First STAR TREK, then THE EXPANSE, now THE ORVILLE…is this the beginning of the end for “free” TV sci-fi???

59 thoughts on “First STAR TREK, then THE EXPANSE, now THE ORVILLE…is this the beginning of the end for “free” TV sci-fi???”

1. “As a sci-fi fan, how can we all not subscribe to that???”

   The answer for me is easy – I won’t. I agree with the basic thesis of this blog posting that OTT is exploding. But not everyone has the budget to pay 5? 10? 20? OTT outlets or even 2. As someone who’s retired and trying to run out of money and die on the same day, I’m being very selective.

   Since I’m already an Amazon Prime member for other reasons, they make the cut automatically.

   But then I need to consider both costs and time. I’m a very active retiree including, of course, correcting all the errors that people make on the Internet. So my time is also limited.

   So what do I have time for? I would have time for both The Orville and Star Trek: Picard assuming the later is as good as the trailer seems to make it.

   But then cost comes into play so I’m very liable to choose one over the other after I make use of any free trial offers being available when they come out.

   I also also have a reflection on consolidation. Yes, from one perspective it’s great. But with consolidation competition will go down and the possibility of a few companies jacking up prices goes way up. So in some years we may be back to what we had a long time ago – 3 outlets for shows but this time OTT outlets with high prices.

   1. Well, we sure do live in “interesting times”! 🙂

   2. Yes, monopolies and business collusion are not good, in fact they are illegal aren’t they? They were in the 80s. Remember Bill Gates being hauled to Washington DC after the buyout of Netscape? Here in Poland there is a word for monopolies: Communism. What’s after monopolized industry? Planned economy. On paper these Communitarian ideas sound fantastic but I have a real life up close view of what happens when the theory of Communitarian/Communism hits the road. It is soul sucking.

      Aside from all else, I take the creation-innovation industry of Hollywood entertainment as a barometer. The more monopolies are formed, the more entertainment becomes propaganda.

      1. I don’t see the OTTs as monopolies…just the opposite, in fact! Now, if consolidation eventually changes that, so be it. But I doubt we’ll ever see Netflix merge with Amazon. Maybe I’m wrong…

2. I’ve written about this more than once. The increase in monetization comes about only because consumers cooperate. If instead of posting articles with statements like “this is the new normal” and “you’ll just have to pay a monthly fee to watch it,” we can post about refusing to support this kind of change. If enough people say “no,” it goes away.

   Television is entertainment. SF&F is only a genre. Watching SF&F television via whatever medium is just recreation.

   Television over the air is free. You watch commercials to pay for it. Rabbit-ears are still inexpensive, and are a sound long-term investment with a great pay-off. I get about sixty channels over the air in my area. Sixty. No monthly fee. At the moment I’m watching two shows, both on the CW, Pandora and The Outpost. When those two summer shows are over, most likely I won’t be using the rabbit-ears again until next summer.

   I’ve had an Amazon Prime membership for the past couple of years. Because I order just enough from Amazon in a year to make it a worthwhile investment. And if they keep raising the price, I may drop it. But it comes with Amazon Prime Video, and since I got it without paying anything extra, I check it out now and again. So I’ve seen The Man in the High Castle, and The Expanse, and the Battlestar Galactica remake. I may even watch the upcoming Middle Earth series, if I can stomach whatever they decide to change from the mood of the books. But if I end up not getting value from the shipping side of the membership, I’ll drop the service. The videos just aren’t enough of an incentive for that annual (or monthly) cost.

   I’ve had cable TV on and off over the years. Most of the time it was included with my rent, or belonged to a room mate. I’ve only subscribed once, and when I moved, I never signed up for another account again. Know what? I don’t spend any more hours watching cable than I do rabbit-ears.

   I tried Netflix back in the day when it was just about movies. When they raised my monthly rate three times in one year, I canceled it. No plans to ever renew it. Again, because I don’t watch any more hours of TV, regardless of the medium.

   “But what about Stranger Things?! What about Game of Thrones?! Are you insane?!” Um, no. I have waited to watch those until my local library got them on disc. I wasn’t too impressed with Stranger Things, and after binge-watching enough GoT I just returned the rest of the discs unwatched.

   At the end of the day, IT’S JUST TV. It’s not worth any more money than it was when the only option was FREE. As a life-long SF&F fan, I get enough of my fix so that I don’t in any way NEED to pay to have access to more hours of TV than I’m interested in watching.

