It is fair to say I watch a lot of TV. The Big Four (and a half) account for quite a bit of that, but increasing numbers of shows on my "to watch" list come from sources other than CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and The CW. I hate to admit it, but one of my new go to spots is DC's streaming service, DC Universe.
The fact that DC Universe allowed the revival of the BEST superhero show EVER, Young Justice, made its existence worthwhile. Originally it was another streamer, Netflix, that was to resurrect Young Justice but somewhere along the line DC's parent, Warner Bros, decided to break out their own stream for DC fans. To compliment Young Justice they created a live action Teen Titans show, Titans, an almost instant spin off from that, Doom Patrol, a Swamp Thing live actioner that started this week, a Harley Quinn cartoon and there's more yet to come. Against all odds they're three for three so far with Young Justice picking up right where it left off in terms of quality, Titans impressively adding an adult spin to the Teen Titans and Doom Patrol being just tastily weird. With luck, Swamp Thing will finally bring us a decent version of one of the great horror comics in history.
Swamp Thing might be the real test. Two cheesy 80s horror romps and an unendurably bad three season run of a little seen (thankfully, trust me) live action show and a cartoon so bad it only lasted five episodes before being pulled is a truly sad legacy for such a great character. The run of Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore is considered among the all time great comic books by pretty much anyone who has ever had the pleasure of reading it. It explored horror and psychological territory that up until then was considered too "real" or too "adult" for the funny books and it did so with some of the most beautiful art and highest calibre writing in the business.
While the CW has really cornered the DC superhero market in the last decade, it appears that DC Universe is carving out a niche and filling it with more "grown up" versions of comic book fare. Swamp Thing just wouldn't be a good fit in the Arrowverse, however much I and many fans might enjoy the mash up. Given DC's in-canon-for-all multiverse, there's always crossover possibilities but I think Alec Holland should probably stay in Louisiana and leave Star City to the leather clad set, at least for a while.
The point of all this palaver isn't really how great it is (and it is!) to have a dozen shows from DC and as many from Marvel out in the universe for me to consume. It's the delivery system I want to talk about. Or lack thereof.
Back in the dim recesses of history, I learned that if you bought a VHS tape in North America, you couldn't play it on a player in Europe or pretty much anywhere else on the planet. There were these regional restrictions that meant Europe had one standard, Asia another, North America a different one and so on. When DVDs came along, a similar system was set in place. Even Blu-Ray players conform to these anti-travel standards. You can certainly find region free players and most computers that have DVD/Blu-Ray drives can play pretty much anything you throw at them, but for most situations media bought on one continent is useless anywhere else.
A combination of technological standards and licence agreements have continued to keep this regional exclusivity alive even now in the age of the stream. And there's the problem. While it may once have been an inconvenience to a few world travelers is now a MAJOR problem that the streaming services have created for themselves. A decade or so ago if a tv show or movie wasn't playing in your country for whatever reason, if you knew about it at all you'd shrug your shoulders and hope that one day it would show up in the video store. Today if you know that a show you're interested in exists and it's unavailable to you either because of regional restrictions, government censorship or simply due to price or inconvenience, the barrier that presents to the average, slightly tech-savvy internet user is minimal. The show or movie will be consumed and nobody will get paid.
In the short term it's likely not a big deal. We still have four and a half networks that are big enough and pervasive enough to weather the loss of income represented by less than legal consumption of their product. The streaming services that exist seem to be managing financially, well enough to compete with the more established networks by creating their own content. For the moment, all seems rosy in tv-land. The question I'm pondering these days is when will the bubble burst? Disney is about to go head to head with Netflix. The house of Mouse also has Hulu as a platform, Amazon makes its own shows now that books are extinct, YouTube has its own content, the big networks are starting to offer a separate and not equal stream of content and even the Stargate franchise is spawning its own streaming service. And you're going to get a bill for each one you decide to use.
At what point is all this going to implode? I just can't see even the currently active streaming services all surviving ten years down the road. I don't much care if CBS All Access folds up and shops its Star Trek content elsewhere since established brands like Trek and Star Wars will continue to find money to film as long as fans continue to consume. My worry is shows like Swamp Thing. I think there's enough of an audience for lesser known commodities like Doom Patrol and Titans to make a profit but the margins are a lot less than a Star Wars series is likely to make. As streaming services jockey for customers and the finite amount of money they're willing to let go towards their entertainment budget, lesser known properties are likely to be the first casualties. Niche services like DC Universe will likely exist on a knife edge, if at all, and be forced to pander to the audience who is more likely to demand more Batman and less Blue Beetle.
Blue Beetle?
I rest my case.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment