Streaming: Infinity War

Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to today's show. I'm Sean Rameswaram.

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Sean Rameswaram: Today, we're talking about the streaming wars. Disney+. Apple TV+. Netflix. HBO Max. Peacock. Which streaming service will win the great war to come?

Emily Vanderwerf: When was the last time you brushed your teeth? Wouldn't it be great if there were a podcast that just occasionally reminded you to do it? The Quip electric toothbrush would like to brush your teeth for you. It'll do most of the work. All you have to do is go to getquip.com slash explained, where the Quip starts at just $25. And your first set of refills doesn't cost anything. It's free.

Sean Rameswaram: Emily Vanderwerf, critic at large, Vox. Do you remember when you just like signed up for cable? Actually, can I tell you a long and stupid personal story? Because I do. We love long and stupid personal stories.

Emily Vanderwerf: So I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I grew up on a farm outside of town with 750 people in it. Which town? Armor, South Dakota. A-R-M-O-U-R. It's named after the hot dogs. Our fight song in high school was the Armor hot dog song. And that's the last we're going to talk about it. Okay. Packers, armor packers What kind of kids love armor packers? Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks Tough kids, cis kids Even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs Armor hot dogs The team that loves to fight

Sean Rameswaram: [laughs] I think we're going to move on from the hot dogs.

Emily Vanderwerf: [laughs] Okay. So let's go from South Dakota putting out a little antenna to get ABC, NBC, and CBS to what we're about to have or to what we already have, this deluge of streaming services. What's coming out? What's already out? What's about to change? The landscape right now is we're sort of on the precipice of what I call the streaming apocalypse.

Sean Rameswaram: What do you mean by the streaming apocalypse?

Emily Vanderwerf: We have all of the traditional TV infrastructure. Then you have streaming players, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, but also like HBO Now, CBS All Access, some of these other services that are tied to traditional TV channels. What's happening is we're about to get a bunch more streaming services. Apple TV Plus just launched. Apple TV+, the destination for the highest quality originals. Disney Plus is launching on Tuesday, November 12th. A phenomenal, one-of-a-kind service with content only Disney can provide and an experience only Disney could create. Next year, HBO Max is coming in May. HBO Max will begin with about 10,000 hours of content. Peacock from NBCUniversal is coming in April. In addition to The Office, Peacock will be the exclusive streaming home of Parks and Recreation, Cheers, Saturday Night Live, and Will & Grace, among others.

Sean Rameswaram: Why is this all happening right now? Is this just Netflix is doing? Yes, but it's more complicated than that. You've got all of these sort of companies that are realizing the value of their catalog titles. Because if you look at viewership on Netflix, most viewership on Netflix is still these shows that became popular on traditional television, ran for hundreds upon hundreds of episodes, and they all are owned by other companies. NBC owns The Office. WarnerMedia owns Friends. Disney owns Grey's Anatomy. CBS owns Cheers, Frasier, some of those shows. Like, all of these shows are owned by other companies, and those other companies are like, hey, look at all this money Netflix is making.

Emily Vanderwerf: And also, if Netflix gets so big that we're reliant on it as our distribution system, we're in essence reliant on it to show other people our programming, that's an existential threat to us.

Sean Rameswaram: All right. Well, let's talk about what they're doing about that existential threat, starting with Apple TV+, which just launched last week. How much does it cost? What is it? It's $5 a month, $4.99 a month, technically. It's available on like sort of newly purchased Apple devices for a year. You get that free. Everybody else has to pay it $5 a month for, you know, the foreseeable future. And here's what you get. I think eight shows, three of which are for kids. And then you get like four streaming shows, The Morning Show, Dickinson, Sea, and For All Mankind. That's what they launched with. They have more shows coming, an M. Night Shyamalan horror show, a true crime show. There's even more coming in 2020. But you get those shows basically. So this isn't like a big HBO back catalog of Friends or something like that. This is, here's some brand new shows you've never heard of. There's no catalog. They're betting on the idea that all anybody actually wants are originals.

