Hey! Greedy Producer

I would say that not all producers are greedy so and sos and I think it's unfair to tar with the same brush.

The reality is that theatre is not cheap to put on especially in the commercial sector and as much as we all love a bargain with day tickets and lotteries, it has to balanced out with more expensive tickets so that these shows can at the very least recoup their costs and even make a profit.

That's easier said than done and it's not cheap to film these productions there are different rights involved and royalties for cast and creatives etc and then there's the actual filming of the production, these costs add up and it's not something that a producer can afford to do for every production. 

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t most of that, across the board, subsidised by the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund?
Certainly was in the case of Curve Leicester’s streamed productions, and fairly sure many others were too. They were able to take on the additional costs and produce at a loss as a result.

How much does it cost vs how much they could potentially earn through charged-for streaming? This is fairly new territory, but the technology is there and getting cheaper all the time. Many theatres make a good quality archive recording anyway. Tbh I think if something is getting public funding generally (outside the pandemic) it should take every step to be within reach of as many of that public as possible. And I really think it would be a wise move to familiarise a new audience. 

And everyone was willing to renegotiate because of the emergency circumstances of the pandemic and enforced closure of theatres. You can’t always assume that will be the case.

As mentioned, each production is unique. In the same way it doesn't cost the same to mount each show currently running in London, streaming production costs can vary. 
On the point of technology "getting cheaper all the time" I'd say it's reached a plateau now. You can live stream onto youtube using OBS for free all you need is a computer and a video input, everything that comes before the video input is cameras, mixers, sound etc, whilst the quality of kit has gotten better, it's not particularly gotten any cheaper (if you want to do it at an acceptable level). And all of that kit requires skilled, experienced crew to operate. These crew, who like theatre staff, have lost a significant amount of work during the pandemic, are now fewer in numbers having sought alternative employment and those still in the game are charging more for their time in an attempt to recoup.

Outside of the video production element, as has also been mentioned, is the legal minefield of trying to negotiate a completely different form of contract with appropriate reimbursement for cast, creatives & crew, having once acquired the appropriate regional rights to broadcast online. Lawyers by the hour aren't cheap.
As Producer you also have to accept the inevitable piracy of the content too. Pretty much every theatre production that has been live streamed in the last couple of years is available online now, if you know where to look. This eats into future profitability of any ongoing streams etc.

There's also the train of thought that by providing live streamed content in tandem with the live performance, a fraction of people may choose to watch from home instead of coming to the venue to see the production. Say you invite a group of friends round for a couple of drinks and a live theatre stream instead of going to see said show, that's 1 stream ticket instead of 2,3,4... 8+ physical seats. Thats quite a potential loss on tickets but also potential bar take and merch sales. 
I think most productions over the last couple of years were charging between £10 & £25 for a live stream ticket. In most theatres that's a seat at the very back, at a push. The net profit is not going to be buying a Producer a Ferrari anytime soon.

It’s money though. There’s loads of stuff theatres should do that they want desperately to do, but can’t afford. Digitising old archives is low priority. So many theatres are struggling. I know of three theatres that have had to cancel their studio programming entirely, another that has made 75% of their staff redundant, a prominent new writing theatre that has had to halt new commissions entirely. Because they just have no money.

Archives are often separate. The RSC archive is held by the Birthright Trust which is basically about four people in a dusty room, with a couple of TVs that look like they were purchased in 1987. Digitising their entire archive means someone manually taking a VHS tape out of its sleeve, putting it whatever machine (which they’d need to buy or rent specially), waiting for it to digitise, then uploading and organising the file. If their computers even have enough ram to begin with. Imagine having to do that for 100 tapes. By hand.

It’s less to do with the cost of streaming technology is but paying someone to manually do all that work. If it’s a current production they have to find the money to hire camera operators, editors, people to do the sound mix for broadcast, and either take some seats off sale or stage a non-sold performance just for filming.

That’s without even getting into stuff like music rights which have to be negotiated separately. (To give an example, ‘This House’ wasn’t included in the NT at Home screenings until the second batch, despite the creatives waiving their fees, because negotiations with David Bowie’s estate over the use of Five Years took weeks, and that was during lockdown where people were pulling together to make the At Home project a success.) And of course paying the actors and writers for the screen rights to their work, which may or may not be in the original contract but certainly isn’t free for commercial streaming or screening.

I don’t know about Cock specifically (other than that EH protect their rights to that play fiercely) and it’s surprising they haven’t done a cinema broadcast at least. Bush and YV film all their shows for streaming as a matter of course. RSC and NT film some stuff for cinema and everything for archive. It’s becoming more widespread.

Arguably, Cabaret would make a much safer investment for a live stream than Cock due to the productions notoriety and longevity. Outside of London's bubble, is 'Cock' really on that many people's radar? (oo err missus)
The issue with providing content to an already established streaming service is they'll then want a cut if providing a live stream. The rest of the streaming services are subscription model, so you're not even getting revenue on a 'ticket'-type sale, that'll more likely be a buy-out for the content.

Should qualify all this by saying, I am all for theatre streaming, there is plenty I have missed over the last few months and plenty more I will miss over the next year also that I would have love/would like to see. Just playing devils advocate and being realistic. Unfortunately, it not as simple as point a camera at a stage and press upload, financially & legally streaming is a complex beast.

Am I the only person thinking that doesn’t sound too onerous? It’s the sort of administrative task you have running in the background while you do your actual office job. Or if that’s not possible you employ someone from an agency to do it and they get paid for watching it happen while they scroll through IG for the rest of the shift.

Pass me a rubber thumb and a packet of treasury tags and I’ll be as happy as the day is long! 🙂

Also, it's probably not as simple to just bung in a VHS tape and press upload. Even big film companies like Warner Bros which have huge archives only restore the films with significant value both culturally and monetary hence why you see Gone with the Wind or The Wizard of Oz get 4K restoration and not some B movie. 

I get why streaming and recording is a good option for many but we need to careful as we don't want to be killing theatre's USP of a live performance. 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that there must be some shows theatre companies would rather forget they put on so you're unlikely to see George and the Dragon or Manor be put on NT at Home anytime soon...

As someone who works for a Big Broadcaster, where there is an entire department dedicated to digitising tapes (Not VHS, as that's a domestic product) I can confirm this couldn't be further from the truth. That is, if you want to do it properly.

Also, not every production got a full multi-cam setup for it's archived copy. Judging by some of the content uploaded during lockdowns, I think there'd be alot of requests for refunds from people expecting a bells-and-whistles recording and getting a locked-off single camera up in the circle.

Creating a ready to use for streaming digital copy of something on VHS is complicated, but if the argument is that the thing on VHS isn't worth the effort to copy to DVD, because you don't think anyone will ever want to watch it, then why bother with the costs of storing them in the first place? Even if there's a vague aspiration to digitise things 'properly' in the future, that future may not exist if there aren't any back-up versions stored in a more stable format.

I do agree that a lot of old recordings aren't suitable for streaming, and even with modern digital filming capabilities, creating something that captures the vitality of a play is the far bigger issue.

Yes, there may be hard-core fans of an actor who will sit through a performance captured by a single, static camera, and some of them might pay for the experience. But unless they are already fans of theatre, will it encourage them to book tickets for the real thing next time?