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Forget #boycott CNN - it is useless. You want change and Malone gone? #Boycott HBO [1]

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Date: 2022-09-03

I will start with a parable. The was a king, he was not a good king, who wanted to get as much from the people as he could. He was greedy and in love with his own power. He had a minister who he sent to telling the people that they must follow king, that they would be in trouble if they did not follow his orders. The king did not care at all about this minister. As a matter of fact, if the minister did not tell the people what the king wanted forcefully enough, he would replace him. One minister was very much like another to this king and their only job was to tell the people what the king wanted. He would be pleased with himself counting his money late at night. He suffered no consequences, he had power without responsibility. The people suffered but his pile of gold grew higher. Now this king also had a son. He did not love this son, he did not love anybody. But he dressed his son up in fine clothes and sent him out to parade around the country with musicians and clowns. Everybody would cheer when the king’s son came. It was the son who collected the grains and the crops from the people while they were happy and full of joy. Nobody ever got angry at the son or thought about his relationship to the king. The king believed he had set up the perfect system. Then one day the son went to a village with his show and some villagers threw rotten fruit at him. The son was startled. The villagers screamed, “To hell with the king.” At this moment everything changes in ways that nobody thought possible.

What John Malone is doing to CNN is horrifying. I never really watched it that much, but it was the second news channel if MSNBC was getting repetitive, which it sometimes does (how many segments on Trumps’ documents can you watch really). It is changing because of Malone. Now CNN does not make that much money or lose that much money in the larger scheme of things. It is I think more valuable to Malone as a toy for propaganda. What does matter, at least for the larger organization, is their streaming service, with the crown jewel HBO. Now HBO is losing money. There are too many streaming services for the population. There is HBO, Prime, Hulu, Apple, Netflix, Paramount – there are probably more that I am not thinking of. If history is any guide our society can probably support three streaming services at most. The services are in a death match. They are all losing massive amounts of money and as people start going back to the theater and live performances it will be much worse. All these streaming services and making enormous gambles to draw eyes – this is because they believe, and they are probably right, that entertainment for many, if not most, is habitual. HBO just made perhaps its biggest gamble – House of Dragons. They spent over a billion dollars (probably a lot more). They are doing this to set viewing habits, to try and make HBO one of the last streaming services standing.

What this means is that individual viewers have enormous leverage with CNN’s parent company. If we can organize a boycott it will spook the parent company (I believe they call themselves Discovery, or have they chosen another name?). If the boycott is successful, there will be moves to oust Malone. My guess is an enormous amount of borrowed money floating around (how did Discovery borrow to buy Time Warner). Money people are already nervous about their investments in streaming services. A #Boycott HBO campaign has a very good chance of succeeding if it is clear John Malone is the target. Everybody can watch House of Dragons in six months or a year. It will still be there (actually it is not that good).

#Boycott HBO

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/3/2120578/-Forget-boycott-CNN-it-is-useless-You-want-change-and-Maloney-gone-Coycott-HBO

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