As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
i agree that everone needs to get paid, but we could say the same thing about an ad supported model, until its 6 hours ads for every hour of show “but what if”.
In the end, they are making $5b of net profit (and $12.93b of gross profit), so their profit/liabilities is an extremely healthy 40%!). the increased profits isnt about paying people more, its about increasing their net profit for their shareholders.
I agree to a point. While you’re right that the profit/liabilities margin is healthy, and that driving people into ad-supported tiers by raising the cost of ad-free viewing is mostly to keep these companies from having to pay out of existing income streams in order to keep profits as high as possible (even if they’re still negative at the moment), I think it’s still worth considering that there is a potential for ad free viewing to cause a company to owe more in residuals than they make in subscription revenue if, for example, a ridiculous amount of people stream something for whatever reason.
(BTW when I’m referring to net income being “still negative” I’m talking about the streaming services, not the companies that own them)