Was Barbenheimer A Fluke Or A Sign?
The Film Industry’s Post-Barbenheimer Future
So Barbenheimer happened last weekend. Box office records were broken. People dressed up to go see a movie in a manner unseen since the heyday of midnight Rocky Horror showings. People now know it’s pronounced “Kill-ian” not “Sill-ian.” And the Lena Dunham-making-a-Polly-Pocket-movie thing is part of a larger trend and, unfortunately, not just a bad internet meme.
So there’s all that and the fact that the narrative has now been flipped to “Oh wait, people actually do want to go to the movies.”
Or do they?
That’s really the $64,000 question the industry is facing right now. Was Barbenheimer a summer fluke or are people ready to head back to the movies again?
It’s a question we will have to wait a while to see the answer to, given the writers and actors strikes and all, but it’s worth noting that none of the things that turned people off to the movies have changed: theaters are still dirty and crowded (possibly even more so now that there are so many less of them), much of what Hollywood is putting out is IP-based genre movies, and everything is available on streaming, indie films in particular.
Let’s drill down on that last point though, because I think it’s pretty important.?[READ MORE]
Netflix Ads Reconsiders Microsoft
Back when Netflix surprised everyone by suddenly rolling out an ad-supported tier, there was a second, lesser surprise when they announced that Microsoft was going to be their partner for their ad deals.
It was sort of a raw deal for Microsoft, who, desperate to get into the ad game, had agreed to provide Netflix with a “revenue guarantee.” Meaning that Netflix was going to get paid no matter what.
While this was clearly a good deal for Team Streamberry, the value to Microsoft has diminished over the ensuing year and now Netflix is said to be rethinking the whole plan so as to allow Microsoft more leeway.
Advertisers, it seems, were not all that keen to pay the megabucks Microsoft was demanding on Netflix’s behalf, and so Netflix is now out there offering up ads itself as well, in an attempt to get some traction going.
One big problem Netflix has is that there aren’t a whole lot of ad-supported viewers, at least not yet. According to Antenna, the ad-tier only represents 3.3% of Netflix’s U.S. subscribers and there’s no stat on how much they’re watching versus the ad-free 96.7%. (Other reports have Netflix’s ad-supported tier at 1.5 million subscribers, also nothing to write home about.)
And yet Netflix is allegedly able to get CPMs of $40 and up. Why would advertisers pay that, you ask.
Two words: Original content.?[READ MORE]
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