all the comedy specials.
I noticed a lot of movies that used to be on HBO Max, and are still listed as being available, aren't anymore since becoming MAX.
I just hope DC finds a new home. 50+ years under Warner's ownership has seen some really good times, but, the bad times far outweigh the good. Truth is Warner's never really known what to do with DC. I'd like to see them under leadership that does.
All I can think of is to have DC and WB break up into a bunch of smaller companies, literally the only way I can see Detective Comics becoming functional once more. (Also, Dark Horse makes good shit and I want to see them not be restricted by WB anymore.)
Pray it doesn't end in Disney's hands.
@@kavky if the mouse buys it. On one hand
end game 2+ directors cut & knuckles.
On the other hand… the government stepping in and probably shutting it down and pointing out: BIG MONOPOLY
@@Commrade-DOGE Mate, disney has too many fingers in the pie known as the US government, if we want disney cut up, we have to do it ourselves
Look into what Todd McFarlane is doing with the latest Batman one-shot comic with having say over the merchandise that goes with it, if he plays his cards right and finds a backer, he could buy DC and right the wrongs
They have so much potential. Someone with more than two braincells and the Batman IP alone could be more profitable than them.
For the sake of my childhood memories, I hope they fix the mess they've made.
As an Animation lover hurts.
*This*
This?
You have old better stuff.
This
No more young justice.
What a mic drop at the end!
Loved it!
I'm so pissed Close Enough got cancelled. I genuinely loved the show and was looking forward to it going a long way. I've been following it since it was announced for TBS. I'm still so pissed.
KnowledgeHusk: “I don’t think they will, but some people do…”
Me: “but some people scooby-doobie-doooo!”
I will see myself out now.
They took arguably the best streaming service and trashed it
Soon enough it'll be "The Collapse Of WB And Every Other Studio"
"How Disney, Amazon, and Netflix was allowed to buy up everything"
God I wish
@@KingThrillgore DONT YOU PUT THAT EVIL ON ME
@@KingThrillgore "Netflix raise subscription to $25, laughs at you because you will continue paying".
Great video, I enjoyed it especially being reminded how AT&T overpaid for this.
There is no money in these streaming services, more to say accurately, there is no profit in streaming.
Paramount+ and even Disney+ are losing billions a year.
Unless they cut down on cost heavily (mainly limited new content), the only way HBO Max can make a profit is by getting to 400-500 million subscribers and increasing the service to maybe $50 a month.
That's not going to happen, because if they jack up the price, it's just cable again and HBO Max would lose subscriptions by the millions.
No profit in streaming.
I feel like Disney is just waiting for the moment to swoop in and buy Warner Bros out and further expand their monopoly
Do they even have the money to do that right now?
I don't think it will be Disney.
I don't know who it will be, hell I could even be wrong about that, but I don't think it will be Disney.
@@ShadowWolfRising It will probably be Amazon
@@4sake123 Seems likely, maybe Paramount as well.
Maybe, but I highly doubt this, Netflix.
i originally had HBO because my goal was to rewatch the DCAU but i didn't realize that Batman itself is like 200 episodes. that's not counting the 100 plus episodes each for Superman, Justice League and Beyond.
Same here…plus all the rest of the Cartoon Network and Adult Swim content kept me going for months. Now screw it.
Projects get cancelled when new people take over, so that the people from before who started those projects don't get the credit and the new people can't be blamed if it bombs. This seems the most likely explanation for Batgirl getting canned.
Edit: this is why I shouldn't comment before finishing the video.
So like when a new lion moves into a new pride and kills all of the cubs of the original leader of the pride? Except digitally and the cubs are animators
@@teanobeano6838 Correctonmundo
Something to keep in mind.. what outsiders tend to see as 'ego' is really just another case of 'money'. executives are generally more concerned about their personal brands than the brand they are overseeing. the video briefly talked about not wanting projects of the old guard and instead projects with their name associated with it.... but really, that isn't 'ego', that is the type of personal branding and association that advances your carrer.. so.. yeah.. money.
The fact that they squished HBO Max and Discovery+ together, changed the name and skyrocketed the price only to leave Discovery+ as its own service is the most baffling corporate move I've ever seen.
Content wise HBO MAX has been top tier when it comes to streaming services. It's maddening to see the service-and the overall legacy of the Warner, HBO, and DC Comics brands-so devalued by the CEO of a company that produces actual garbage.
I also find it absolutely hilarious that Zaslav would announce a grand 10 Year Plan to "fix" the DC ip and then greenlight a sequel to the 2005 'Constantine' film. That was a film that was not a "hit" during its original release. Wasn't a critical darling. Was notable for being nothing like the source material. And ultimately barely broke even at the domestic box office. Like, whut?
Hipsters man, plus Keanu reeves as well
@@mike04574 I paid to see the original in an actual movie theatre on the day it was released. Where were you?
Dude Constantine has the largest cult following.
The first Constantine didn't make as much due to the competition that was in theaters and no one knowing anything about Constantine but everyone is excited to see a sequel that's been long over due
You're a guy... that doesn't like Constantine? How? It's the best unwilling hero story of that decade, and the supernatural setting is well done too.
