Could the goverment force movie studios out of the streaming business like they did movie theaters?

Factual Questions
1

I was watching a news report about scarlet johannsen suing marvel/disney for putting black widow on Disney+ because she says its a workaround for paying her a contract bonus based on theatre performance

And someone commented that if the studios didn’t watch it they’d get a ruling like the consent decree which basically ended the studio system in golden age Hollywood by saying they couldn’t own the theatres

And then there’s the fear that people will get undercut on lowball in-house syndication like Disney renting exclusively renting the simpsons to FX (or one of its sister networks) for peanuts

So is there going to be a streaming consent decree off on the horizon in the next decade or so saying studios cant own networks or streaming anymore?

2

In theory the government could probably find a way to do this but I doubt they ever would. The entertainment industry has a powerful lobby.

Most likely, the experience Johannson had just means absolutely every actor from now on will specify as part of their contract negotiations a piece of the streaming revenue.

Disney may have been able to bilk Johannson but they probably won’t get away with it again. Likely, some Disney exec will get a nice bonus out of it and Johannson will (probably) not prevail (she might have a slim chance).

3

The theory with the theatre rule, as I understand, was that the studios were using monopoly position to limit what movies a theatre showed - i.e. only theirs. In a small town, with room for, say, one or two theatres, the audience would never see some movies because the theatre only played certain studio’s films. Studios would make it impossible for independent film makers to distribute their movies to enough theatres - essentially a monopoly action, using their size to force the little guys out.

IIRC, even with independent cinemas, the studio tried to twist arms to say for example 'If you want this blockbuster movie, you have to agree to also show these other movies".

With the internet - who cares? you can get any streaming service you want anywhere in the country (if you have bandwidth).

Yes, there’s an element of the theatre dilemma - to see all the good movies, you would have to sign up for a dozen streaming services, maybe. But at this point, I think the government is just going to let the market sort it out. I doubt many theatre goers used to spend $120 a year on, say, Sony pics. So Sony would have to work really hard to produce enough hits to justify $10/month streaming. Even worse for networks and their series - we used to get those free.

I think the ideal would be a setup like a Blockbusters, where almost everything is available, and your subscription is distributed to the studio/artists based on your choices. (I believe the music streaming services work this way).

TO be more succinct about the OP question - I have trouble seeing how the government could use the monopoly laws to force this sort of setup; Disney may have a lock on children’s entertainment with its back catalog, but most others are at the whim of how good their newest product is. Monopoly is about restraint of trade, forcing the others out of the market through domination; I don’t see multiple streaming services being defined as that. What you may see is streaming services being told they cannot have “exclusives” in their contracts with studios - i.e. if Make-a-film productions makes a film, XYZ streaming cannot say “we will only take it if you don’t let any other service offer it”. That to me seems to be a form of domination - Netflix or Amazon making it impossible for Bob’s Streaming to get an independent blockbuster as well.

The theory would be that then the film maker would license to any/every service. That’s just good business. (Assuming the rules also included no paying extra for exclusivity) Disney could make a fortune, for example, licensing their kids movies to Amazon, Netflix, and everyone else. However, if the streaming service belonged to the studio, why would that matter?

To make this happen, we would have to see an example where small producers were being crowded out. But with the ability to start their own streaming service or pay per view, it’s hard to imagine this happening.

4

Let’s say theater goers went to one movie per month and spent $10 on a ticket ($120/year). Maybe you see three Disney movies, two Sony movies, three Warner Brothers movies and two Universal movies.

That cost you $120.

These days you have to pay for four services, each $10/month so are paying $480 to see the same movies.

5

[Moderating]

*Could* the government do this, is a question with a (mostly) factual answer, and so fits in GQ.

*Would* the government do this, is a question that invites speculation about political motives, and so does not fit in GQ.

For now, let’s stick to the former question. If the latter question is of greater interest, then we can move this thread.

6

Except that you are probably watching more than 4 movies a month, more than 1 person is likely watching with you, and there are no contracts - nothing is stopping you from signing up for a month and cancelling.

7

I don’t understand- which network series did we used to get free and can no longer get free? I still can watch CBS/ABC/NBC for free, and I’ve always had to pay for HBO/AMC/USA. The only explanation I can think of is the relatively few series that were never available on an over-the-air network but were originally made for a streaming service connected with a network - but they were never truly network series.

8

I used to do that every year with CBS All Access - there was one show I watched and every year I signed up for a month once all the episodes had been released.

9

As well as all the other content.
A better comparison would be a top level cable package. What did they used to cost, upwards of 100$/month?

10

There’s a reason that reality shows and game shows are more dominant recently on “free” TV - they are simpler and cheaper to make. Plus, networks used to spend a fortune on shows, many of which turned out to be duds and died a quick and silent death. (Many never made it past pilot)

The old model of television is disintegrating. People PVR anything they want, and skip through commercials. Audiences are fragmented - instead of 3 networks each getting 1/3 of the viewing public, network TV gets just a small fraction of the people watching 100 cable channels. Also, streaming and binge-watching make it more audience-friendly to have story arcs (IMHO better), vs. the free TV model where people would turn off a show if they first started watching midway in a story arc and got too confused.

