My philosophy still stands. Hollywood almost always learns the wrong lesson from success and never ever learns anything from their failures.

Most modern-day content is trash, the audience is content watching the classics.

Dear Hollywood, I have seen the future, and you're not in it.

They wanted a reason to do away with physical media so that they could control and charge for repeat viewing of their products.

UK Pensioner here. Cancelled my TV Licence (£179 per year).Cancelled all streaming services. Just today bought dvd boxed set complete Breaking Bad and also dvd boxed set of Lord of Rings Trilogy both for for £1 at a charity shop They are mine, they cannot be edited, they cannot be taken off a streaming service. Got better things to spend money on rather than multi services to see favourite shows.

At this point I'm so apathetic towards Hollywood and main stream media. I just can't wait till it all decentralises and frankly eats itself. Their self righteous smugness is just so infuriating to watch anymore.

There is only ONE reason I switched to streaming: NO advertisements. Now, Prime annoys me whenever I visit to cough up €2.99/month for "no advertisements." Keep your stuff; I am neither paying nor watching advertisements. The advertisements are all "boss woman humiliates men," so it is a win/win!

This is why I buy 2nd hand DVDs of movies and TV shows more than 10 years old..

In my household we're watching a lot less TV. Checking today's primetime programs there are 3 failed Chichago shows, game shows, and several talent shows. This is going to be the golden age for books.

Night Court was phenomenal. We didn't know how good we had it.

too much of anything dilutes its value. Media inflation.

Reminds me of all the brick-and-mortar stores that ignored online shopping until the last second and then quickly pushed badly made online stores, with worse deals and lower selection than their actual physical stores, into a glutted market.

Gym memberships work on the same principle. Build it and hope they do NOT come.

My son is an assistant editor and dealing with the same problem of their not being enough shows to work on . He is lucky he has a job but the company he works for just laid off over 100 employees . The company is cost cutting on reality shows that are probably the cheapest in the industry

I'm enjoying their decline while I watch the old stuff.

Hollywood seems to forget they need us.

Always interesting.. personally I considered the introduction of of so called reality TV shows in the 2000s to be the nail in the coffin of network TV.

There's too many streaming services these days, and some of them are jacking up prices and usually the Content usually sucks.

We got cable in 1982. One channel. HBO. You only paid for the channels you want. Since you PAY to have the channel, there was no commercials on it. Fast forward to now... Every pay media channel is a wasteland of commercials. Great job Hollywood!

Around 1990 I worked at Tower Video. It was such a wonderful time with an amazing number of low and medium budget movies coming from so many different production companies. Everyone was making horror, scifi, fantasy films. Every week there was new content. Even if they missed the mark, there was real love put into those productions. Now we just have content engines pumping out heartless junk. No wonder people are spending more time on KZfaq.

Physical media collectors are watching quality shows and movies while Hollywood burns.

According to Hollywood, the customer is always wrong. They always know what we want, except that they don't.

Streaming became a worse version of cable. Luckily, I sail the seven seas.

When people were complaining about cable/internet prices and were switching to streaming a decade ago, I knew it would get to a point when they had so many services, it would cost more than the cable/internet they fled from.

The same can be said of how streaming has completely killed the music industry. From the dishonest way, "album listens" are counted towards determining if an album is a "hit" worthy of being in the billboard top 40 to the disgusting way music streaming companies simply refuse to pay royalties there's nothing good about how it all operates.

"I like tv. whenever it's on, I go into the next room and read a book" -Groucho Marx

When they first announced that they were going to create more streaming services, I already saw that there will be problems. There’s only so much pie to go around.

I know plenty of people have said this but I think it's funny that streaming became popular as an alternative to cable, a service where you had to sign up for a bunch of shows you were never going to watch and you had to watch ads, only to become fragmented, making you subscribe to several shows you are never going to watch and forcing you to watch ads.

I cancelled Netflix when I realized I hardly used it.

At this point, doing the opposite of what the studio execs want to do is pretty much guaranteed success. Looking at the past few years, its fair to say that Hollywood has zero clue why audiences like what they do.

They were too overconfident with streaming, believing it to be the sole future of entertainment.

Maybe it's hard to be a TV writer because THEY ALL SUCK.

If only writers had a collective representative body that could advocate for things that would benefit the entire industry.

A cogent perspective on the history of enshittification of TV culture.

Great video!, Paul. I wholeheartedly agree with you. The one thing I would add is that We need to get rid of the binge model. It's destroying hype for great shows that come out today, where people talk about new shows for months at a time. Now they're done talking about them in a couple of weeks.

As far as Hollywood {California} is concerned, this cliche still applies: *_"Play silly games? Win silly prizes."_*

Your idea has merit as long as the shows are good. If they keep hiring the same writers that gave us Velma, Rings of Poop, Robyn Hood, and all the other garbage shows, they will never win the audience back.