@Paul Stoleriu I'm a person...who enjoyed 'Constantine' as a film but thought it was a piss-poor adaptation of the John Constantine character from the comics. If it had been called 'Demon Fighting Guy' or some other random shit, cool. But it's not Constantine.
"Bold, Brash, and cost a lot of Cash."
Office politics in the corporate sector never fails to destroy value and enrich top managers
Even the other top managers hate Zaslav's decisions apparently.
i love how executives and higherups keep proving over and over again they're in postion because they have the money and not that they're smart or anything
And they aren’t bankrupt thanks to a monke fighting a lizard.
One thing that no one seems to mention is that the service just doesn’t actually work. Fine if you watch on mobile there aren’t any problems. But try watch on your tv, computer, or stream on tv from your phone and nothing works. It crashes every 10 minutes, buffers every 2 minutes. Every other streaming service works. I’ve had multiple accounts, multiple tvs, multiple isps, hell even multiple states. But it just always lags, crashes, and buffers
I think what kills me the most about all the animated shows getting axed is two-fold;
-First, They made ***no*** attempts to renegotiate *anything* with *anyone*, to the point where literally the actual staff on the shows, the ones being paid these supposed expensive remittances, only found out with everyone else. No one even thought about renegotiating the high rates, and just hit "delete" on a lot of shows that were loved by their viewers and staff alike.
To give you a perspective on just *how* horrible of an idea this was, multiple staff from these shows have outright openly committed piracy to keep them watchable. Like, they just deadass actually made and shared massive Google drives full of all the episodes, and didn't obfuscate anything. Now, there certainly was some "FUCK YOU HBO" energy to this whole thing, but pretty much everyone, both openly and in private, was far more concerned with keeping the shows watchable.
*These people were openly willing to commit actual crimes to keep these shows watchable without having to go to risky pirate sites.* They cared about that WAY more then they cared about the money.
If the execs up top has even just sent out a single feeler to see if renegotiation was on the table, they could have avoided this whole fiasco and only removed a few shows at best, *and* have someone else to point blame towards for said removal.
Instead, not only did they burn bridges with thousands of creators, lose 20 billion in market cap, and tank their reputation, but now all these creators are airing out the horrible business practices and abuses they were subject to while making these shows, both further tanking the reputation of the company and making it harder for them to do this in the future.
-Speaking of reputation, Secondly, though these posts are all gone now, HBO Max was actually trying to pivot itself into "The animation platform" once GoT ended and they needed a new cash cow. They recognized that general audience and mature animation was a massively underserved Niche in the west, and that the anime industry was on the decline, leaving a massive hole full of money and dedicated fans out in the rain, so they decided to basically embrace this new niche first by tapping into nostalgia about the DCAU and Animaniacs, and then by moving focus onto their popular existing animated properties like Adventure Time and Steven Universe. They went into this Niche hard and fast, and actively pushed that Warner Bros was moving back into animation, and moving back hard.
Between Netflix canning most shows past season 2, Disney+ not really caring much about new animation outside of what they were already making, Hulu just not having much animation, and Nickelodeon being too kid focused, there was actually a real sense of hope among animation buffs for a while. Hell, under the Harley Quinn episodes on the pirate site I used, some people said they were only on the site to use the forum-like comments and the community, and were watching animation legally for the first time in literal years, and actually paying for the service.
Animation, which has the biggest piracy """problem""" of any media, where even successful projects like Netflix's She-Ra reboot """lose""" a lot of viewers to piracy, was actually getting more actual new subscriptions on their platform then ever before, because they actually seemed to be investing in the success and giving people what they wanted, finally. They weren't gonna pull a Netflix by canning a show after 2 seasons if it wasn't stranger things levels of successful, and they weren't gonna trash a show because they purposefully made it fail because of internal politics like Disney did (RIP every successful Disney show sent to Disney XD to die a horrible death because of "low ratings" on a channel that not even a million people had access to one one cable service when they got multi-million views on the main channel. Wander over Yonder and Gravity Falls deserved so much better.)
It seemed like, for once, instead of the animation community having the rug pulled out from under them once the studios felt like it, people could trust HBO Max would actually care about animation.
And then they pulled the rug out and deleted thousands of hours of animation so quickly some people were in the middle of episodes when they were deleted.
Aside from that one episode of uncle grandpa that stayed up for an extra 30 hours, the animated shows vanished just as quickly as the genuine good will they spent four years building did. I have genuinely never seen a community go from outright praising a corporation to actually planning on vandalizing the execs homes and cars in such a short time span.
That is how this move lost them 20 billion and counting.
And they fucking deserved every bit of it.
I really can't think of a time in my life when WB WASN'T in financial trouble tbqh
Why do I feel that House of the Dragon is the only thing keeping HBOMax alive?
Because you are wrong, HBO got almost same revenue as Disney and Netflix. HBO is not only HBO max. They get a lot of money from normal tv , games, commercial. The cinema pay quite a lot of the money to.
Like I said in the other video is really fucking crazy how HBO Max destroyed itself overnight.