Sean Rameswaram: Let's go through these Apple TV Plus originals. The Morning Show. What is it? Other than an opportunity to look at Steve Carell and Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. It's got Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon. It's literally just about a morning show. It's kind of like trying to be about women's struggles in the workplace and then also has Me Too gone too far. And it's kind of trying to hold those two things in concert. She's throwing me under the bus. And while I don't know the details of the allegations, I understand that they were serious and that keeping Mitch on was not enough. I don't think we need to watch any more of this. Do not touch that remote. It's not a good show, but I also enjoy watching it. And I'm going to watch more of it. And like, I am a white woman in her 30s. I am powerless to quippy dialogue and workplace settings. So take from that what you will.

Emily Vanderwerf: And how do you feel about the Jason Momoa show where no one can see? I think it's called See? It's bad. Dickinson! It's got a premise? Oh hell yeah It about teen Emily Dickinson and she a lesbian but she also kind of in love with death Emily Are you all right Oh Sue Life is an endless sea of pain Emily, what is wrong? I got my period. It's like super arch and super campy, and it stars Haley Steinfeld, and John Mulaney shows up as Henry David Thoreau. Oh, no! Oh, mother, it's you. Henry, it's laundry day. Is it? I lose track of time out here in my extreme solitude. I think it's sort of the best show out of this initial lineup, but it's also so specifically pitched at white women in their 30s who were English majors, and that's me. So we can't even trust you on that one. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Like, I know a lot of people who are just like, this is a mess. And I'm like, yes, but also.

Sean Rameswaram: For All Mankind. What is that? For All Mankind is a speculative fiction show. It's set in a world where the Soviets landed on the moon first, and that led to, like, a utopia? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a live signal from the moon. We'll get a translation of his words, man's first words from the moon, in just a minute. It's a really, like, interesting show in concept, and in execution is kind of a little, I'm waggling my hand back and forth. I enjoyed watching it. I've seen eight out of 10 episodes, but especially once it gets to a point where, as my good friend Catherine Van Arendenck of Vulture described it, a league of their own in space. Wow. Then I was into it.

Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so you have to pay $4.99 to be specific for Apple TV+, in which you get no back catalog. What do you have to pay for Disney+, from which you get Disney? Disney Plus is going to be $6.99 a month if you do it in a bundle with Hulu, which is the Hulu that includes ads, and ESPN Plus, which is not actually like ESPN, but has a lot of live sporting events. Sports! That's $12.99 a month. To me, that's a pretty big deal for a lot of families. What's in the pretty big deal? Disney Plus has this massive catalog of titles, including Star Wars movies, Marvel movies, Pixar movies, things like that. Disney Plus will eventually have the entire Disney catalog. And by the Disney catalog, we include 20th Century Fox. The Simpsons. Yes, every episode of The Simpsons will be available day one on Disney Plus, which for me is like the single biggest selling point.

Emily Vanderwerf: In addition to all of that, they're going to make new shows. They are making new shows. Their biggest show is The Mandalorian, which is a Star Wars spinoff that nobody has seen because they haven't sent it to critics. Often a bad sign, not always a bad sign. And they claim they're trying to protect some spoilery events that happen in the premiere because we can't be trusted not to spoil it. But come on, guys. Plus, there's a new Lady and the Tramp on Disney+. It's Lady and the Tramp. They made it with dogs and they made the dogs talk. It's weird. Can't wait to see someone's kids watching it and be totally transfixed.

Sean Rameswaram: All of these shows are unobjectionable. They are just like you're going to set your kids in front of them. Your kids are going to be like, I kind of like that. You're going to be like, I kind of like you, son. And then like, that's it. Happy Disney. Happy Disney. Happy HBO.

Emily Vanderwerf: What is HBO Max and how much does it cost? HBO Max is going to have a large portion of the Warner Brothers catalog. They're $14.99 a month, which is going to be pricier than everybody. They can kind of get away with it because they are banking on that HBO brand name. They are essentially just turning HBO Now into this new service and adding a whole bunch of stuff to it. It's going to have a lot of the Warner Brothers catalog, including again, Friends. And then it's going to have a bunch of like older movies. To me, this is interesting because they are getting Turner Classic Movies, which is within the Warner Media family to do a curated list of classic movies from the Warner Brothers archive, which includes a lot of other studios that like Ted Turner bought up in the 80s.

Sean Rameswaram: Okay, so those are the big ones. Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max. But there are another few coming out? Let's not forget Peacock. Peacock. Peacock is coming in April. And Peacock's going to have The Office. It's going to have Parks and Rec. It's going to have a bunch of these classic NBC sitcoms along with some original programming. The big thing that it sounds like is it sounds like Peacock is going to be free to everybody. It's going to be free with ads. Now, people don't like watching ads, but free, free is a big deal. Free is my favorite.

