Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo To Produce Sci-Fi Streaming Sitcom
jfruh (300774) writes "As the heydays of Internet portals recede into the mists of history and Yahoo tries to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up, the company has decided to dip its toes into the incredibly expensive and unpredictable world of producing full-length television shows to compete with the likes of Netflix, Amazon, and HBO. One of the two may intrigue Slashdot readers: Paul Feig, co-creator of the cult '90s hit 'Freaks and Geeks' (and more recently the director of 'Bridesmaids') will product "Other Space," a comedy-adventure about a misfit group of space travelers who stumble onto an alternate universe. The second show, about a fictional Las Vegas NBA team, will appeal to Yahoo's sports audience." I wonder how long it will be until Google, Microsoft, and Apple are also all producing TV shows.
There's no kind of atmosphere.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Microsoft already IS producing its own shows.
No friggen clue why. I'm pretty sure Apple and Google are smarter than that. Especially Google, since they've got youtube and just have half the internet produce their video content for them.
What's that? Some kind of device to improve willpower? To help you with your last testament?
Or just lousy editing?
I'm voting for the last one...
For the last couple of years, mobile and "cloud" were the new things. Both absurd from a certain point of view - mobile because what were people doing with it exactly? Facebook and Snapchat? And cloud, as a concept, is not new. Every few years, companies don't have a choice and need to move into new markets because they're getting yelled out by shareholders. Fine. "Original Programming" is the new thing now? Everyone wants to do this (Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, now Yahoo, probably Facebook next month), they want to have a set top box in the living room that can be used for everything, but the irony is laughable because you need to own practically every set top box on the market to get all of the content out there since no one company has everything.
So, "Original Programming" is going to be three times as expensive as cable and you'll be tracked and data mined.
Sorry, but this really has no appeal for me. I like the occasional comic relief in my sci-fi but knowing it's a sitcom makes me not want to watch it. Jar Jar Binks is not funny. He's annoying. Droids that flap their arms around and behave in an overly anthropomorphized manner aren't funny. Spaceballs is funny but only because it's a spoof.
"a comedy-adventure about a misfit group of space travelers who stumble onto an alternate universe"
Who better to produce this than a company that has no clue what it is doing and historically has wasted billions of dollars on pointless crap.
It's 45 years of age with teenage kids giving him trouble, bad spousal relationship, mid-life crisis...etc.
Wow, they've almost made it to the bottom of my "esteem" list!
- scientists
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
- programmers, physicians, carpenters, plumbers, etc.
- journalists
- politicians
- lawyers
- actors, movie producers
- marketeers, advertisement agencies
- lobbyists, RIAA, MPAA, etc.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I liked it better when it was called "Red vs Blue".
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The internet age: giant companies with huge pots of money, searching for a direction.
Google wants to fix the world. So does Bill Gates. Yahoo wants to be Netflix. Netflix wants to be Amazon, and Amazon wants to be Google.
It seems the money came too easily and too abundantly, and there was never any plan past the basics: Microsoft, unify the desktop computer; Google, search engine; Netflix, streaming video; Amazon, tax-free products online.
Futurist Traditionalism
I mean the idea of nontraditional companies making shows.
Last century the embodiment of that idea became "Soap Operas".
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This actually makes sense. What in the world does a company like Yahoo have to do with producing a television show? That's easy - they already have the infrastructure in place to deliver that content to millions of people. They just need the content. That only leaves them a couple options. One is to try and work out some exclusive distribution deals for existing content, but that is certainly going to be re-runs of an existing show. So the other option is to fund the production of new media that they will own all rights to. I say why not. Give it a go. The downside for us consumers? Oh, just even more fragmentation of where / how we can watch shows. Netflix for that, HBO for this other, Hulu, now Yahoo, on and on.
Better known as 318230.
Conversely, why would you expect it not to be expensive?
Maybe you should try making one first.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Netflix and Amazon, as streaming content providers, have apps on various devices such as some smart TVs, Roku, etc. At present I'm not aware of any Yahoo video app like that. Sure, the kids will just watch on their laptops - if they care enough to watch such shows and assuming they hear about them - but the older crowd that buys Roku, Amazon Fire, and similar devices won't watch without a dedicated app. We'll see what happens, but this sounds like a foolish thing for Yahoo to do unless they are able to get viewers that somehow (ads) translates into revenue.
I suppose anything could happen, but making a TV show doesn't seem to fit with Apple and Microsoft's business model. Google may do it or may not care about it at all and view it as a distraction - 50-50 on that. This is the first big decision Yahoo has made under Marissa Mayer that makes me wonder if they know what they are doing. I haven't necessarily agreed with everything she's done, but none of the other decisions seemed to be grasping at straws in desperation like this one does. It makes me wonder if things at Yahoo are actually pretty bad if this seems like a good idea to them. Well, if I'm wrong and Yahoo is right, they'll make some money and if I'm right that this idea won't work, I guess they won't be any worse off unless it spooks investors that they really are out of good ideas to raise revenue.
The second show, about a fictional Las Vegas NBA team, will appeal to Yahoo's sports audience.
...Yahoo hopes. Let's wait and see.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
In 1999, it was all about eyeballs, clicks and e-commerce. In 2010 it was all about cloud and mobile. Now it's all about tablets and eyeballs again with the entertainment angle. I know interest rates are low and stocks are an attractive investment now, but some of the stuff pumping up this current bubble is even less well thought out than pets.com and the like back in '99 and 2000. You would think some people would learn from the last 20 years.
I see how Netflix et al can be a very useful service for entertainment junkies. With two young kids and a very demanding job, I don't get much time to watch movies and TV anymore unless you count Disney stuff. What I don't see is every single company trying to go out and do what Netflix did with their original content creation. It's kind of like Morgan Stanley going into the chocolate business to compete with Hershey simply because their investors told them it was a good idea.