   And your life won’t end if you don’t see season four of The Expanse. No, really.

   Now let’s talk about the cost of living, loss of buying power, and living beyond your means. OK, let’s not, I’m sure you see my point. The monthly price to watch what “everyone is talking about” just keeps snowballing, and will wind up costing you more than that bloated cable bill you laughed at when you finally cut the cord. Well, the laugh’s on you, bunkie.

   And let’s not forget that you’re also already paying premium dollars for that internet connection. Talk about double- and triple-dipping.

   So, why make this monetization-on-steroids “the new normal?” How much money does a company need to make off of you? They can’t do it without you.

   Let’s not encourage them.

   1. While you’re welcome to “fight the system,” you might be sitting at a small table, Shelby. That’s not to say that I like (or dislike) what is going on. It’s simply that that tide is coming in. Already, this is a $22 billion/year industry. That’s a LOT of people you’ll have to convince to just say “no”…and it appears they’re not listening.

      As with ATMs and internet commerce, there are still those who prefer to do it the old, reliable way. And heck, my own parents (in their 70s and 80s) STILL won’t use an ATM…although they do order a lot on Amazon.

      Anyway, the purpose of the article was simply to say that this is happening…whether we like it or not. And simply saying “no” doesn’t appear to be an option as hundreds of millions of people are saying “yes.”

      1. What used to drive me nuts is my husband absolutely positively would NOT cancel premium channels we were not watching. I did NOT watch them during the day. We watched them only when that must-see whatever aired on them, then we NEVER watched them for months or years on end. He would NOT cancel them no matter what. He’d argue it’d cost ten bucks to cancel each channel. I’d argue it cost money to rent the box, remote and pay for each channel month after month. He would NOT see the light. Nothing moved him. He would NOT budge.

         1. As I was preparing this blog, I told my wife Wendy that we’d have to subscribe to Hulu now that “The Orville” was going to be on that service. “Oh, we already have Hulu,” she told me. WHAT???? “Yeah, I wanted to watch the last season of ‘The Mindy Project’.” So we’ve been subscribed to a service I didn’t even know we had! 🙂

   2. Shelby,
      I quite agree with you. I have told Jonathan about a year ago that I prefer my daughter to watch the older stuff. Back in those days when there was more competition – for “free-range viewers” who are no longer free when they lock themselves into a subscription, and for advertising to support the channel (and its affiliates) just like the old penny press days relied on advertisers to publish – there was more quality programming. Saturday morning cartoons no longer exist for comparison but this September’s line-up of Saturday morning TV (I program on the computer) for my daughter include Bullwinkle, Underdog, Land of the Land, Ghost Busters (Forrest Tucker), Valley of the Dinosaurs, Batman, and Tennessee Tuxedo. Compared to the fare on Youtube (product commercials like Ryan’s Toy Review, and Hobby Kids TV, and, well, some very sinister sexual content aimed at children too extreme for a comparison to ye old Saturday Morning) the old stuff kills it. My daughter is engaged with it, whereas, even at this moment on my wife’s phone, she is a zombie when watching Youtube.

      Rabbit ears definitely signals a highly competitive market much better than subscription.

      But I wanted to add to your comment Shelby that, in Canada, it is now ILLEGAL to use rabbit ears. I know this sounds crazy but it is true. The only content allowed is digital piped in on cable. Were we back home in Canada now, I would definitely still be using my computer to entertain my family with content of my choosing.

      1. Jonathan, likely in the flurry of comments I made this one above, directed at Shelby, was overlooked for approval. 😉

         1. Not overlooked, Richard, simply put aside for later. I like to thoroughly read through and consider every comment and, if warranted, provide a thoughtful response. The longer posts often get saved for later when I can take the time necessary to give them the attention they deserve.

3. Disney didn’t buy the FOX Network – only the studio,The FX Networks and 20th’s Share of HULU. FOX Broadcasting is still an independent entity. (They Bought The Studio, but FOX Broadcasting kept The Century City Studio Lot and Disney is renting space as well.

   1. Ah, yes. Thanks for the correction, Herb. I forgot that the broadcasting part of that deal was a no-no as Disney already owns a television network (ABC), and the law says a single company can’t own two different major broadcast networks. I’ll fix that part of the blog.

