By [ad_1]
The streaming media revolution, according to media magnate Barry Diller, has killed and buried the movie industry, and the industry as we know it “will never come back.” The statements were delivered by Barry Diller during an interview with NPR at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, an annual gathering of wealthy media titans and digital innovators. He also slammed the quality of movies produced by streaming providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Diller does not appear to be a fan of Amazon’s video-on-demand service.
“These streaming services have been making something that they call ‘movies,’” Diller commented. “They ain’t movies. They are some weird algorithmic process that has created things that last 100 minutes or so.” Diller went on to say that the definition of “movie is in such transition that it doesn’t mean anything right now… The movie business as before is finished and will never come back.”
He also criticized Quibi, the short-lived streaming venture from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman.
“It was a bad idea that had no testing ground other than a big-scale investment,” Diller said. “Otherwise, it would have slithered around for a while. But it was such a big-scale thing that it lived and died in a millisecond.”
Diller has extensive experience leading Hollywood film studios, having previously led Paramount and 20th Century Fox and he believes that as the big studios have begun to develop their own digital streaming services and embrace so-called “day and date” releases — the simultaneous release of new titles in theaters and on streaming — Hollywood is simultaneously witnessing a seismic transformation in how movies are distributed and consumed. Now the studios are feeling the fire from Netflix, Apple, and Amazon Prime Video, which are all rapidly producing original content and making strategic acquisitions.
Amazon just announced the acquisition of MGM Studios for an estimated $8.45 billion.
[ad_2]