Oh well, I'll just sit back and watch this bubble pop too, and hopefully I'll still be employed in my boring old-school IT job. :-) Oh, look over there, it's a shiny cloud!!!
Kind of sounds like Red Dwarf.
Maybe they plan on stealing the Red Dwarf episodes, then using CGI to cover the Red Dwarf ship with the American stars and stripes and to replace the faces of the characters with something more pro-American, like the face of Tom Cruise (for Lister), the face of some Silicon Valley engineer (for Rimmer) and the face of Vin Diesel for "the Rottweiler" (formally "the Cat", but "the Cat" just isn't "American" enough). They could call the show "Red, White and Blue Dwarf", or the "Star Spangled Dwarf", or "Shock and Awe Dwarf" or something. I think it would be funny if their budget ran out before they had a chance to dub the voices over with something more American sounding. In my opinion, Vin Diesel would sound better as a British Rasta than he does now...
Media Wars: The executives of established media feel they aren't getting richer fast enough and some Johnny-come-latelys who initially made their money through technology are stepping on their lawn.
So... Red Dwarf meets Sliders?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Because only Netflix seems to understand there's huge markets outside of the U.S.A.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
There are a few shows out but it's mostly post-apocalyptic stuff: Revolution's premise falls into that realm even if the writing is hit and miss. Hard science fiction a la Red Mars (book) is rare on TV. Warp drives and wormholes have some theory behind them but saying they are futuristic is a bit of a leap -- they still exist as fiction only.
The problem is that most of the TV writers out there know a lot more about how to get a job writing for TV than they know about science.
So you end up with concepts that might have worked as a 5 minute skit on a comedy show being dragged on and on and on.
Personally, I'd like to see something like Freefall as a series.
You've got a sci-fi sitcom, which already sounds iffy as hell, and it's made by Yahoo? That sounds like a combination from hell, but maybe it'll start off awesome and then only become a pile of crap later. You know, like they did with Launchcast.
Let's see, there's at least tens of thousands of SF anf Fantasy novels out there, maybe hundreds of thousands, and some have won awards as being well worth reading.
But we'll go come up with something that Hollywood producers (IQ == belt size) will understand, who will approach it with the following ideas
1. We've got Names! We've got SPECIAL EFFECTS! Why would we need plot, continuity, stories worth watching?
All we need is EXPLOSIONS!!!
2. All geeks are all stupid, and they'll watch anything we film, esp. if there's sexy babes and EXPLOSIONS!
mark "so, when are they going to do, say Bujold's Miles series, or Robinson's Mars series, or...."
This story brought to you by the Random Slashdot Story Headline Generator.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Will they show a beautiful and responsive webmail interface in some episodes? Think of the speed we'll be able to run Javascript at in the future, when some new tech replaces silicon! We'll even be able to access the notepad feature in less than five seconds!
part kills it for a lot of potential viewers. I know in the neighborhood where I live in Seattle that no one I know has enough bandwidth for streaming video. Netflix is still a mail-only thing for this area.
I wonder how long it will be until Google, Microsoft, and Apple are also all producing TV shows.
Microsoft produces (or, at the very least, distributes) The Guild .
How much is "expensive"? What's your budget?
Then, choose the already existing novels that you want to turn into a series. This gives a beginning and ending to your series so you'll be better able to control costs.
Gritty crime drama fantasy? Vlad Taltos by Steven Brust
Historical vampire romp? Count Saint-Germain by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Need more cute? Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper
Dystopian future? Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams (not the movie)
Space fantasy fun? The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
Ultra stylized fantasy world? The Witch World by Andre Norton
Gritty war fantasy? The Black Company by Glen Cook
I'm sure that lots of other people can come up with lots of other examples. There's something available out there for every production budget and schedule.
I think the idea is they will be exclusive to the xbox marketplace/video service thing they have. One of the programs is the documentary on unearthing the Atari E.T. cartridges.
"The first round of Xbox Originals will contain a healthy variety of shows, from the futuristic teen drama about robots "Humans," to the steampunk Western "Deadlands" (based on the tabletop role-playing game of the same name), to the street soccer documentary "Every Street United." Other programs included "Winterworld," "Gun Machine," "Extraordinary Believers" and "Food Show."
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/or...
Only the most "advanced" apes are under the delusion that there is a time called being "grown up", or experience a resultant "mid-life crisis" by becoming disillusioned. The other species have avoided being duped through embracing the throwing of shit at others, becoming super-sexual "experimenters", and etc "immature" behaviors.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must correct an "anthropomorphic pan-sexual xenomorph fetishist" who is confused as to which Microsoft CEO tosses chairs and which leaps over them.
IRC for people who like GUIs?
Futurist Traditionalism
GP was asking why producing full length tv shows is expensive and you retort with why shouldn't it be expensive without giving any lead as to why it must be
Care to provide us with _at least_ one credible answer, please ?
Ever stopped and watched the credits on a TV show or Movie? Ever thought about what it takes to pay all those people? Now add in equipment, studio, and location costs. Add in all the other costs that somebody who isn't in the industry of filming something wouldn't think of off the top of their heads. You now have a seriously large amount of money. Could it be produced for less? Yes, but you get what you pay for. The GP was specifically wanting "incredibly great TV shows" and not some kid with a hand held camera. Simple answer is that professional results requires hiring professionals using professional equipment which costs an amount of money that most people are not used to dealing with. I see this all the time with people complaining about various jobs from the arts and programming. You want hand made art that took an artist two months to build, then you're going to be paying two months contract salary plus studio rental plus materials for that piece of art. Most people balk at the costs of paying two months of somebodies salary let alone all those other costs.