4. Excellent article, Jonathan. Thanks for explaining it so clearly. Linda and I want to cut the cord, but all these options are, well, mind blowing.

   1. TOTALLY!!!

      Some of the best TV in the history of television is being made now, but the price we’re paying for it is this awkward transition that requires more money, the hassle of setting up new OTT services, and the pain of having to go through a gauntlet of different user interfaces to find and watch a show rather than just changing a channel or selecting something from a DVR list.

      Anyone remember TiVo? 🙂

5. The real issue is going to be profitability. With Netflix spending Billions, how are they going to get that money back? Netflix’s stock is already dropping.

   With a number if the OTTs being publicly traded companies, their viewership will finally get some real scrutiny. And then like many cable channels in the past (anybody remember the Nashville Network, G4, or Tech TV?), some will fold. But which ones and how soon? We have already seen some effects of this with the early cancellation of Swamp Thing.

   History shows that in most Gold rushes (real or tech), only a few make money. The rest starve or die. The real monies were made with support businesses (real and tech).

   So, place your bets. Time to start a death pool.

   1. I think it’s spelled “dead pool,” Jerome. 😉

      The reason Netflix is spending so much is the same reason that Disney paid $4 billion for Star Wars a decade ago. In this world, content is king. You need to OWN something that can make you money in your sleep…but sometimes you’ve got to pay for it (most times, in fact). Netflix saw the writing on the wall years ago when it first produced “House of Cards.” They knew that, eventually, the other content owners would wake up and see the value of their own content (like “The Office” and the Marvel movies, etc.) and realize they could do what Netflix was doing and deliver their own content directly…MUCH more profitably than just licensing it to Netflix to stream.

      Eventually, Netflix will trim down its spending a bit…but only after there’s enough content to keep people paying that monthly subscription. That’s the problem CBS is facing right now: not enough content. The majority of those 4 million subscribers they claim to have (actually a lot less, as they count those who have canceled–like me–as merely being “on pause”–also, like me) aren’t watching “Star Trek” or “The Good Fight” or “The Twilight Zone” or the Tony Awards or “60 Minutes” or T”he Big Bang Theory.” They’re watching the NFL…by a factor of 4-to-1 or more. That’s why CBS is throwing so much money into creating four-to-five Star Trek series. It’s all about getting content “in the bank.”

      Will there be consolidation eventually? Of course. But Netflix has already been including future cost savings from not having to pay licensing fees against current expenditures. Sneaky, yes, but Netflix still remains the 5 billion pound gorilla. 🙂

      1. As I was reading your comment to Jerome, I was reminded of the early days of Hollywood when the studios not only had contracted actors but also owned the distribution of film outright and many cinemas as well. I get the feeling we’re going back to those days.

         1. The sky isn’t falling just yet, Chicken Little. 🙂

6. The main selling point of 1 or 2 streaming services being available was how cheap it was compared to cable with all the desired content being in 1 or at most 2 places which helped lead to the advent of cord cutting. Now with the streaming services being fragmented it could cost more to pay for all the streaming services than staying with cable. These streaming services are killing demand by killing convenience and increasing overall costs.

   1. And just when all seemed hopeless, the world cried out for an aggregator of content!

      And Apple answered? We’ll know in a couple of months. 🙂

      1. Apple has just released the first trailer for Moore’s new series, For All Mankind. While this new series is a departure for Moore in the sense that it isn’t an adaptation of a preexisting work, it’s already clear For All Mankind will be dealing with some familiar themes and conflicts.
         https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/06/03/for-all-mankind-how-ronald-d-moores-new-apple-tv-series-builds-on-the-past

         1. Yeah, I saw that trailer back in June and was blown away! Here’s a direct link to the trailer:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZS9M52Bd_w

7. Fascinating read ─ thank you Jonathan. For me, my approach to TV has similarities to Shelby, above. My interests are plentiful and diverse, so whilst if at home for the evening, that time is most commonly spent in the home cinema, only following a long day, typically 3 am to 6 pm. And I have plentiful resources for the evenings without any need or desire to take on board ANY form of subscription service.

   I realize that for a young person they may well be coming from a different position where, as starters, I have a very large DVD/Blu-ray library of movies and TV series etc built up over the years. Also, one of my greatest loves is classical music. So that’s an “already owned” viewing component.

