Okay – When Exactly Did I Turn Into Trotsky?
May 7, 2009
During the writers’ strike the studios and the networks staked out a mostly disingenuous bargaining point when it came to “New Media” by arguing that webisodes were promotional in nature, and therefore not covered under union jurisdiction. The AMPTP’s take it or leave it stance galvanized an anxious and passionate membership into doing much more than showing up on the picket line before ducking out to lunch at Factors. The Writer’s Strike of 2007 will be remembered as a watershed moment in Hollywood labor lore for the viral videos posted by activists from Strike TV who dramatized a world without professional writers, and the powerful blogging skills of Nikki Finke whose Deadline Hollywood became this town’s definitive news source. No longer could the companies dominate news coverage by threatening to pull ads off The Los Angeles Times, or using Variety as a house organ. The universe was clearly changing - even the strike was framed as being about fighting for a stake in the future profits for the next generation. My big talking point back then was saying the stakes were about whether the future of entertainment would go through abc.com - which clearly seemed like a ludicrous proposition given how many disgruntled creative types like me were primed to start producing original digital entertainment and web series for the internet.More than a year and a half later, there still really isn’t much of a market for the handful of professionally produced scripted shows (or as they like to call it in digi world “premium content”) — and I’ve been asking why that is and as I scramble to bring showbizzle out of digital purgatory and onto some revenue streams. Don’t major brands and the ad agencies see the viewing trends on ComScore where billions of new videos are consumed online each month? Aren’t they impressed by internet’s ability to tracks the metrics of its users or by the level of engagement alternate platforms often deliver?
Sadly, I’m afraid the answer is a resounding “sorry, the economy sucks we really don’t give a shit” as I prepare to bring showbizzle, our five hours of original scripted programming broken down into 23 fifteen minute segments, to market next month. But it was only this week, while attending the Star-power Online: Web Entertainment Looks Ahead panel at the On Hollywood Conference that I realized how vast the resistance to supporting professionally produced shows, even those produced at a substantially lower rate like showbizzle, really lies. For 50 minutes the panel and audience mostly took turns bashing the networks, the global brands, and their change-resistant advertising agencies for being clueless when it comes to the changing economics of TV production and the opportunities that the new media represent…and then the smartest guy in the room, David Travers, a former analyst for NBC and now part on an LA venture capital group called Rustic Canyon Partners, felt compelled to have the last word. He pointed out that the networks are still making a huge amount of money in the traditional broadcast business - and will be able to mine this trough for the next three years.
Hmmm…I’ve already started defining Mainstream Media as a collection of top executives from networks, studios, top talent agencies, advertising agencies, publishing, and the top law firms whose prime goal is to their salaries and the salaries of their hottest clients artificially high. But it was only after Travers opened his yap that I realized that the way Mainstream Media will ultimately sustain their business model is to keep the value of digital entertainment artificially low. Why else would the indy producer of low budget reality shows for MTV, whose profit margin is getting squeezed from all sides, tell me that the Ad Sales guys at the network told him not to factor in the 17million hits that content received from a variety of digital platforms when making a case for his TV show with slightly less than a million broadcast viewers be removed?
Wonder what Trotsky would say? Or Nostradamus? Or Peter Chernin for that matter?
