Paramount Global reported its fourth-quarter financial results on Wednesday with a streaming loss posted ahead of a sale of the studio to Skydance Media.
I guess the issue is what would they be competing on and what would these premium features be? The more features you add, the less it becomes a place to watch things. That’s why you have Netflix offering games with your sub as well now. You can add multi-viewing parties and more experiences like bander snatch again, but at a certain point it just becomes a platform for general content versus shows and movies.
A feature I’ve seen oft-discussed but never implemented is the ability to create your own personal channels or playlists on a streaming service. For Paramount specifically, I’d create a “Star Trek” playlist that would play an episode from a random Trek show, and at the end of each episode it could ask me whether I want to keep going with that show or “shuffle” to a new one on the channel.
For Netflix or other services with extensive catalogues of comedy (or other single genres, like police procedurals), I could see people using a similar feature.
The idea would be to find a middle ground between the choice paralysis of selecting a movie or show to stream, and the lack of control that came from traditional television.
Even sharing playlists would be great. I wanted to catch up on Clone Wars when The Mandalorian started, but that show is long and full of fillers. So I had to track down lists that told me which ones focused on Madalore and later Ahsoka.
competition is healthy but fuck i wish they didn’t compete on catalogue - i wish they competed on features, or maybe “premium offerings” or something
I guess the issue is what would they be competing on and what would these premium features be? The more features you add, the less it becomes a place to watch things. That’s why you have Netflix offering games with your sub as well now. You can add multi-viewing parties and more experiences like bander snatch again, but at a certain point it just becomes a platform for general content versus shows and movies.
A feature I’ve seen oft-discussed but never implemented is the ability to create your own personal channels or playlists on a streaming service. For Paramount specifically, I’d create a “Star Trek” playlist that would play an episode from a random Trek show, and at the end of each episode it could ask me whether I want to keep going with that show or “shuffle” to a new one on the channel.
For Netflix or other services with extensive catalogues of comedy (or other single genres, like police procedurals), I could see people using a similar feature.
The idea would be to find a middle ground between the choice paralysis of selecting a movie or show to stream, and the lack of control that came from traditional television.
Even sharing playlists would be great. I wanted to catch up on Clone Wars when The Mandalorian started, but that show is long and full of fillers. So I had to track down lists that told me which ones focused on Madalore and later Ahsoka.