Emily Vanderwerf: That being said, there is no way I'll have time for all this stuff. Is this why Netflix is apparently testing a feature that will allow people to watch at one and a half speed? Do we go straight from peak TV to way too much TV? Yeah. But also like I don't see a way to sort of reverse this process short of a catastrophic like bubble pop, you know. The funny thing about 1.5 speed, my colleague Constance Grady said this and I'm stealing it from her but it's so brilliant. It's turning all of your leisure time into like optimization time, into time when you're like, oh yeah I have to make sure to cram as much entertainment in as possible to be the most efficient human being I can be because that is how capitalism works.

Sean Rameswaram: So you and Constance are basically saying that this is turning what we do for fun into work? Yeah but like this whole optimization culture was created because Netflix creates baggy television shows because if you want to watch a Netflix show, like they want to keep as much of your attention as possible, that means you watch more. So now they're like, well, what if we found a way to artificially take those extra 30 minutes out by running it slightly faster? So like, it's just not artistically viable and is bad for the future of my favorite medium television and i'm just like i hope it doesn't happen i know it's gonna happen before emily's favorite medium suffers a sad artistic death who will win the streaming wars

Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram from that is after a quick break on today explained Here's the fun thing about the neighborhood I live in sometimes but not always your mail just disappears I've never personally seen who takes it but I did almost one time see the person who brought the package back because they didn't particularly like what was in it. With the Quip electric toothbrush, people will know that you've been delivered a Quip electric toothbrush. It says Quip and even has like little cartoon toothbrushes on the packaging. So chances are if they're not interested in a new toothbrush, they're not going to take that initial delivery. And after that, the refills, you know, who wants refills for a brush they don't have? I guess one thing you might have to worry about is whether they have a Quip electric toothbrush already and maybe want to snag your refills. But chances are if they do that, they've already gotten their first set of refills for free, which you can do for yourself at getquip.com slash explained. And after that, it's just $5 for refills or $10 if you want them to send the toothpaste to. They might already be locked in and not snagging other people's packages. And you can just have your refills to yourself. What a dream.

Sean Rameswaram: Today, today explained. Today explained. All right, Emily, so we have all these new streaming services as well as a bunch of old ones. Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon, Peacock, Apple, Disney, Counter, Table, Chair, whatever. Who's going to win these streaming wars?

Emily Vanderwerf: I don't know. I think that a lot of people assume Netflix will be number one forever because Netflix is number one right now. But I think about it a lot like, you remember Doctor Strange in the Marvel film Infinity War? Do I? Strange, we all right? At the end of that movie, he's kind of going through all of the scenarios. Hey, what was that? Went forward in time to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict. How many did you see? $14,605,000. And he like plucks out the one where the Avengers win. How many did we win? One. That's kind of what's happening to Netflix right now. The number of scenarios they have in which they could win keeps getting a little bit smaller with every year because they have all of these outside pressures.

Sean Rameswaram: Wait, you think Netflix could actually lose in all of this? Yeah. In a post-net neutrality world, your internet service provider can charge you more money to watch Netflix. HBO Max is connected to an internet service provider. It's connected to the AT&T companies U-verse and DirecTV. In a post-net neutrality world, you maybe won't have to pay extra to watch HBO Max if you're an AT&T subscriber. That gives HBO Max a leg up over Netflix. This is a kind of part of the reason I'm bullish on Peacock, because Peacock is connected to Comcast, which is, you know, one of the largest cable companies in the world. And in a post-net neutrality world, who wins is a question less about who has the best content or who has the best interface or anything like that. It is so much more a question of what you can watch and like what part of the country you live in. So that's a big strike against Netflix because without net neutrality, the platforms connected to cable and internet providers will have a head start. They'll do better.

Emily Vanderwerf: Is there a strike two? Can we stick with the baseball analogy? Strike two against them is now they've lost the office, they've lost friends. So like the casual subscribers, they're like, I'm actually going to subscribe to this instead because it has what I like. So they lose a bunch of those subscribers.

