4 ms·

You are entering into a much more complicated territory there. The reason things like $90m TV shows and $200m movies get made is due to history. Solving distr

You are entering into a much more complicated territory there. The reason things like $90m TV shows and $200m movies get made is due to history. Solving distribution, getting things from point A to point B, was the hardest and most valuable problem to solve, bar none, for a century. It built empires. It made the publishing system that we're familiar with (and growing out of) possible. You see, there is a problem with publishing media that relies upon popular reception. Popular reception is perfectly random. There aren't any trends to identify, and no element of the works themselves can be tailored to increase your chances of success with it. It's been extensively studied. The only way publishers are able to fund projects ahead of time that cost so much and still turn a profit on what is essentially a coin flip is because they control distribution. When a terrible flop hits the theaters, they can pull it immediately and replace it with another attempt. When a film finds success, they can keep it in theaters for ages, minimizing their losses and maximizing their gains. The public response to each work is still random, but since they control what is available at the box office, they can still find success. Now that distribution is so simple a clever 12 year old can do global distribution in their spare time as a hobby, and the publishers don't have control over what options the audience has any more... they are destined to fall apart. It's not the content that made $90m shows possible, and no one remembers the $90m flops. That was entirely a matter of keeping the field of options limited and exercising control over distribution channels.

chadash 7y ago
This isn't correct. $90 million TV shows exist because after a studio creates that show, they have the exclusive legal right to sell it to distribute that content. Otherwise, nothing stops Netflix from just taking Game of Thrones for free and putting it on their own platform.
- otakucode 7y ago
  I think you're side-stepping the issue. If no one is interested in watching the $90m show, it fails regardless of whether everyone or only one outlet can make it available. It has to have public popularity in order to even get to the starting line of there being some contention over which avenue through which it is distributed.
mntmoss 7y ago
The actual outcomes of cheaper distribution have been realized as less equal outcomes: the biggest hits are bigger than ever, the rest are part of an ever-increasing undiscovered long tail. Even though distribution is cheap, when the product is consumable entertainment, you are competing on the basis of marketing for people's attention, which is a scarce resource. Capital can buy up attention through a variety of means: * A saturation advertising blitz around release(as was realized with 1989's Batman campaign, and repeated countless times since). Rather than just release the product with a standard press kit, go all out: advertise a pre-event event, like a panel at a fan convention. Make secondary products that serve as loss leaders, each one creating a new advertising hook. * Bundling and cross-promotional tactics(buy this new graphics card and get a free game!). When you have a large sales organization, you can afford the time and resources to negotiate complex deals of this nature. * The inflated production values are the product: Avatar was a hit because it was a big, expensive, technically advanced production, and there are only so many of those in the world. Although it is a huge risk, this is the modus operandi of Hollywood blockbusters, AAA games, and many live acts. * Franchise marketing: Instead of just having a piece of media, build a collection of IP adaptable to many mediums and release products for all of them, building a new hook for the brand with each release. This gives the same kind of effect as a saturation campaign, but is playing a longer game, and aims to make each release solid and more than a tie-in(e.g. why is Avengers: Endgame a record breaking hit? It's because it's the capstone to a decade of Marvel movies that build up to this moment, all using a consistent style and maintaining a similar level of quality). While it's true that you don't have a definite formula for success, the quality of the result is a thing you can control for in some degree just by hiring people with a track record(another avenue of capital: buy the visible superstars), and then providing them with this marketing infrastructure to work within. So I don't see an escape from these tactics without a change in the rules of how to capture human attention. Brand building for pop culture is a hugely expensive exercise, and this has made for a market that fights tooth and claw to get a small promotional edge. But like with other lines of business, waves of opportunity come and go that allow new products to get through, and Game of Thrones is one such example of the wave of "prestige TV" that appeared around the end of last decade.
- otakucode 7y ago

chadash 7y ago

This isn't correct. $90 million TV shows exist because after a studio creates that show, they have the exclusive legal right to sell it to distribute that content. Otherwise, nothing stops Netflix from just taking Game of Thrones for free and putting it on their own platform.

otakucode 7y ago
I think you're side-stepping the issue. If no one is interested in watching the $90m show, it fails regardless of whether everyone or only one outlet can make it available. It has to have public popularity in order to even get to the starting line of there being some contention over which avenue through which it is distributed.

mntmoss 7y ago

The actual outcomes of cheaper distribution have been realized as less equal outcomes: the biggest hits are bigger than ever, the rest are part of an ever-increasing undiscovered long tail. Even though distribution is cheap, when the product is consumable entertainment, you are competing on the basis of marketing for people's attention, which is a scarce resource. Capital can buy up attention through a variety of means: * A saturation advertising blitz around release(as was realized with 1989's Batman campaign, and repeated countless times since). Rather than just release the product with a standard press kit, go all out: advertise a pre-event event, like a panel at a fan convention. Make secondary products that serve as loss leaders, each one creating a new advertising hook. * Bundling and cross-promotional tactics(buy this new graphics card and get a free game!). When you have a large sales organization, you can afford the time and resources to negotiate complex deals of this nature. * The inflated production values are the product: Avatar was a hit because it was a big, expensive, technically advanced production, and there are only so many of those in the world. Although it is a huge risk, this is the modus operandi of Hollywood blockbusters, AAA games, and many live acts. * Franchise marketing: Instead of just having a piece of media, build a collection of IP adaptable to many mediums and release products for all of them, building a new hook for the brand with each release. This gives the same kind of effect as a saturation campaign, but is playing a longer game, and aims to make each release solid and more than a tie-in(e.g. why is Avengers: Endgame a record breaking hit? It's because it's the capstone to a decade of Marvel movies that build up to this moment, all using a consistent style and maintaining a similar level of quality). While it's true that you don't have a definite formula for success, the quality of the result is a thing you can control for in some degree just by hiring people with a track record(another avenue of capital: buy the visible superstars), and then providing them with this marketing infrastructure to work within. So I don't see an escape from these tactics without a change in the rules of how to capture human attention. Brand building for pop culture is a hugely expensive exercise, and this has made for a market that fights tooth and claw to get a small promotional edge. But like with other lines of business, waves of opportunity come and go that allow new products to get through, and Game of Thrones is one such example of the wave of "prestige TV" that appeared around the end of last decade.

otakucode 7y ago