His salary as CEO of Discovery ranged between 40 and 50 million.
His salary now that he’s installed as CEO of the newly combined company will be around 300 million this year.
The problem with paying residuals based on actual views is that the customers of streaming services are paying a fixed cost per month or year, so repeated viewings eat into revenues. I would think they would prefer to pay a fixed cost for residuals.
On second thought this isn’t that simple.
Currently, residuals are calculated based on the amount that a performer was originally paid and how many subscribers the streaming platform has. The percentage rate is applied for the first year, then continues to decline until year 13. From there, the smallest percentage rate is applied in perpetuity.
Residuals are paid to actors based on what they originally were paid making it. Changing that to “per view” won’t necessarily fix it because you still might have an issue where you’re paying a disproportionate amount for a show people aren’t watching, just because so much more is owed to actors.
Though a good thing from this is that it makes older shows cheaper. Shows disappearing now might come back later because the residuals are cheaper. And by then, people might be eager to see a show that’s been unavailable for years. Perhaps that’s the long term plan?
They already don’t now, though. It’s variable based on subscribers and the actor’s salaries.
Also, you can always just set a proportion of a dollar amount based on percentage of views rather than a fixed amount per view. Though yet again, the cost being based on actors’ salaries in the show throws things off.
In a vacuum, it’s perhaps not the biggest problem ever. But it’s on top of other cuts and cancellations and so on. The context and what has people worried is “What next and when?”
It seems every few days there’s another announcement and it gets to seem like death by a thousand cuts. Even if something that resembles a good streaming service survives all this or even thrives, the PR side of things has been an unqualified disaster. That part of it has been a big self-own.
They have an obvious path to renegotiate the deal (“Either you accept the new arrangement, or we take it out of the library and you get bupkis.”) That might not work, but there’s no indication that it was attempted.
I’d rather pay more and keep content than have content slashed and save $3. I had HBO Max for the Studio Ghibli films and the old TCM movies. I’ve just recently started getting into the old Bogart movies, and having just watched Casablanca and realizing that certain iconic characters portrayed by Harrison Ford several decades later were inspired by Bogart, I put The Treasure of the Sierra Madre next on my list. But wait a minute, it’s been pulled by HBO Max. That was enough for me. I cancelled HBO Max due to that. I’m sure others feel the same way, maybe not about those particular movies, but to each their own, and the more stuff available, the better. I’ll buy what I want to watch on Apple TV and not worry about this Zaslav jerk getting rid of quality movies, seemingly at random.
I’m just waiting for the Game of Thrones / 90 Day Fiancee crossover…
/sarcasm
One thing a lot of people seem to have missed is these shows haven’t disappeared completely. For instance, Infinity Train was an animated series exclusive to HBO Max that is now gone from the streaming service, but it’s still available to be purchased digitally from Amazon and other digital marketplaces.
Right. I was paying for a streaming service where I got Infinity Train as part of that service. Now I’m still paying for that streaming service (so far) and I can NOW spend more money to rent or buy Infinity Train on top of that. This does not work to my financial or logistical benefit, however much it may for HBOMax 
.
Oh yes, it still sucks that a company that owns the rights to a show refuses to air it on the service it also owns, which would be the best way for that show to remain discoverable to new viewers. At least when shows were on regular TV channels you were legally allowed to record them locally. The later seasons of Infinity Train never even aired on Cartoon Network, so there’s no legal way you could own a copy of the show other than by purchasing a (revokable) license from a digital marketplace.
It’s really starting to look like consumers have been duped out of a valuable tool (making personal recordings) by promises of convenience and perpetual access.
I don’t know about the legality of it, but there is software that will record streaming content to your local hard disk.
Heck, if you had a working VCR and and RF modulator you could connect your streaming device to your VCR and record streaming shows to VHS.
My Big Fat Incestuous Wedding
Imagine being the creator of one of these shows that has been pulled from HBO Max. You spent years putting it together. It’s your brainchild, and you’re very proud of it.
Now it’s gone, and it can’t be found anywhere, not even on YouTube. Not on physical media, either.
How are you going to get a job based on how well you did with your previous series?
A selection of news stories in the tapestry of Zaslav’s agenda.
Four network executives let go. All women.
On alienating creatives with absurd heavy-handed tactics.
On the market’s reaction to the terrible publicity around these actions.
On the fact that Zaslav doesn’t really have a long term plan, he’s just blowtorching everything he doesn’t understand in the old business model and will rebuild later based of whatever is still standing.
It’s possible this is all the plan, that he’s simply installed as a hatchet guy with no vision. That could explain the absurd salary he’s being paid (it’s more than twice as much as his previous Discovery salary plus the salary of his WB predecessor combined). He does a short term gig which blows up his industry future and is paid accordingly.
I heard Zaslavs next point of his media plan is going to attempt to cancel Christmas.
John Oliver - “HBO Max. It’s not TV. It’s a series of tax write-offs to appease Wall Street.”
This might work, but the industry has the ability to prevent it. A streaming application or website can be restricted to only company-approved operating systems or devices, and to only output the signal to digital outputs supporting DRM protocols such as HDCP, which is basically end-to-end encryption to your digital screen. No analog output for your VCR to record.
Anti-VCR mechanisms have existed for a long time. However, I’m not sure how widely they’re used in real life, as it’s always a balancing act between preventing unwanted uses and a fraction of customers finding themselves unable to view the content they’re paying for. If a platform mandates DRM and HDCP, some customers will be unable to view the content on their pre-2019 Roku connected to their 2010 TV, etc.
I think the idea may be to wait until the dust and the outrage settles, then start making this content available for rental or for purchase (or probably “digital purchase”). So basically get folks to pay money for this specific content, rather than an all-you-can-eat buffet.
After all, this is what these companies did before streaming took off – I have a boxed set of the first 2 seasons of The Sopranos in my living room. It was a gift, but pretty expensive for something we only viewed once.
That is great!
Some of the content is already available on physical media and some of that has been selling very well after the announcements on cuts were made. I doubt that’s the purpose, though. That’s not going to save much on costs (the media is already printed after all), which seems to be the main point.
The idea there’s a deeper long term strategy seems to be giving Zaslav credit for playing 15th dimensional chess when he’s really playing checkers. He’s cutting costs and doing so in the manner he judges the quickest and most expedient.
They may come back later with rental/sales offers on individual titles but it’s somewhat doubtful as a general strategy. They appear to be penny-pinching on residuals and they’d have to pay those if they offered those titles again.