   In the evenings, while I literally never watch any of the commercial broadcasters, here in Australia we have the government-funded but totally independent ABC (nothing to do with ABC in the US) that provides a wide range of news and current affairs material that has minimal bias. They also broadcast a wide range of entertainment programming, much of which is excellent (including quite a bit from the UK). So that’s the TV component.

   YouTube is a massive source of top-class classical concert and operatic material as well as a comparable resource of documentary items (although there needs to be much weeding out of rubbish!) ─ so I’m continually expanding a collection from this source (currently 2 TB of mainly HD material).

   Then there’s the large collection of CD/SACD discs.

   So, there’s more than enough to draw on, whatever my mood. OK, I’m missing out on the latest in television programs, but really, is that important? ─ of course not. Sure, I would like to watch The Orville, but there’s no way I could find time to pursue everything I might like.

   While I continue to find from the resources I’ve listed far more quality entertainment than I can ever hope to exhaust, there’s absolutely no need for following any subscription service; I’m not interested on keeping up with the latest simply for the sake of doing just that. At the same time, I’m certainly not residing in the past. If what I learn about a modern TV series seems as if I would really like to enjoy it, I just wait for the DVD ─ I’m patient, (although DVD releasing will progressively diminish). And, of course, there is YouTube (where I do use Adblock or similar)!

   The future that you reveal to already be happening is perhaps more for those (particularly the young) who have not built up collections of their own resources (admittedly adding significantly to household clutter) and more impulsively must keep up with the latest, frequently showing at the same time a lack of patience in the need to “binge watch”.

   Then, of course, the home cinema is not the only entertainment option.There is the phenomenon called “social interaction” (that means “spending time with friends”). And not to forget that I have a large book collection ─ remember books? On top of all that there’s a piano, a digital “pipe”-organ, and a good keyboard; all for making music.

   Subscription TV? ─ nah!

   1. Yeah, I’m feeling old, too, Bryan. 😉

      1. Correction; “older” not “old”. Although the verbosity and loss of focus in my comment (unintended ─ I got carried away) would argue that your word choice was correct. While our brains remain active, while we continue to have the need to expand our knowledge, while our curiosity ever leads us to boldly g…. oops, that’s enough!

         1. Indeed! 🙂

8. Your post nicely sums up the challenge of being a TV viewer in today’s “multiverse” of content providers from across the spectrum of broadcast TV, basic cable, premium cable, and streaming platforms. Getting access to all of the content you want to watch (whether as a general TV fan or specifically a sci-fi/fantasy fan) without breaking the bank requires careful planning these days.

   For the moment, I’ve settled on the strategy below:

   * DIRECTV satellite service – for TV shows my family watches week to week and occasionally for spectacular 4K content. Pro tip: Be sure to renegotiate your contract every year with the retention department of your cable or satellite provider.
   * Netflix – for their great original content and deep (but diminishing) well of older TV series and movies.
   * Amazon – for a few of their Amazon Originals TV series and the occasional movie.
   * Redbox – for renting new release movies that my son and/or I want to watch right away before they hit streaming. (With their frequent promotions, Redbox disc rentals are far more affordable than renting new releases from Vudu, FandangoNow, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc.)
   * Hoopla and Kanopy – for the once in a blue moon occasion when these free streaming services (integrated with your public library) actually have a movie I want to see.
   * Rotating streaming service – at any given time, I may also subscribe to one other streaming service to catch up on their exclusive content:
   – HBO NOW
   – CBS All Access (strictly for Star Trek)
   – Hulu
   – In the future, Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus may join the rotation.

   1. That sounds like a lot of money coming out of your wallet every month Randy. 🙂

      1. Factoring in my $10 discount for having a TV & Internet bundle with AT&T, I am paying the same or less as the option of cord-cutting and going with YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV. I have the entry-level DIRECTV package (since I don’t care about sports), at a negotiated rate, so my premium is pretty low. Also, I do not always have a subscription in the rotating spot (e.g. just finished one month with Hulu and won’t take HBO again for another two months as they amass more new content since my last subscription). I don’t need to subscribe to CBS again until early next year when Picard arrives. Overall, I suspect I pay quite a bit less than the average American with a cable subscription and one or two premium channels.