But to the OP’s question - about the only power the feds have is monopoly law. If a dominant player (let’s say, netflix or Amazon) starts using its clout to prevent its smaller competitors from getting ahead, then it might become subject to monopoly restrictions. Let’s say, if they demand exclusives-or-nothing (I assume nowadays they just offer more money for exclusives); if they tell studios “if you sign any deal with XYZ we will no longer license any of your shows”; or lower their monthly fee temporarily when a new competitor starts up; basically, any anticompetitive behaviour where they use their size and money to limit their suppliers or competitors in ways that have nothing to do with the immediate deal, licensing a single show.

Perhaps something in a similar vein is the current dispute over the Apple App Store. Apple wants a huge cut (30%?) of sales including any in-app sales. It can be argued that the “take” is far higher than the cost of running the store and a reasonable profit, even accounting for costs like testing/monitoring the apps for malware, exploiting children, hidden app fees, and other shady practices. Basically - “if you want access to half the phone users, you must agree to our terms”, That’s exploiting market dominance. (Plus they are regularly accused of blocking apps that may compete with ones they offfer themselves)

I can’t find anything similar in the streaming market. Basically the problem is - “here’s a dozen choices. If you want them all, you have to pay more to get all of them.” Burger King doesn’t have to supply a Big Mac too just because you want one Whopper and one Big Mac - you have to go to each place separately.

(You might find an analogy in the car stereo market. Decades ago, the car makers got grief from the monopoly board for having non-standard radio sizes, and selling every car with their custom-sized radio so notheng else fits. Effectively, the “big 3” made competition difficult for after-market car stereo makers by exploiting their market dominance. It took only the threat of monopoly action, as I recall, for auto makers to go to standard stereo sizes.)

I think the ideal model is a pay-as-you-go system, where you pick and choose what you want from the entire back catalog of entertainment over the decades, from around the world - much like Amazon’s book selling model. The only question is how and when will we get there?

11

Another thought - in the early 70’s, Nixon forced the NFL to stop blacking out local football games since the stadiums were typically sold out. But the clout he used, IIRC, was the FCC’s right to control what goes over the airwaves, since the radio spectrum is a limited resource that the government controls on behalf of the viewing public.

In hindsight, you have to wonder what the league was thinking. They blacked out the game to the audience most interested in watching it. By now, television rights probably are worth vastly more than ticket sales, even if a game is sold out.

12

Except that they don’t have market dominance. The Android userbase is much larger than the iPhone userbase.

13

If the government was as serious about enforcing antitrust laws as they were in the first three quarters of the last century, Disney’s streaming monopolies would be at the bottom of a very long list of that company’s legal difficulties.

14

Which is one argument why anti-trust laws should not apply. However, in all other aspect they do (IMHO) appear to be doing exactly what a monopolist would do. Just - not to their customers, except peripherally.

The same argument was made about iTunes when they were the dominant player in online music sales, and IIRC is being made against some of the bigger music streaming services today (Spotify?) Basically, using their near-monopoly position to squeeze the other players in the business. “here’s our terms - take it or leave it” where the determining point is whether the overly big fish is exploiting their position to squeeze suppliers, competitors, or customers.

15

It is a pet peeve of mine, living as a single person, that so many of these services assume many people are in one residence and partaking of the service.

I am one person partaking. I had YouTube TV for awhile and then Google raised the price by a considerable margin. They will tell you it is a great deal because you can have five streams (or whatever) running at once. How great is that!?

Except, I only ever want one stream. I don’t want to pay for five streams. But they offer no route to pay that way. It is five streams or nothing (and they can certainly enforce that so people wanting to run five streams can’t get away with paying for one).

There are loads of single people out there, living alone. But they do not cater to them. At all.

As for watching many movies a month that is true but you go to the theater for a first-run movie. You get to see it now rather than waiting for it to show up on HBO (or whatever) in a year or more.

16

As a point of clarification I wanted to note that the government can regulate anti-competitive business practices, independent of whether the business they are regulating has a monopoly or a quasi-monopoly. Price fixing, collusion and other things can be found anticompetitive even if the company isn’t a monopoly. @md-2000 was incorrect that they were exploiting dominance, but he is correct that there’s decent support in the history of U.S. labor law for the government asserting a right to regulate something like Apple’s App Store if it finds that it is an anti-competitive business practice. For example Apple got in trouble for anticompetitive business practices, and had to pay a settlement, over its iBooks platform, which has never at any point been a major e-book player.

17

I think Netflix is the worst for this. If you want 4K, you’ve got pay for the 5 stream package. I don’t think the others differentiate that way. Being in a 4 person household, it’s moot for me.

18

That one pisses me off to no end. I have waffled back-and-forth on that service because of that. But I am sure they have figured if I bothered to get a 4k TV then I want 4k service.

The second anyone does better than this I am gone from Netflix. Yet, somehow, no one ever does.