Literally went to watch Harry Potter yesterday on HBO Max only to find it was shipped to only be found streaming on Peacock. This explains it, well here's to the Rock and GRRM to saving an entire 99 year old corporation. Hope it works out for them
For me it’s quite the contrary. While they have removed many of the unpopular animated shows, hbomax and Wb are the only one keeping variety of serious, well written, adult themed shows in the present day. Many of the others like Disney+ , Netflix and Amazon are just garbage.
Succession's directors warned us in season 3.
That new guy will take over the Roy's company. and ruin it
I just personally hate lost media. I don't care if Batgirl is bad I just want to be able to decide that for myself
As long as you leave content in the hands of corporations, you get nowhere.
Put on a pirate hat.
To me the worst part of all this is the fact that HBO Max had just gotten to new countries in Europe and got immediatly announced to be shut down and turned into something else. Like they’ve just gotten people used to the brand of HBO Max and many people view it as pretty much the best streaming service quality wise. Hoping they’ll get their shit together and things still turn out better.
I don't pay attention to a lot of this stuff so I am shocked Warner Bros is in such a bad position and was really surprised when I saw they were merging with discovery. It is quite incredible the position they are in now and I am curious if this was will cause such a giant from before to fail.
Man, WB is my favourite studio. They consistently make the best movies every year and now it's come to this.
I was actually hyped for the Scoob Holiday Special because it was written by Paul Dini and it was pretty much an expansion of the flashback scene from the first film, the best part of it. Having grown up with A Pup Named Scooby Doo, I was interested in seeing a new take on the gang as kids.
I do really appreciate you putting this in a video and yeah it's absolutely ridiculous what they did to the animated shows that are basically stuck in limbo.
Both the creator of close enough and I think Infinity train basically hinted on Twitter that if you want to see the seasons that were locked on to there that you should just pirate it.
I mean I'd be more than willing to buy a box set of both shows I enjoyed them and we watched Infinity train recently before they took it down...
It really boggles my mind
On the bright side if things just keep going down hill perhaps they’ll be forced to sell their various copyrighted IPs.
Obviously all the big stuff is gonna be bought up by other companies but perhaps there’s some smaller stuff that might be fun to buy the rights to on principle.
Everyone can own their own little piece of Warner media history.
Yes if they die we can get there characters why do we feel bad for them when the pull shit like this even before this hole cris
"WarnerDiscovery is going bankrupt" -People who don't understand what cleaning house is
HBO had a lot of Batman animated content. Including a radio only Batman show where Commissioner Gordon from the Batman movie played the Batman. They had a Batman vehicles program. They didn't need another Batman animated series to get lost in the shuffle.
I feel bad for Warner Brothers, literally destroyed by corporate greed.
And the woke agenda!
@@BuetifullPersun shut. Up.
@@3Guys1Video He's right though.
@@beeman4266 but is it even noteworthy?
Not
@@3Guys1Video Uhh.. yes, yes it is. Rangz of power is the perfect example of what happens when a studio decides to go woke. The show bombs and people shit all over it.
If you can't see the relationship between that and faltering viewership then idk man.
When the services merge I want to see the statistics of "scripted good" vs. "honny-boo-boo shit" when it come to watching, even when it come the Discovery-only stuff the audience will pick something better if given a choice.
At least Zaslav treat the theaters better than Chapek.
How does he treat them better? (Not to be rude just asking)
@@UltimateNut He actually move films meant for HBO Max to theaters and doesn't sack films into streaming when he feel so like Chapek.
@@Dave102693 We need another rural purge, but also urban stuff are getting gutted this time because we can't take more Family Guy, Big Mouth and Ryan Murphy shows.
Seriously. So long as they seperate the scripted stuff from the crap reality TV stuff and it'a not outrageously expensive, I'm fine with it.
@@Dave102693 Reality TV is very profitable, because you don't need to do nearly as much behind the scenes work for the same amount of content. But it's content that's usually very disposable.
Even with all this mess. HBO Max still has a better film selection than any other major streaming service out there. Maybe they are losing money hand over fist, but hey I have an incredible watch list on that platform.
I'm rolling! Well done sir. Subscribed.
Im a big fan of HBO max. It has so many good shows and movies, having the whole DC brand is a huge appeal to me. It really is a shame to see what Warner Discovery is doing to it. But these problems go back further than when they merge. Warner Bros botched the DC cinematic universe badly haven't really been able to recovery since.
Remember when the Animaniacs revival happened and everyone was praising WB for backing animation?
Underated channel
Warner Bros Discovery just annihilating everything from streaming even the company itself.
Worst corporate idea in history of entertainment.
Bad news to HBO Max, I already cancelling my subscription because of that.
I'm hoping us fans to step up and shutting David Z.'s corrupted even embolismic mind before
he'll destroy everything. #SaveWB23 We need to stop this.
And I just learned that not only that Warner Bros. Discovery got Sued, but I also found out many people including analysts predict that, As reported to Hollywood Reporter, Comcast Will acquire the studio in 2024.
Slowest collapse in history, apparently. 🙄
I feel like if we saw everything David Zazlav saw and heard when he took over we would understand why he would cancel Batgirl. Might not agree with it but at least it’s an answer. Now the removal of the shows is dumb.