Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
Cable wasn't an impossible model at all in the 70s because...What I can't understand is how Disney makes any money when they spend $150 to $250 Million per film (not including marketing), then sends them to Disney+ for $15 a month just 30 or 45 days later. An American family of four now spends $15 to watch that big-budget tentpole film as many times as they want, where just a few years ago that same American family would have spent $50 in movie tickets to see that same film once.
How does charging $15 to see a film in 2023 make more money than charging $50 in 2018? On top of the huge costs needed by Disney to keep the server farms and data centers all pumping out this stuff on demand to America's family rooms?
No wonder Burbank is losing Billions and Billions on Disney+.
Memories of a Cable TV Early Adopter: It's funny you mention 1975 and Cable! I understood Cable TV, and adjusted for inflation it was much more expensive per month than streaming. When I think back to the condo I was living in when I first got Cable, it must have been around 1978 or '79 as I moved to a new place in 1980. I was an early adopter! I also distinctly remember that my first cable subscription came with an overwhelming 36 channels! There was this crappy beige plastic box that sat on top of the TV and it had this cheesy illuminated sliding selector that click-click-clicked into one of the 36 channel options. I remember hating how it looked because the beige plastic clashed with my Disco living room decor of the time. I wish I had a photo of my first cable box to share!
Most channels were supported by advertising. Cable was merely a method of removing a TV network from the geographic limits of over-the-air broadcasting. Your cable bill mostly paid for the hardware and infrastructure to maintain it, plus the licensing fees for the local provider, but commercials still paid for the majority of the content...
...Speaking of which, it took a long time as well for cable networks to develop their own original content. In the early days, even the "pay channels" mostly just broadcast the uncensored and unedited theatrical cuts of movies that had yet to filter down to the regular broadcast networks. "Regular cable channels" mostly just showed content produced by others, or sports that the major networks didn't want to broadcast. It took many years before the cable networks regularly started producing their own content, and even here, it was still mostly supported by advertising. HBO was one of the only exceptions, but not everyone can be HBO.
So, this is why comparing early streaming to early cable is not equivalent. Cable networks had to show profitability and slowly build audiences before they could start making their own content, the streaming services basically put content first and foremost without the supporting audience or income streams.