In recent years, I happen to be watching mostly foreign productions (non-english speaking) so I am grateful streaming has provided that opportunity

Studios aren't afraid of piling on the debt, because ultimately that debt will be covered by those of us who are American Taxpayers, myself included.

Networks should have sold their shows to Netflix and Amazon.

Another brilliant analysis of the current situation in Hollywood. Add to this the full throttle press for DEI and you have the perfect recipe for failure. The cost of jobs and business is going to be staggering.

How does this man not have at least 1M subscribers!?!?!? I fear it's because his videos aren't crammed with annoying reminders to like and subscribe. Well I will share this video on social platforms to do my part.

I legitimately miss the days when TV used to be a voyage of discovery. Hours I'd spend flicking through channels, trying different things, becoming a fan of something and memorising the schedule times so I wouldn't miss it. Now it's just a sea of mediocrity and nothingness. I rarely watch TV besides maybe two or three recent shows (recommend _The Brokenwood Mysteries_ if anyone's interested) and reruns of stuff I enjoy, but that magic is gone. I don't bother with streaming either, because I've seen better content from yesteryear. Been working through _X-Files_ on DVD most nights and wondering where the heck it's been all my life. Honestly, a sad time, but at least I'm reading more.

Chato, you are a weird treasure in these times of uniform mediocrity.

I'd say part of the problem was the ad based broadcast tv model had gotten the networks into the mind set that they didn't really need high ratings to make a profitable show. So long as they could appeal to the high value advertising money they could focus on catering to the dual, income no kids urban professionals and they could be the "Tiffany network" instead of trying to appeal to the "McDonalds crowd". So popular shows like Gilligan's Island would get cancelled because they didn't fit the classier branding that networks were going for. The classic example of this would be Walker Texas Ranger and the X-Files. In pretty much every year they were both on the air Walker had the higher ratings but X-Files got the magazine covers because it appealed to the demographic that the reporters and editors belonged to and because it brought in higher revenue ad money. When Netflix, with it's no ads model, came along shows were no longer being subsidized so it was the raw appeal that made a show a success or failure. Hollywood couldn't make the pivot to the general market and has suffered as a result. With ad based streaming services being added it may be moving back to an audience they're more comfortable with. Whether that is for the better or the worse probably depends on whether you're the low class demographic or one of the "dinks";).

To this day, Amazon fails to mass-promote their rental service for movies and shows. No idea why.

Thank goodness for back catalogue physical media - not interested in anything hollywood churns out these days

As with most problems in life, it's the people responsible for creating them that are the problem. If they were good at their job the problem probably wouldn't exist, and if they were humble, they would step aside to allow a more competent person take over. Knowing the industry as I do, competent people are rare & useless people will never step away from the status of working in film/TV. The industry will never improve because of the kinds of people who dominate within it. It's a high status club where entry is based on 'access', and access has nothing to do with talent.

This is another in a growing list of videos that Hollywood should watch and heed. Sadly, instead, the inevitable will happen to them due to their own greed and hubris.

Not making good films and shows f'd everything. streaming would be a success still if they made what people wanted.

Ahh the unintended consequences of simplistic decisions based on flawed analysis, due mostly to FOMO- fear of missing out.

Other issue besides the monetization was the quantity of programms offered increased but the quality of the shows went down the train after everyone started doing their streaming. It was as if all the QA that producers put in TV was ignored during the streaming wars.... so you have a ton of forgettable shows that didn't make money.

Streaming has become like the cereal aisle at the grocery store. Hundreds of selections, most of which are empty calories. I don't have the money for all those streaming services, so I just grab a box of Quaker Oats (KZfaq) off the bottom shelf.

Companies are also way overspending to license content because they want everything to be exclusive to deny their competitors from licensing those shows. The result is that even syndication prices have skyrocketed in the last decade since everyone is bidding for that one slot. Nowadays, they're bidding as much as $30k+ a year for an episode that might've been just $5k in the past. But at the same time, they only get that syndication check from that one group who won the rights instead of the multiple reruns across 5 or 6 networks of UPN, TNT, TBS, etc.

I think retirees in AZ are pretty happy with OTA "antenna TV," "ME TV" reruns of Matlock and Murder she wrote , they don't need any cord for that and as for streaming they just visit their urologists a couple times a year or so..

This is why I have a lot of physical media. I have all of Knight Rider on Blu-Ray, along with the A-Team, Dallas, and Dukes of Hazzard. You just reminded me of Night Court, so I just ordered that.

One of the main reasons 'why we can't have good things' is that the companies can't collaborate on anything. They all hope they can dominate the market and squeeze the hell out of their 'customers'.

When you go for a stream of gold, but you get a stream of red ... see your physician.

I barely go to Netflix anymore after they discontinued their DVD division.

