Consequences of the Hollywood writers strike: Reason #3:
Catalyzing faster development of new business models for entertainment media. Here's where things get really dramatic. The Internet has already been forcing a rethink of the structure of the media industry, particularly for entertainment. The strike is kicking that rethink into high gear. Here's why: The classic Hollywood economic model is built around the existence of a few very large companies -- studios -- that dominate production, marketing, and distribution.Let's contrast all of that to the Silicon Valley model.
In Silicon Valley, there are many companies, large and small, that create, market, and distribute products -- and more such companies all the time. In fact, there is a whole industry -- the venture capital industry -- devoted to creating as many new such companies as possible, as rapidly as possible.
I believe the entertainment industry is in the early stages of being rebuilt in the image of Silicon Valley.
Before this argument gets made, Andresson explains the issues in the strike. It's an interesting read.
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1 comment:
It is an interesting read but that isn't what is going to happen.
I think the TV and movie industry is at a turning point where things could go either way -- they could repeat the critical error of the music industry and permanently alienate their customer base; or they could get it together and create viable models for the future that make consumers happy and make money.
This makes sense but I'd put my money on the alienation and not on the diversified utopia.
Bored writers aren't going to start creating and releasing their own content because that'll mean they'll never work within the system again.
I mean, sure, the strike and various other pressures will create a small shift towards new non-studio methods but the old guard is not going to flee the studios en masse.
The studios make money. They get films seen by a huge audience. And even though most studio films aren't huge hits almost every hit is a studio film.
Yes the strike is bad for everyone involved but it's not going to kill the studios; the infrastructure for viable competition just isn't there yet.
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