good point

Who is the greatest TV villian? Any interest in a poll?

That story was incredible. The philosophy is very similar to what MGM was doing prior to WWII (after WWII, no one wanted MGM movies anymore after what they had seen). That studio is out of this world, just incredible. If the government releases more grip, that will be the place to be in 10 years, maybe less. I can't emphasize enough how incredible that studio is, and if it expands to Western style movies...wow.

RG had nothing to do with hello ladies.

Derek is unwatchable.
life is too short was pretty awful.

if u like merchant check out his stand up special "hello ladies" it's pretty funny.

also, check out an idiot abroad and the ricky gervais show, both are fantastic.

an idiot abroad is available on netflix and the RG show is available on YouTube and hbogo.

Do you watch live scripted TV? I know I don't and I don't know anyone who does. I mean not one single person. It's all DvRed and watched at the watchers convenience and not the networks schedule. DvR watchers don't watch commercials. They FF through them making all of these viewers pretty much useless to an advertising based model. Every day that goes by shrinks the pool of live viewers for scripted programs and it will continue to decline every day for infinity.

The Girlfriend Experience

Solid

It really was, it made the claim they would be competing with US studios within 5 years not sound unrealistic

the complete rebuild of the hidden city out of concrete was pretty amazing as well.

I always scratch my head a bit when I hear about other countries buying US companies and wonder what the effect will be on the US. Maybe its no big deal, I remember when the Japanese were buying a bunch of US companies and there was a lot of concern, I assume that hasn't hurt the US (I hope)

life is short wasn't great but I could see the Gervais influence and liked the cameos with various actors, the Liam Neeson scene was hysterical imo



I'll add the recs to my Q, thx for the heads-up

Idiot Abroad is great; the Gervais portions of it are the weakest bits.

I am nothing like an average viewer. Neither are you. Your argument also doesn't address anything I said.

The future is new forms of advertising that cannot be skipped. Stuff similar to YouTube has, but actually unblockable, or more extended placement than currently exists.

The alternative is we don't get any more tv or the monthly charge goes up significantly.

This is again an issue, as Phill says, of you putting your habits and the habits of your friends above the rest of the people out there. Here are some numbers to let you know how off base you are. Then, I'll fill in some historical numbers to show you how amazingly fast this has been changing.

From Leichtman Research Group (Feb. 5, 2016):

81% OF US HOUSEHOLDS HAVE A DVR, NETFLIX, OR USE VOD

77% of ages 18-24 stream an SVOD service monthly -- compared to 63% of ages 25-44, 50% of ages 45-54, and 23% of ages 55+

37% of all adults stream Netflix weekly -- compared to 8% in 2010

83% of Netflix streaming users watch Netflix on a TV set

64% of pay-TV subscribers have a DVR -- compared to 45% in 2010

65% of households with annual incomes >$75,000 have a DVR -- compared to 35% with household incomes <$30,000

74% of all Telco video subscribers and 61% of all cable subscribers have ever used VOD from their current provider

51% of all cable subscribers used VOD in the past month -- compared to 34% in 2010

Last year, 76% of households had a DVR, or Netflix, or used VOD -- compared to 70% two years ago



In 2015, 64% of homes with pay TV service had a DVR
In 2014, 62% of homes with pay TV service had a DVR
In 2013, 55% of homes with pay TV service had a DVR
In 2012, 52% of homes with pay TV service had a DVR

These numbers demonstrate there is still a large economic divide, and live scripted TV ain't going away for a long long time (the job of the networks is to get that DVR watching monetized for those that are leaving the live model). The numbers moved fast from 2012-2014, but now there is a slow down. I think the 64% of homes with pay TV service translates to about 57% of households based on other stuff I read. Nearly half the country is not watching TV the same way you are.

As Phill said, the marketers will have to get clever. The movie marketers have been a the forefront of this already. They have a static bar telling you the movie's name throughout the spot, so it's impervious to fast forward. That technology has been around practically since the advent of the DVR, but it makes live TV watching look ugly.

someone please watch The Girlfriend Experience (David Soderbergh's new one on Starz) so I can talk with you about it.

GFE is in the queue.
Is main girl Cuthbert hot?

If it weren't for sports, I would have dumped all tv services long ago. I think that's true for a lot of the male demo.

You must have been thrilled about the NCAA tournament streaming every game live.

N,
Didn't matter. I only watched about 20 minutes total. Not an ncaa fan. (Ohio St. fb excepted)

ya that scene was gold.
it happened in one of the first few eps too so I had high hopes, but it sadly fizzled out.

it wasn't as bad as Derek, and it did have some funny bits, just not on par with extras.

gonna miss Togetherness. sad it's over

Good ending though. Predictable, but good.

Togetherness, Transparent, and Six Feet Under are my faves

Just finished season 2 of Underbelly. I'm a big fan of this type of show, although I think I'm going to stop after watching season 3 as the imdb ratings seem to take a drastic nosedive in the later seasons. Not a great sample size though.

yeah

You're right amigo, kept watching and now I'm hooked. I love shows about the inner workings of Hollywood.

This is something I've noticed about being able to binge watch. By having to view shows as they are released on a week to week, season to season basis, I don't get hooked or invested and my interest fades away quickly and I quit watching. Because of the binge option, I'm now hooked on shows I would have otherwise given up on.

Its probably sacrilegious to many for me to say but I did the same thing with The Walking Dead. I stumbled across an episode several minutes in and it was all zombie killing and I thought WTF is this **** and flipped the channel.

A few years later, after hearing all they hype, I see AMC is airing it again as a marathon starting from the pilot, so I decided to try again. After a few episodes, I was hooked.

I watched the first half of the season before last as it was released weekly and lost interest and didn't like it as much. Going from cliffhanger to cliffhanger in each commercial and weekly episode caused me to lose momentum and interest, plus I would forget where the story left off and it would take me a few minutes to get back in the groove. So I decided to let last season pile up in my DVR and then watched them all in a couple of days, it was much more enjoyable imo and its how I'm watching most shows these days.

I think there is something about the binge option that studios need to look into. I can see the difficulty in how to monetize it with advertising plus I wouldn't have paid to watch some of the shows I've written off, so there is a dilemma there I'm not sure how they'll overcome, but I hope they do.

The "easiest" thing for them to do would be to say something like, "Want to see the whole season now? For $49.95, you can." The problem would, of course, be pirating. So that will not happen any time soon.

ETA: Plus, it would never work with production schedules. The only stuff they could be guaranteed to monetize that way would be established shows, and they'd have to have shows take an enormous hiatus in the first year this would need to happen. They could do it for new shows, but there's no guarantee anyone would actually watch them to begin with. So, in essence, it won't happen.

I haven't seen it but I would have bet $1k that the main girl was Emma Watson. My wife and I would always comment that it was surprising to see her in that kind of roll.