Just when you thought the long, national crisis known as MoviePass was set to implode in a couple months, Helios & Matheson (MoviePass parent company) CEO Ted Farnsworth assures us that the subscription service is not only succeeding right now but also just secured a massive amount of funding to stay afloat.
In a Q&A with The Wrap, Farnsworth was positively radiating with good news. Not only did Helios & Matheson secure $68 million in new funding (though the CEO refused to name the source of the money and the conditions), but he has good news to report about the subscriber base of MoviePass — they’re barely using the service! Hooray!
“We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere,” Farnsworth said.
“People are going to less than one movie a month,” the CEO said about how often his customers are using the MoviePass service. “So technically subscription alone right now is doing just fine, now it’s tacking on all the other things on top of it. What we’re doing now is we’re proving out our model.”
If you read that and don’t want to rip your hair out, then let’s dissect his statements a bit more. First, the whole “we’re not going anywhere” line has been used before. We’ve heard Farnsworth, as well as MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, assure customers that the water flooding the ship is fine and despite the sinking, there’s nothing to be concerned about. Obviously, this isn’t the truth, and these types of comments are aimed at investors to help the stock from becoming delisted on NASDAQ.
But to be fair, despite tons of bad press, a stock that has fallen 99%, and a customer base that is decreasing at an alarming rate, MoviePass is still here, against all odds.
Now, the really infuriating thing is the way that Farnsworth brags about how little his customers are using the service. Keep in mind, and never, ever forget, that MoviePass doesn’t want you to use your benefits. The business model necessitates that the customers pay a monthly fee but don’t use it too often. So, when he says that the subscription revenue alone is “doing just fine,” he means that all the restrictions and slashes to the benefits have resulted in customers not using the product as much.
Also, while Farnsworth sees that as a sort of leveling-out of the subscription model, what it really says is that customers have either given up on using the subscription or there are so many restrictions that they can’t even use it if they wanted to. Of course, if you’re the poor soul that has no job, no friends or family, and no discernible taste in films, you are more than welcome to use your MoviePass to see “The Nun” by yourself on a Tuesday at 11 am.
And stay tuned for the huge PR blitz when Farnsworth can announce the greatest possible news — customers are never using the product, forgot to cancel their subscription, and are paying $10 a month for a service that they truly never use. Ugh.
