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Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

(tedium.co)
641 points shortformblog | 1 comments | 05 Feb 25 14:47 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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timmg ◴[05 Feb 25 15:22 UTC] No.42949719[source]▶
I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.
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browningstreet ◴[05 Feb 25 15:27 UTC] No.42949826[source]▶
I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services.

I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

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wslh ◴[05 Feb 25 15:32 UTC] No.42949920[source]▶
Could you please expand on your "viral indie release to Youtube" idea? I am just a YT basic user and don't know what is there and what is not beyond HN, random videos, and my relatively simple use cases (e.g. music videos, and movie trailers).
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ryanmcbride ◴[05 Feb 25 15:37 UTC] No.42949993[source]▶
Indie film makers release a lot of their work on youtube.
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browningstreet ◴[05 Feb 25 15:39 UTC] No.42950036{3}[source]▶
There hasn't really been a Blair Witch Project movie happening on Youtube yet...
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1. mindcrime ◴[05 Feb 25 17:29 UTC] No.42952016{4}[source]▶
The best example I can think of is already mentioned up-thread, but just to drill down on that. Kung Fury[1] was initially released on Youtube (and a few other services, mostly in other countries I think) and became a pretty big viral hit. Enough so that the filmmaker eventually signed a deal to make a sequel[2] with distribution by a traditional film company and some big-name stars. Unfortunately the release of the sequel has been held up for "legal reasons" and FSM only knows when or if it will see the light of day. :-(

Anyway, not as big as BWP, but still a decent example of the concept under discussion, I think.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fury_2