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Cable/Satellite TV Will Die & Content Creators Will Become Content Distributors
Let’s talk television, taking a commonplace complaint about cable companies and thinking about what it means for the future of content creators. Before I rant – er, observe – let’s set the framework for why this stuff matters.
The challenge of a future in which content consumers have essentially infinite choices is that, at a certain point, more choice leads to less consumption. To reduce the inevitable drag on consumption that arises from too much choice, a few smart operators will succeed wildly by aggregating the most mass appeal content so that consumers can sample and consume it in digestible, understandable pieces. It’s not hard to imagine the three basic models of how the distribution of big content – the most mass appeal content available today – will be done in the not-so-distant future.
What Clear Channel’s Rebranding Says To The Entertainment Industry
So, Clear Channel Communications is now iHeart Media. The single biggest operator in radio just nailed it.
If you’re a creative, it’s never been easier for you to expose your brilliant creative ideas to the world and to make money – lots of it – from them. To borrow from perhaps the best people in the world at overcoming anything – the United States Marines – this is the time to improvise, adapt, overcome.
Let’s walk through it all as quickly as possible.
NAB Question: Are You Worthy Of A "Buy It Now" Button?
One question heading into NAB Week: Whether you’re talent or a broadcast company, what creative means are you using to grow your business? I constantly harp on creative things that content creators – big and small – are doing. Guess what’s missing from these discussions of creative things content creators are doing. If you answered “radio talent”, you’re right. Radio is jampacked with brilliant creative talent, but it’s not radio talent that’s making a killing with videos of themselves playing online video games, their own fashion reviews (and product line), or unboxing videos. How is that possible?
Happily Off-Topic: Science Dictates That It’s Time For A Brain Reset
It’s summer, meaning it’s time to take a little vacation from what we usually do. In fact, there’s scientific backing for the proposition that our brains – and particularly our creative brains – regularly need the reset that comes from vacation. When we get to the allegedly fully grown-up stage of life, it’s easy to ditch the need to take some time off for a mental reset because work is just too dang important. That’s a mistake.
Why Is Selling The Super Bowl Halftime Show An Awful Idea? It's As Simple As 1-2-3.
There’s been a broad-based freakout in media circles the last couple days due to the NFL’s alleged plan to hock the rights to perform at halftime of the Super Bowl. I’ve been amazed at the negative feedback I’ve heard from my media friends. There is, after all, this little thing called capitalism.
That having been said, the NFL’s idea – if real – is colossally stupid. Why? It’s as simple as 1-2-3.
What? You Don't Have A Clothing Line Yet?
Media convergence: it’s a trip through the looking glass for everyone and everything associated with entertainment and media, including advertisers.
So much about content has a funhouse mirror feel to it these days. What used to be important is becoming less and less so every day. Rushing into the vacuum that used to be filled by only the biggest entertainment players is…well…anyone with a great idea and the talent to communicate it.
You should take advantage of that trend. Now.
Fewer Jobs? Media Consolidation? Looks Like A Huge Opportunity For Talent!
Have you noticed how many “sportswriters” are ending up on-camera at ESPN? There’s a huge lesson in this for all media talent, no matter whether you come from television, radio, or print.
If you’re media talent and you feel like the number of available jobs is shrinking mightily, sadly, you’re right. Jobs are declining in electronic media and in print. A simple logic exercise: if demand for content is increasing (and it is) and the number of people being employed in content creation is decreasing, is there a fundamental disconnect happening?
The answer – shock! – is a blaringly loud YES! So, where’s the opportunity for you? Read on, friend.
Memo To Tribune, Gannett, Journal & Scripps: You're Making A Huge Mistake!
If you owned the world’s greatest race car, would you take the engine, the suspension, and the drive train, put them in separate cars, and then hire different drivers – instead of the single, best driver – to race the newly separated cars? That’s what a huge slice of the media industry is doing right before our eyes.
Is Netflix Television? Is Pandora Radio? Who Cares!?!?!
Now is a good time to think about being a great creative, not about being a human labelmaker.
I’ve been posting a lot about what the era of media convergence means. It means opportunity. It means money. It means barriers to entry into the creative business are falling. It also means something else: pointless arguing over semantics. Those kinds of arguments are a typical part of rapid, massive change. That reality, however, makes them no less pointless and no less a distraction from the important issues at hand (the ones involving how we monetize creative content in the future).
Money: It's Popping Up In All Sorts Of Places
One of the amazing things about the new entertainment and media world we’re now moving into – that thing I call The Jetsons Future – is that there are so many opportunities, ones that didn’t exist a handful of years ago, to be creative and make money. You don’t even need to know where to look. Why not? Because they’re everywhere! You just have to look at things a little differently than you used to and create your own opportunity.
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