2011 I became a cord cutter. (at 53) my policy after that is to only have one streaming service turned on at a time (prime medio is a bonus but I Have not had prime in a while.) I was stunned to learn a friend of mine is paying 300 a month for cable with the HBO package which he dose not watch . The loss of the DVD market and now the lack of a way to get old movies and show easily is troubling as is the censorship of channels. Advertisements do not bother me and I am reading a lot more.

Thank you for making the very salient point that we cut cable because of the cost and the crap it provided only to find ourselves left with streaming services that cost as much and have just as much crap too.

Hi Chato! Again you have succinctly put your finger right on the heart of the issue. It seems to be a universal pattern. Greed, incompetence and hubris leaving everyone worse off. Except for you, you just keep on being great!😁

One of many, many mistakes Disney made was that when they created their own streaming service is that they could no longer charge Netflix money for having them stream their huge catalog of Disney movies and television programs, a lesson they’re learning too late. The same is true of Paramount and NBC. Their streaming services are failing because of the same mistake. I really do miss the old days of Netflix when they had an absolutely huge catalog of DVDs containing movies and television shows I’d never heard of before, and often if a movie or TV program I saw was fantastic, I’d go and buy them on DVD. While it really wasn’t practical for Netflix to continue to have entire TV series on DVD, I really do think they should have kept the DVD service for their huge collection of movies, including the extras that come with a DVD that just aren’t available on a streaming service. What we got instead was Netflix having fewer and fewer shows and movies on its streaming service we wanted to see, and more and Netflix original programming that was of low quality. Sure, there were some excellent movies and television series that were of high quality, but most of what Netflix has made is unwatchable garbage.

I miss just owning 2 VCRs to record the shows I wanted to watch.

You were not alone in saying such. Thank you for your insight, Paul. Truly invaluable for those of us wishing to learn.

Streaming didn't ruin things, their greed did. Streaming was viable when Netflix was licensing from the studios to show their content. They all wanted a bigger portion of the pie and split into a ton of different, diluted services that all charge what Netflix did.

The thing is, I think streaming _could have_ worked for companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Both have a huge backlog of shows people love. If they just set up a basic steaming service, charged $5 a month, and put up all of their old shows, behind-the-scenes specials, and maybe a holiday special or two it would've been better. But both of these companies placed ALL of their bets into streaming and pumped as much content into these services and focused on quantity over quality of their products.

How can you have a classic network show when you make shows with "seasons" 8 episodes long and there could be two years between the "seasons"? These slightly longer miniseries will never have the same kind of broadcast slot fulfillment capacity as Cheers, Friends and so on.

To be fair, the studios couldn't allow Netflix to dominate, because they would have realized that there is virtually no other buyers of shows and paid peanuts. This is currently happening with anime and Crunchyroll. The studios part of Hulu had an out, but the other studios needed to ensure that the market had some alternatives. What seems nearly unforgivable to me though is that they pushed the app-based model which: 1) almost turned Roku into a different monopoly that would take all their money, and 2) annoyed the heck out of consumers, who now can't search across services, get recommendations across services, etc. They happened to choose the technical model that not only gave Big Tech the most power, it also made juggling multiple services the least tolerable. That is what forced all the studios to merge together to create the scale needed for consumers to justify another app on their homepage.

If only there was a format in which movies could be presented for people to buy at a fair price and play at home anytime they want

Springsteen predicted it with '57 Channels', that a ton of 'filler' content on cable wasn't necessarily a good thing. Streaming services are finding that out all over again.

Such a linnear video...😉 Markets and Stupidity are efficient, brutal, and immediately rewarded...No not Netflix's fault Orange Man fault MSDNC says so.. My favorite TV was a Sony Trinatron which allowed me to hide any channel I didn't want to see...See ya next week Same Time Same Station.

This underslept schlub still has time for a new Call me Chato video before bed! Cheers, Paul! This looks to be a good one.

Yay!! ❤ bless you for thinking about us writers! I’m a young (ish) writer myself but I am a professional author (since I was 11) and I never even considered trying for Hollywood because 1) they’re evil and 2) it would (most likely) never happen. Call me nihilistic if you will, but some of entertainment is too pious and lewd for my personal taste so I figured, “Why bother?” Now, as a thirty-something adult, I am open to the idea*. Why? What changed? The quality of entertainment (TV) changed for one. It’s SO bad and as Chato mentioned, I’m literally STARVED for content that doesn’t make me want to bonk myself on the head to forget it. So, there is always** a silver lining, because I am more aggressively seeking out writing jobs so I can maybe let my passion for good content help make the world just a bit less painful and upsetting. Thanks for reading ❤😅 *Maybe, but not completely **Thanks, Monty Python

A fascinating history. "How Streaming *Bleep*ed up Everything" would make a great Netflix series.

