[IP] more on Great experiences at the Mooooveeees
Begin forwarded message:
From: Tim Onosko <onosko@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 3, 2005 9:00:46 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Great experiences at the Mooooveeees
Reply-To: tim@xxxxxxxxxx
There has been much tea-leaf reading in an attempt to explain "the
summer that audiences stayed home," including movie studio executives
actually acknowledging that some of the films they released were less
than brilliant. But I'd like to add a modest number of my own
observations.
* Every new film being released competes with every other film that
the studios have produced. There has never before been a time in
film history when audiences have had so much choice, including the
ability to see almost any film ever produced, via the boom in DVD
releases, and unprecedented numbers of cable and satellite channels
(multiple HBOs, Cinemaxes, Showtimes, Turner Classics, et al) devoted
to film. Even though cable and home video have been widely available
since the late 1970s, there's never been such a glut of moviegoing
opportunities. It is a buyer's market.
* The so-called hundred-channel universe is now finally real, and the
number of homes with access to them has never been higher, with
multiple iterations of high-viewership networks for news, sports and
entertainment. There have never been greater reasons to stay home
and see what's on TV. The cinema business may be impacted by stay-at-
home audiences and theater owners lose, but the movie studios win,
since they own and operate the broadcast and cable networks.
* Audience tastes are changing, and the younger, Internet-aware
audiences are less attracted to traditional fare. More young people
are sharing self-made media -- digital "movies," music, photographs,
etc. -- than ever before, and much of this kind of programming is
higher quality than ever before, due to the availability of digital
video and editing systems, digital audio recording and editing, etc.
It's never been easier for individuals to express themselves in
words, sounds and pictures, and all of this is small but steadily
growing competition for the studio fare.
* Media companies are cranking out record amounts of product -- TV
series and other network fare, feature films, home videos -- but time
to consume these products isn't expanding nearly enough for audiences
to take advantage of the boom. Competition, not just for moviegoing
dollars, but for sheer attention among various divisions of the Big
Six media companies -- Sony/Columbia, Viacom/Paramount, Fax, Warners,
Disney/ABC and NBC-Universal -- is almost cannibalistic. For
example, Time-Warner's film division wants you to leave the house and
go to a movie, but CNN, Warner Home Video and AOL wants you to stay
home and devote yourself to their offerings.
Everybody's making more movies. Nobody's making more time in which
to see them.
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