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Originally Posted by Horizon
Wormfood in the sense, that the Big Tech want to be the Hollywood players. Whether they buy the legacy companies or oubid them for rights, who can know for sure, but the tech cos have shown their hand with all this bidding for sports rights. They can't all win, can they?
On reduction of companies, yes. If Sky and WBD merge, that brings the number down of the legacy companies from the original Big Six hollywood companies to the Big Four, but then on top of that there is Apple, Amazon, Google and Mirosoft. I really don't think that eight global streamers can exist and all be profitable, but we'll see.
On MGM, that's early days yet. We'll have to wait for the first "Amazon" James Bond film, to see how that all pans out.
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I think the danger there is thinking the 4 aforementioned tech giants all want to do the same thing and have the same strategic intent when there’s no way to presume that at all.
Apple and Amazon? Sure they’re spending money on tv, film and sports now but it’s not core to their business, it’s a way in to their ecosystem and services… if the day comes they realise all that cash is not worth the outlay to the larger business, they have no attachments and they will cut, run and it will be brutal. Right now? It’s a nice way to go to parties and meet stars but if it drags down the balance sheet? Different story! They won’t burn cash endlessly.
Google? They already have the biggest streaming platform on the planet and their only move in sports so far is a product that everyone thinks is too expensive anyway and it’s most likely going to be used to as a marketing and retention tool for a linear tv package!
Microsoft - they have a space in gaming the others don’t or have utterly failed at…. And right now I think they’re more likely to sink cash into OpenAI than Formula One rights.
(And honestly I see Google burning cash in the AI space than the tv business going forward)
Honestly if sports is going to be solved somehow I actually think it may be in the TVOS space… accessibility, bundling and discoverability is going to be the secret sauce I think and that’s where I think the real battle could end up being fought for streaming as a whole - and I actually think multiple streamers can exist…. Tv has never been an all or nothing business and no reason why that changes… I think the future ends up looking rather similar to the past!