Ah man, Designing Women. As an 80s kid that had to wade through my VCR recorded shows with my folks I ended up watching a lot of Designing Women and Golden Girls. And I’m better for it. Dixie Carter’s character was a force to be reckoned with. And the chameleon in Annie Potts gave me a prepubescent chubby seeing how attractive she was there from her Janine Meltnitz mousey exterior in Ghostbusters.

My biggest shock after hearing this video: “MySpace still existed in 2008!?”

It was the change from the syndication episode format to the serialization season format. In a way movies need to write like syndicated T.V. episode now that the serialized trilogy is no longer the long form of video storytelling.

👏👏 you said it all, Thank you 😁

One streamer to rule them all, One streamer to find them. One streamer to own them all and in bundles bind them. I said it when they started rolling these out. You only have to look at every format war from the past to see what will happen. It's like BlueRay vs HDdvd, or BETA vs VHS. Even theaters were generally unified under a single banner. The end goal is single global dominance. Every steamer is going to hit a ceiling in how many they can get into the silo and then they'll start eating eachother until only one is left. Cable unified the fragments and made having several boxes for subscription services obsolete. No one wanted two boxes on the self and distribution didn't want siloed customers. They aren't going to want it in streaming either. The best we can hope from this war is that the model for watching and distribution on streaming is the most efficient and effective. At some point they'll all be eaten by the last streamer standing or they'll all be available through a single portal like Amazon. The industry has learned nothing from history and is walking face first into wall they should know full well is right in front of them.

Yup... I am watching "Magnum P.I." and "Miami Vice" at the moment and loving both. I have enough entertainment to last the rest of my life, so if Hollyweird burns... so bet it.

they pushed me to a 1960s-1990s playlist on my Plex server and that's where I watch my TV now lol

In my opinion this has to be one of your BEST videos! Well done, sir!

There is more entertainment available now that ever before. Sadly, there is less quality entertainment available. Most shows seem to want to preach contemporary Californian values at me. Even old shows like Dr Who have been updated by the manure spreaders. I don't bother watching much of it anymore. I'd rather learn new things by watching random stuff on KZfaq.

I cut the cable at least a dozen years ago. I did so because TV was a steaming pile. It still is so why would I pay for any streaming service? Never have, never will.

A perfect explanation of why Hollywood always fail and what they will never learn and continue to lose money.

My favorite part of The Masked Singer is when they reveal the celebrity, and I don’t know who they are. So I search the name on the internet … and I still don’t know who they are

I was a loyal viewer of Suits, Haven, and Person of Interest and several other shows. Watching on the network websites. Then they started that you had to have a TV provider crap. So I stopped watching. If I had TV why would I be watching on the website.?

To be fair (Letterkenny echo's aside) you can't make "Night Court" without Harry Anderson. He was the heart, Soul and Wit of the show. But, other than that I too have marveled in watching Network TV committing Seppuku all my life. From the canceling of Star Trek, the Hillbilly Massacre to embracing Reality TV , every move has been a slow disembowelment.

Production note for future videos: Look up the Spirit Halloween Hollywood Sign image. Don't know if you have Spirit Halloween in Canada but they open in old Sears and Kmart stores that closed because of mismanagement. It's a meme to imagine a spirit Halloween opening in a vacant Hollywood. Would make a good background for decline of Hollywood videos, and won't be confused with wildfires. Great video as always!

Never considered the bandwidth charges. What a perfect storm of idiocy you have described.

I remember when Hulu started, and I could watch 2 week old episodes of Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. Those were the days....

Anyone else have a chuckle on how he positioned himself in alignment of the background to say Ho Wood.

I remember this all being predicted back with Netflix and Hulu and as the networks, studios and media corps started getting ready to pile on. The prediction was that, as content fragmented more and more, people weren't going to trade cable for a host of services now costing just as much. They'd keep 2-3 'core services' like Netflix, Prime and Hulu and just subscribe for a month for the show you wanted to watch before cancelling(my plan for shogun). The other prediction was piracy would increase again. So far the predictions are on the nose. So instead of consumers getting the service the want and everyone making some money, they're hemeridging money as the market fragments more and more.

Thanks Paul, you the man!

Should i comment before watching? YES!

I still think most of this is the result of thinking "exclusivity" is a good thing. Nah, I don't want to sell my product to as many people as possible, just a very specific group of people...until 5 years later. Same problem in gaming.

Not sure why so many of the big networks pay their executives so much for their 20/20 hindsight. I never stopped watching network television, they just stopped making content I was willing to sit through commercials to keep watching.

I'm still fascinated that the big three letter networks didn't pivot to server services tech before a book delivery service ate their lunch entirely. Decades ago broadcasters were at the forefront of communication technology. They could be hosting much of the current internet traffic and raking in the money if they hadn't been so arrogant.

Chato! Are you front of Hollywood? It look so real, just like movie.