Sean Rameswaram: Okay, strike two is they're losing their biggest shows. Dare I ask, sitting here in the District of Champions, home of the Washington Nationals, for a strike three. The third thing is they're in tremendous amounts of debt. At a certain point, that debt comes calling and like they have to find a way to make up that debt. They start charging more for subscriptions, which drives more people away, which makes them have to charge more for subscriptions, which drives more people away. And they're also paying a premium on top of what they're paying for Netflix to like their ISP to be able to watch Netflix. Like probably all of these things won't happen. Probably it'll be, you know, one or two of them. But like if all of them happen, Netflix gets caught in a spiral where it becomes more and more expensive. And people are like, I have other options now. I'm going to watch one of those. And at that point, you know, Netflix starts to look pretty reasonable as something that like an Apple might acquire. And like, I don't think this will actually happen. But that it is not out of the realm of possibility is not a thing I would have said even two years ago

Emily Vanderwerf: But wait at the end of Avengers Endgame the Thanos is all I am inevitable And Iron Man is all And I am Iron Man. Even if it was a long shot, the Avengers did win in the end. So sticking with your analogy here where the Avengers are Netflix, is there a possible future where Netflix can win? Oh, sure. Netflix could absolutely win. Like there is a scenario in which they have become so synonymous with streaming where like people are like, we're going to just Netflix something tonight. Like where that becomes so synonymous in the way that Google has become synonymous with search that like they just can't be defeated.

Sean Rameswaram: One of the other solutions is like Netflix is big enough. Maybe they buy some studios catalog. You've got the Sony Pictures catalog and the Paramount catalog are both just sort of dangling out there for anybody who might want to buy them because both of those companies are kind of financially struggling. So like maybe Netflix buys that. Maybe that's their solution to the content problem. Because again, I don't think they're going anywhere, but I do think that they're kind of stuck in this place where like they have to like navigate a bunch of possible futures and many of them end catastrophically.

Emily Vanderwerf: Emily, the last time we had you on the show, it was to talk about the end of Game of Thrones and the death of our monoculture. That Game of Thrones could have potentially been sort of the last show that we all kind of sat around and watched, no matter who we were or where we were. And I wonder, when we talk about all of these different services and how people will pick and choose from them, how will that affect our monoculture or further kill it or affect our culture as a whole?

Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, I'm worried about this. Pop culture is one of the things that unites us as Americans. And like a lot of our pop culture is bad. But like the fact that a whole bunch of people watch The Masked Singer every week or that everybody watched the Game of Thrones finale. I love that aspect of our pop culture and I really worry about it going away. And like people have treated it as an inevitability for a long time and I never have because there's always something. There's always something that comes along, whether it's the Marvel movies, whether it's, you know, Taylor Swift, whether it's Beyonce. Or a fantasy show about dragons. Yeah, there are always these things that cross over and hit big. And like I worry about a world in which that doesn't happen. I worry about a world in which like the things that become the monoculture are actually like very small and very specific to certain niche cultures and I worry that that further stratifies society

Sean Rameswaram: I don't see an easy way out of that one either and if I think about it at the same time the natural default state of humanity is having several small regional cultures that don't add up to a monoculture but like that are sort of in conversation with each other and maybe we're just getting back to that. Maybe the 20th century when we had this monoculture was a blip. And maybe we're returning to our natural state. And like, maybe I should just be okay with it.

Emily Vanderwerf: Emily Vanderwerf writes about TV for Vox. And if you want to know even more about the business behind these streaming services, maybe even hear from some of the CEOs themselves, Check out the Recode Media podcast with our colleague Peter Kafka. There's an episode out right now called It's Not HBO, It's HBO Max. That'll get you started.

Sean Rameswaram: We've got the producers And they are A female And a female And a female They are helping Then we've got a female The engineer and breakmaster silenteer. We're part of the Fox Media Podcast Network and the show is made. No other news show is this insane It's today explained Podcast, daily podcast, daily podcast Daily podcast, daily podcast That's it for the show this week week, except if you live in Toronto, Canada, or somewhere nearby, come out to our first ever live show. I will most certainly be brushing my teeth before taking this stage because I want my whites to be pearly for the live audience, and I want my breath to be agreeable for the live guests. If you want your breath to be agreeable and your teeth to be pearly white, check out the Quip electric toothbrush it's at getquip.com slash explained and it starts at just $25 your first set of refills is free see you soon Canada