Another Nail in the Network Coffin

The New York Times today is reporting about NBC planning to buy blocks of programming from outside producers. Although apparently unrelated to the writers' strike, it's just another facet of the changing business climate and how networks, long grown fat on easy money, often creatively channeled away from people who supposedly had slices of profit. But they are so cautious about revenue that they parody themselves, doing one show after another that are practically indistinguishable. They need the producers - and the writers will end up becoming their own producers, creating their own shows. Networks will be totally dependent on those who actually create programming, which reduces them to a distribution business model. This is bad news, indeed, when the Internet will increasingly make that approach obsolete. when will they first wake up? When people no longer so anxiously take meetings or do lunch?

A Coming Shift in the Media Business

Although the writers' strike has been portrayed, depending on whom you ask, as David versus Goliath (writers), greedy David versus the poor viewers (the studios), and a bunch of people arguing about money (everyone else), it really is a portent of a new business model.

Check this LA Times piece. NBC has decided to air a show that started on the Internet. Why? Because it hasn't been on television yet. (Does that mean it hasn't existed any more than the tree out in the forest?)

It's already produced, so isn't affected by the WGA strike - and probably won't be, because the writers involved are the ones who own it. Suddenly, there is no question about who is going to get a slice of Internet revenues, or who, for that matter, is going to get most of the money, period. The writer/entrepreneurs.

Read the LAT article carefully. A number of recent movies that have done well were financed by outside money people - and largely in control of the writers:

Being entrepreneurial isn't for the faint of heart. If you want a sweet upfront paycheck, you may not have the stomach for it. But after seeing studios bowdlerize their scripts, many writers will swap a big payday for more control. [Writer-director David] Twohy says that after Relativity read his script, "They told me, 'Script approved as-is.' I've never heard a studio ever say that."

It's now happening in television and movies. Some authors have found they can control their books through self- and cooperative-publishing. The reins are slipping out of the fingers of those who traditionally controlled them as writer-producer-directors get outside investment money and blaze their own path, and then find their own audiences.

What does it mean for the market? More decentralization, a likely greater drive toward better quality scripts, and a lot of studio managers who will end up learning that maybe they weren't adding all that much to warrant their jobs. You've heard of the long tail? That appendage is getting pretty wide, as well, and could end up smacking a great many people about. Add in the degree of animosity that writers have developed toward studios, and it will likely be thrashing about. After all, why play nice with all those businesspeople if they really can't do that much?

Disney, And When Big Views Aren't Necessarily Good News

The New York Times had a story of how the High School Musical movies have become a major property for Disney. The first has turned into a Broadway show and that musical is being performed by a frighteningly large number of schools across the country. The second had an estimate audience that apparently would be the largest in "basic cable history."

Even with "lukewarm reviews" (from adults, after all), it sounds like a winner. Only, I'm wondering if any of the people involved have kids. The first HSM was a favorite at my house, and my teenage daughter, my preteen son, and a teen niece were all looking forward to the sequel. They were ensconced on the sofas when it started - and by the time it ended, they were snorting and derisive. There were complaints about the direction, the acting, the singing, the dancing, the story, and the writing. That didn't keep a slightly reconfigured set - three teenagers and a pre-teen - from watching a second singalong showing ... and openly mocking throughout.

Brand is tricky, and I'm not sure I'd be happy even with an enormous audience if my kids represented any large part of the public. Good marketing, in the form of the original product appeal and the promotion for the sequel, can often kill something faster than a good competitor. And when your new big thing is something invoking derision, at least among some previously supportive group, I suspect it does damage to the overall corporate brand. Here's a relevant remark from the article:

Nevertheless, sustaining interest in “High School Musical” required Disney and its promotional partners to bombard capricious young viewers with a relentless stream of merchandise and marketing in the 18 months between the first and second movies.

And now some analysts wonder if Disney is risking the health of this budding franchise by expanding it too quickly.

I would join the came of those wondering. The company has done well in the past, even with series like the Halloweentown movies. And it's beyond doubt that Disney is capable of getting good writers and composers, creating musical material, and making movies that both become perennial favorites that then translate to the stage and, ultimately, are performed by school and community groups.

So what went so wrong here? It's not the lack of talent, I'm sure. Could the Big Kahunas decided that things would go even better if They got involved with directing the talent where it needed to go? Whatever the case, between over hype, under delivery, and the merciless nature of the tween and teen markets, Disney may have given a solid punch to its own corporate solar plexus.