         1. So the price you pay for saving money is juggling subscriptions. When did watching television get so hard??? 🙂

9. “AppleTV will somehow aggregate all of this disparate content—where every show is currently living in a different “silo”—back into a single access point…something we used to have to begin with before we began cutting the cord with cable and Satellite providers. Wouldn’t THAT be ironic if all of this just brought us full circle!?”

   Aside from not wanting Apple to get any bigger than they already are, I do hope that the future is one where you buy whatever content you want directly from the creators (or the studio that backed them.) That would make a whole lot more sense for consumers, especially those of us with varied tastes who end up having to subscribe to multiple services.

   Perhaps the feds could bring some antitrust laws to bear–wouldn’t be the first time. Originally, movie studios owned cinemas so they could freeze out the competition. I could see the feds using the same approach to open up the playing field among OTT services.

   1. It didn’t happen in the music industry, Steve (the antitrust thing) so I doubt it’ll happen with OTT.

      As for buying per title, that might not be any cheaper. A single song might cost $1.99, but the production of that song is WAAAAAAAY less than the cost of producing an entire season of a TV series.

      1. There actually have been a number of antitrust cases brought against the music industry (particularly ASCAP and BMI which manage royalties), and while it’s far from Nirvana, you have much greater freedom of choice when it comes to how and where you get your music than you do with streaming video.

         With a few exceptions, I can listen to one of my favorite bands on any music service: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, etc. However, I can only watch a streaming show on one service (with a few exceptions. Hey, thanks for letting me know about Doom Patrol. Now I can ditch the DC service.)

         The next step with music would be to stream it directly from the musician or a web site they set up and cut out the middlemen, who add no value to the musical experience.

         Doing the same with video would be trickier, but still do-able. What I’d like to be able to do is just Google a title like “Metropolis,” get a link to the current copyright-holder, and be able to stream (and pay) them directly. They could offer alternate cuts of the movie, “DVD bonus videos,” and set it up to include ads or not. Technologically, it’s 100% possible (heck, that’s how Phase II did it before making their episodes available on YouTube.) Consumers win, studios still get their money.

         1. The question with your idea is one of cost to the consumer. Never forget the distribution piece of the puzzle. You can make the best movie ever, but without a distributor putting their marketing muscle behind it to help cut through the clutter and providing a pipeline to the consumer.

10. It’s so often tempting to get a few books and a rotary phone.

    1. Don’t do it, man! 🙂

11. I heard on a YouTube video today as the amount of streaming services increase so will the demand for piracy especially since people are not given the option of paying only for their desired content and are forced to subsidize the entire catalog of shows and movies. When Netflix was the only streaming service it drove down piracy but now having dozens of streaming services will drive it back up.

    1. Perhaps. But I think a lot of people are still morally uncomfortable with piracy, don’t know how to do it safely, and/or don’t have the drive space to store that many shows. Granted, there’s also a lot of people who are quite comfortable pirating, it’s apparently not that complicated to do, and I just bought an 8TB hard drive which wasn’t that expensive. So who knows?

12. Shoot! I’ve been considering “cable cutting”. I’m out in the country and stuck with satellite TV and satellite Internet. (Reception of “free” TV is non-existent.) This article is giving me pause for thought. I’m still struggling with the idea of cutting my landline phone as cell phone reception is so poor here. Sigh! After so many years of being an early adopter in the computer world, this is making me feel like a Luddite!

    1. Join the Luddite’s club, Tory! I felt equally overwhelmed writing the blog, and I can’t imagine cutting my cord. Oh, the agony!!!

13. The money they make off of me is in DVDs and Blu-rays. Then I pass them around (or gift them) to my equally cheap friends. And another plus: No commercials.

    1. They’re probably thinking of you as ancillary revenue, Barb. You’re “ol’ reliable” buying the DVDs and Blu-rays. But the real money these days is in all those subscriptions! 🙂

14. I haven’t had a moment (or longer) to read the entire post. Man, you have put a lot of effort into it! But I get the gist by halfway through. But you have missed the biggest story of OTT this past year with the continuing saga of The Karate Kid, Cobra Kai. This is a monster hit on Youtube which had it behind a paywall for two years and is now taking that paywall down. https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/cobra-kai-free-youtube/

    Is this ahead of the curve?

    Now I know Cobra Kai is not your beat but media is where my head was at for so many years back home. And the changes Youtube is implementing on their Premium channel could likely set the pace for all.

