IAC and Expedia Group chairman Barry Diller has offered his assessment about the battle between Hollywood film studios and online streaming services such as Netflix
In the latest episode of the "Recode Decode" podcast hosted by Recode, the former media mogul claimed that "Hollywood is now irrelevant." He explained that this was so because of the changing landscape of the entertainment business.
"It was these six movie companies essentially were able to extend their hegemony into everything else," Diller explained. "It didn't matter that they started it. When it got big enough, they got to buy it. For the the first time, they ain't buying anything. Meaning they're not buying Netflix. They are not buying Amazon."
It's not surprising that no company has been able to purchase Netflix. The online streaming service makes an estimated $950 million per month, according to makeuseof.com. Amazon has been equally lucrative, with a quarterly profit of $2.5 billion last year.
"In other words," he added, "it used to be if you could get your hands on a movie studio, you were sitting at a table with only five other people. And so that table dominated media worldwide. That's over."
It seems several other entertainment studios agree with Diller's assessment, as they have begun to add their own paid streaming services. The Walt Disney Company has an upcoming service called Disney+, though the release date of this service is unknown. DC Comics has already launched their own service, gaining hype off of the most recent season of the revived "Young Justice" and the oddball "Doom Patrol." Even the Criterion Collection has launched their own "channel," after the death of the beloved FilmStruck.
However, Diller believes that "those who chase Netflix are fools."
"Netflix has won this game," he said. "I mean, short of some existential event, it is Netflix's. No one can get, I believe, to their level of subscribers, which gives them real dominance."