The Fall of Traditional Entertainment Conglomerates

Advocatus Diaboli writes "We no longer live in the era of 'plantation-type' movie studios or recording houses. However large private companies still have considerable power over content production, distribution and promotion. Technology has been slowly changing this state of affairs for almost 30-40 years, however certain new technological advances, enabling systems and cost considerations will change the entertainment industry as we know it within 5 years."

Comments

Re:People are still the expensive part

[badboy_tw2002]

Yeah, its tough because the "its costly because of the people" argument takes into account the $10M your superstar actor makes. But he makes that money not because they're the most talented actor ever (you probably haven't heard of that guy), but because his name will sell the movie. "Bankable" means they can bank a certain return on the actor's name alone, i.e. "the next _______ movie". If you can get to the point where your name goes in there, you're all set.

Of course, if distribution and all that changes who knows, as you won't need the big returns for the "big" movies. 5 years is ridiculous, sorry. But later on where everything is convincingly done on blue screen? Maybe. I still think there always needs to be a "draw" for something. Whether its artificial publicity, who's involved, or word of mouth once the movie has gotten a following, you need something. Top of the Youtube front page is one thing, but you better believe if that was the major distro channel then the "dinosaur" media companies would have that page bought out in a heartbeat. There's also the fact that shoestring budget movies can't pay the talent, but they also can't pay the work-a-day types that make a movie happen - and there's a lot of those and always will be if the movie is of a decent size. As long as people are willing to pay for it (the MPAA wants you to believe they will and won't at the same time), then there will be people willing to do it for a job, and the costs will still be high. 5 years, no way. 25? It won't be the same, but it won't be some garage film utopia where all movies are done for the art and the public suddenly enjoys amateur films over high production value blockbusters either.

The problem is

[snookiex]

We no longer live in the era of 'plantation-type' movie studios or recording houses

The problem is that they won't die without fighting, doing as much damage as they can in the process. We still have years of DRM and its mutations to witness in the next years.