Does Holywood Share The Same Problems As The Record Industry?
Kyle Bylin, Associate Editor
In his article, Paul Suarez of PC World rightly observes that, “Hollywood has a problem. It’s red, boxy, lets you rent DVDs for $1 a night, and is severely threatening movie studios from making money. The threat is Redbox self-serve DVD rental kiosks outside McDonalds and in grocery stores.”
Further detailing how major motion picture company’s like 20th Century Fox have, “ordered its wholesalers not to sell DVD discs to Redbox until 30 days after a movie’s initial release to help boost retail sales.” This, in many ways, runs parallel the concerns about how iTunes has given fans the ability to cherry pick their favorite singles for 1$ and not purchase the entire album, which as many have found out is simply better than them not buying anything at all.
In the midst of all this, Paul says that, “The companies acknowledge their decisions will ultimately have an effect on the consumer, but without $15 per DVD, there is no movie industry.” Similar laments have been expressed by music executives, wherein, while they understand that singles need to be readily available for those whom would not like to purchase the whole album, without the album itself they firmly believe they cannot thrive in a singles-only business.
But, the problem doesn’t stop there, because within the movie industry, as Sharon Waxman argues: Social Networking Is Making Friday the Only Day That Counts. “The rise of social networking, studio executives say, is driving a near-instantaneous word of mouth effect that is doing much to hyper-charge Hollywood’s multi-million-dollar marketing efforts…” She writes, “Or to defeat them a lot faster than usual,” which can be devastating for big-budget releases.
While show goer’s text messaging…
from their cell phones in the theater to tell friends not to go to the movie used to cause a small ripple in the pond of avid and apathetic fans alike. Now, with the possibility for those same goers to twitter out to their seemingly much larger followings, huge waves are cresting on the shore of the movie industry’s doorstep by Friday evening, east coast time. In turn, a positive message could stem a much more desired effect for the movie industry.
However, Tuesday for the Record Industry shares the same fate, but for releases that show up on file-sharing networks too early, it’s possible that by the time that highly coveted day rolls around some fans will have already moved onto testing out other albums that they deem to be more interesting. Such parallels between the movie and music industries are striking. And, serve as a great reminder that neither of the business models are safe in this changing media landscape.
Not the story I thought I was going to be reading, which is still yet to come I assume…
The movie industry has EXACTLY the same problem as the music industry because movies can just as readily be distributed for free over the Internet.
The only reason the movie industry doesn’t know that it’s just as screwed as the traditional recording industry is only because A) They’re also just as myopic as the traditional recording industry and B) movies are still kinda cumbersome to download at current average broadband speeds.
Give it 5 years though and the movie industry will also be staring straight down the barrel of the fact that they now need to find a way to make money around the periphery of a product that is distributed for free.
If that means no more 500 million dollar action blockbusters with an ankle deep script then I will be struggling to see what the problem is.
This was an excellent read, just wanted to thank you. I always dig the detail and context, and I’m glad you post as often as you do.
film industry needs to develop create a premium moviegoing experience to balance out the file sharers and $1 renters. apply the efforts of topspin to film and i think they’ll be alright…for now!
Same problem/s, same solution – scale everything down and live with the reality of a lower ceiling at the top. Lower the revenue expectations, it’s a new, more horizontal world. Lower the expenses, trim away the fat, find more innovative ways to market to more select, smaller, niche markets, and new success stories will emerge.
The true mega talents in both industries will still dominate and reap the mega rewards. Yes, there will be less money for the snake-oil pimps who find starving talent and line their own pockets as they latch onto the talent train, but the true talent will rise to the top. The top will just be more scaled down, and there will be less hangers-on bloating the budgets. Both industries will actually have to create and conform to a ‘budget’.
It may not be the rock and roll dream reaped in the ’80’s, but it’s still a great neighborhood. With people who actually have to work for a living, and not live off of pumped up celebrity. (Yeah… right; people are always drawn to celebrity and the tragic fall back to earth.)
Hopefully, the one thing that might come out of this massive change is that talent will once again be the deciding factor, not just beauty or marketing.