    If you have not seen Cobra Kai, I cannot more highly recommend it.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rB36UGoP4Y

    1. I’ll need to add “Cobra Kai” to my watch list…right after “The Boys” (which I just watched the first episode of and was instantly hooked). YouTube is part of this whole experiment, and they just discovered a valuable lesson: people are much more likely to watch something for free than to pay for it. Now YouTube just needs to figure out more ways to monetize giving away stuff for “free.” 🙂

       1. Well, as I understand the situation with Cobra Kai specifically, Youtube financial was through the roof on this show. It was a success. And it ran for two years. I only just heard about it late last month. I am not what you may call up on anything current as you can understand given my situation in Poland. I was attracted to the show because of its counter-message to what I have paid attention to and seemed to be ongoing for some time. Engineering culture was a part of my tool kit when I worked as a public relations strategist so I was not coming to it for nostalgia. I remembered William Zabka from The Equalizer. So I binge watched the first season via browser once I started because it was so good (and browser TV has a nack for being shut down).

          Anyway, Youtube was selling subscriptions and making money. First rule of opening a business: have a client ready. Surprisingly, they have taken down the paywall after it was working for them. The upcoming season (3) is going to have location shooting in Japan so that’s not going to be cheap and the entire series has had feature film production values for a Net show – my gold standard being Star Trek Continues.

          It seems to me that Youtube is running in the opposite direction of the Networks. Were I doing public relations strategy for the “big boys” (well they were when I left Canada 18.5 years ago) I would take a true sounding of fan sentiment towards the shows on offer before I start fiddling with things like pricing and distribution. Many of the shows in trouble have terrific packaging in terms of strong franchise branding (GoT, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, &c.) but they’re failing. Disney decided to up price at their theme parks and, well, that was not the answer. Playing with OTT not only interrupts distribution but increases cost.

          Looking at the money being thrown at writing… suggests the idea that selling the story as a premium bought product and selling the service delivery at a premium is some kind of psychological halo effect they want consumers/audience buy-in. Aside from the obvious economic realities when 7/10 households are unable to afford an emergency, I also believe entertainment value is lacking (see aforementioned TV shows, &c).

          I’ve not drunk the cool aid on that decision to go OTT even though they are going down that road for some reason, perhaps unrelated to any traditional Nielsen concerns. Maybe they just want to report high numbers and try to, “tell a great lie”, as Goebbels put it. Maybe to use social pressure to drive a certain younger demographic into their entertainment-message. I am sure my voice would not be popular at a BoD meeting.

          1. Actually, Richard, I simply think this train is now speeding down the track, and nothing is going to stop it. Netflix wasn’t afraid to be first and got laughed at for it when they initially gave up their “mail you a DVD/you mail it back” business model and started a subscription service like HBO that was separate from cable/satellite. Then they were laughed at for trying to produce their own content when everyone knew Netflix was only a way to watch previously released movies and some TV shows. But folks stopped laughing when “House of Cards” began winning Emmy Awards and subscribers kept growing.

             Yes, Netflix wasn’t afraid to be first, but now everyone wants to be second! 🙂

             1. Yes, I agree with you. What you’re saying I think is indisputable fact. I am saying that a me too strategy is not a good marketing strategy. And I see this as a me too strategy from a marketing perspective and, worse, from my own perspective of public relations a rudderless strategy.

                It’s like they’re all tuned into a message from space and blithely following along. Does Youtube stand in the place Netflix once did? Have they taken the position of “indirect approach” to quote Liddell Hart? Time will tell, and in short order I suspect.

                By the way, as for the American House of Cards…. you ain’t seen House of Cards until you have watched the original smash hit from Britain. Like The Office, Three’s Company, and good PBS shows, the best of the remakes are the originals. You might say that they have their test marketing done already and simply need a tweak and release in the larger US market. Not a real gamble, IMHO. Just another me too but on the creative side rather than the marketing side. [My wife and I watched Murder on the Orient Express (1974 & 2017) the other night on browser and, unfortunately, it seems to me when making even a remake Hollywood has lost itself.]

