Incoming... It is pretty ridiculous that people who cite facts and data regarding what is actually occuring (and will continue for probably the next 18 months) in entertainment are considered to be harbingers of doom or player haters. Media journalism that is supporting weak PR planted news and burying the facts are doing nothing but presenting a falsified rainbow world. And I get it. We do need to see glimmers of hope because the truth sucks. Specific to the post below, HBO pretty much has had its entire development department gutted. Current series orders at a lot of places are from international producers, not US. I know of two streamers and one network that have moved a majority of their film/tv productions out of the US. Newsflash - mass DVD sales are officially over between Redbox bankruptcy, Walmart and Target clearing out those aisles. But sticking your head in the sand does not change the fact that entertainment (and I mean every spoke of the franchise wheel) is in a transition. Does this mean it's going away? Absolutely not. But it is fundamentally evolving. And whatever the final form will be, it won't look like the first 100 years of filmed entertainment. (Hu)man plans "this is how it's always been done", while advances in technology, changing audience demographics, and new consumer behaviors laugh. (Videogames, live entertainment, YouTube, TikTok and Hawk Tuah girl would like you to hold their beer) The hard truth is that you can't build the future with business models and thinking of the past. So you can continue to keep your head in the sand focusing on only the hopeful glimmers of the past. OR you can lift it up, knock the granules out of your ears, and enact a strategy towards what you think is going to be the next 100 years of entertainment and who you want to be within it. That's what I'm doing.
TODAY IN BAD REPORTING This piece in The New York Times about a “small bump” in TV series buying is just plain bad. Gift link/no paywall: https://lnkd.in/e7XBxbP2 They have all the right facts, but John Koblin buries the truly important ledes under a mountain of misdirection. Yes, TWO PLAYERS - Netflix & Amazon - have increased their series orders recently. Woot? BUT, HUGE CAVEATS: This is ONLY compared to strike times in 2023/2022. MOST of the orders are international productions. And, I cannot stress this enough: “The whole industry volume is still down considerably from the highs of just a couple of years ago.” The gatekeeper content economy is not yet done contracting and reconfiguring. Not only has money been cut from the scripted content ecosystem, a good deal of it will NEVER come back. These are the facts. Part of this is due to the new austerity and focus on streaming profits over streaming scale. Part of this is due to funds being permanently MOVED from scripted content into Sports. And part will be due to the elimination of whole sets of buyers via mergers and acquisitions. The writer blames the strike as the catalyst for the shift, thus hinting that an industry-wide return to normal could be in the offing. This is because he does not look at the entire landscape, but rather just at the scripted cul de sac. IMHO, that’s truly irresponsible. Yes, the industry WILL make MORE scripted content than during the strike. Also, I was taller in third grade than in kindergarten. But, in the larger context, these are NOT useful metrics. I am still short in the context of all humans. And we will still make WAY less scripted content than we did at the peak of #PeakTV - for the foreseeable future. I do NOT want to be only a harbinger of bad news. But when I look at misguided “trade reporting” like this, I do feel responsible for translating it into reality. Sorry. Not sorry.
And this is what I’m doing too. I have had to pivot so many times it feels like spinning.
Diana Williams.... Slow Clap... 👏 ... 👏 ... 👏 ...
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Partner & Co-Founder at DeadLizard, LLC
1moCouldn't agree more, Diana Williams. As someone who's operated in the Ad Sales/Upfront sphere for 30 years I've seen a lot of change. Network/Linear thinking has been playing a sweaty-palmed game of catch-up since the 90's, and the post-pandemic content landscape has proven to be the back-breaking straw for the old way of doing things. Everyone we work with is trying their hardest to pivot, but the biggest players in the space have an incredibly outsized ability to influence the market (and they're no shrinking violets in that regard). We are undeniably in a win or wither moment for all of entertainment, and characterizing the change and transition that's going on as anything less seismic than it really is does none of us any favors.