             2. Remakes and reboots are typically not worth it, but you do get the occasional “Battlestar Galactica” or “A Star Is Born.” As for the “me, too” strategy in general, Richard, remember that I live in Hollywood. This is the land of being second in the pool. No one ever got fired from a studio for finding a successful business example and deciding to copy the same approach. Has this led to miserable failures like UPN and the Prime Time Entertainment Network? Sure. But then there’s also the Fox network and the CW. So it’s a crap shoot. The alternative in this town is being original and coming up with a winning idea of your own. Do such things happen? Sure. Netflix is a prime example (no pun intended). But the risk is greater, as is the effort involved in trying to sell the idea to the decision-makers…which is why “me, too” is so often the rule rather than the exception (and I’m not just talking Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves when I say “me, too!). 😉

15. I’ve just read a large batch of posts, absorbing the diversity and, at times, complexity of all these subscription services. My choice to forgo subscription TV has been validated. Virtually all of the programs referred to are entertainment; keeping up with the latest light entertainment is hardly essential material for living. Why is it seen to be so important not to miss out on the latest offerings if you are in a position similar to mine where I supplement my library (which includes BOOKS) with material that is either free-to-air or available on YouTube, add-free via computer. My resources provide high-quality entertainment ranging from the lowest of low-brow to the highest of high-brow. The only material that is important to keep up with is news and current affairs (if you have an unbiased source) and that arrives free-to-air. As you responded to one comment, why is watching TV so complicated? – a response applicable to many comments. I’m not yet old just older, but this really makes me feel sorry for he younger generations.

    1. “this really makes me feel sorry for he younger generations.”

       Tell me about it. My son spends hours watching videos of other people playing Minecraft! What’s up with THAT??? On the other hand, he’s reading, too…and we watch Star Trek together each night while I do cardio (just finished “Sarek” last night…Jayden says he really misses Spock). 🙂

16. Jonathan, I don’t see you as typical ─ although the question of what is “typical” potentially plunges significant psycho-social depths. The diversity and vitality of Jayden’s upbringing is apparent to anyone who consistently follows your work. And in your case, the very nature of what you do with your blogs makes it rather necessary to know what’s going on in at least the sci-fi aspect of the industry.

    This gives me the chance for a PS. I don’t entirely eschew modern TV, I just “work around the fringes” to access what might interest me. My exploring mind is still active, just cost-aware and with a “keep it simple stupid” approach. [Hope this is typo-free]

    1. Typo-free as far as I can see, Bryan!

       As for your approach to TV and other forms of entertainment, it’s laudable and certainly seems to be working for you. The studios, meanwhile, make their plans based on predictions of what the masses will do. At this point, though, those predictions–and what ultimately ends up happening–are anyone’s guess! 🙂

17. You don’t talk about what happened with “Renegades”. Here was a crowd sourced film run by top SciFi talent who chose to start their own “Atomic” OTT network. I stopped reading their RSS feed when it was all commercials. I wasn’t interested in another streaming service. Not sure what’s going on with them now.

    1. It’s hard to figure out these days, but Atomic TV is about to start crowd-funding their second episode of Cozmo’s. At this point, I feel that Atomic is too small an endeavor to make the list of major OTT services like Netflix and Hulu and the rest….kind of like all of the Democratic candidates who are running who aren’t included in the list of the top 23 primary candidates. Yep, if you thought there were “only” two dozen or so candidates, guess again. There are a bunch of perennial crackpots who always try to run and never get anywhere. Not that I’m calling the Atomic Network a crackpot, mind you! But they haven’t quite made it to the debate stage yet. 🙂

18. Interesting to see this mentioned. Am I the only one who failed to get a single laugh out of the first Cosmo’s episode? Did I miss something?

    1. I didn’t laugh uproariously, but I smiled and also marveled at the quality of the make-up, lighting, and production values in general. I’m hoping that episode 2 has more of a unifying, cohesive plot to tie things together (rather than disjointed skits and sketches), but I still enjoyed Cozmo’s first episode.

19. If you’re unaware of the youtube produced scifi show (10 eps) called “Origin”, I highly recommend it (don’t watch trailers or read about it, it spoils the mystery). Something else I didn’t see mentioned, “Altered Carbon” season 2 is coming out soon, and if you haven’t watched season 1 of that yet, yeah no that’s just not kosher, go watch it right now.

    1. See? I knew I was missing something! I’m still working my way through “The Boys” right now and am about to finish the last three episodes of “The Last Kingdom.” So more to add to my viewing list!

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