Category Archives: The Mediascape

New Media Business Model

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Annelise Larson of Veria recently gave a presentation at the Vancouver International Film Festival Industry conference about Discovering the Biz Model in the Data.

She starts with:

“For me discoverability is a two way street. It’s about the audience discovering you and your work, and it’s also about you discovering your audience. It means you have to know WHO they are, WHERE they are and WHAT they want. This is key for sustainable creative business models, for making your dreams a reality.”

She then illustrates this with four examples, including Angry BIrds and the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

She concludes with ten lessons:

“1. Start with free. All of these success stories began with giving content away for free, and continue to have “free” as part of their model. Free allows them to grow and engage their audiences and reward their attention and loyalty to get them hooked. It’s part of the “give before you ask” nature of the online economy.
2. Think beyond the project. Instead of building an audience from scratch with each project, think big picture to your body of work. Finding throughlines through the work that can allow you to bring the audience you have discovered, grown and engaged with you from project to project.
3. Think franchise. Corallery of #2. Not a franchise in the Marvel Universe sense, remembering that audiences are more loyal to characters and storyworlds than the people behind them. Create a content/story franchise allows you to carry that auidiene forward and collect and leverage data for a long(er) time.
4. Data=truth. Success comes not just from gathering data but from being open to the truths it has to tell you (even if you don’t like what they are). And yes, I know data can be manipulated. But how about NOT manipulating it and actually trying to understand what it is telling you instead.
5. Listen & respond. Listen to your audience and then take action based on what they (and their data) tells you.
6. The digital space changes quickly. You can never afford to stand still but must keep adapting and following new opportunities.
7. Embrace failure. The digital space is iterative. You can never be “perfect.” Instead experiment, track and use what you learn to improve and get better at what you do. This is especially feasible within the ongoing “big picture”/ franchise model (and another good reason to think this way).
8. The digital economy is a social economy. It’s built on relationships. And at the end of the day, the data is simply an expression of your relationship with your fans. Listening to the data is listening to what they are telling you. And if you respond authentically you will be rewarded.
9. Digital business models starts with discoverability. If the audience can’t find you it doesn’t matter how good your story is.
10. Discoverability starts with audience data. Helping audiences discover your story, starts with discovering who they are, where they are and what they want. The online space gives you the means to do that in the access to data it provides.”

My take: although this has hints of chicken or egg, I really like the perspective. No longer are we filmmakers working on projects, we are media makers working on media experiences. Also, lesson #3 resonates for me — I call this the storyverse.

Content creators use apps to build super fans

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Tony Zameczkowski, Victorious International‘s MD & VP, describes todaly’s mediascape as a constant feedback loop between creators and their audiences on mipblog.

He starts with a bit of history:

“In the B.D. (before digital) era, the focal point of content consumption was the physical water cooler. With limited media options, must-see TV such as Friends and Seinfeld connected colleagues in break-rooms and families around dinner tables with a commonality of content. The series finales of both sitcoms were cultural cornerstones for audiences worldwide.”

Enter the smartphone, or mobile for you Europeans:

“That commonality of content no longer exists for millennials. Netflix, YouTube, and a multitude of online platforms compete for their attention. Instead of the TV, millennials are increasingly glued to their mobile devices — more than 1/4 of millennials use mobile as their primary device for viewing content. Google recently announced that users are spending an average of 40+ minutes per session on YouTube Mobile and that more than half of the views on YouTube are coming from mobile devices. Many of our creator-partners are seeing that the majority of their viewership comes from mobile as well.”

What should content creators do?

“Creators need to focus on what we like to call, ‘symbiotic content’. In essence, it transcends single formats (videos, images etc.) and platforms (YouTube, Vine etc.) and bridges them together. Symbiotic content is founded on a three step cycle. First, our community app crowd-sources content and inspiration from a creator’s community. The distribution platform (e.g., YouTube) then repackages that content for distribution. Third, our community app enables follow-on conversation and content back in the creator’s community. This facilitates a virtuous cycle of engagement and re-engagement among our creators’ fanbase.”

In essence, they are creating a virtual water cooler, one that is decentralized and mobile. It unites fans across the world with the content creators who have expanded beyond the concept of 20th century media to the new reality.

My take: this is the best summary of the future of the mediascape to date. Dismiss at your peril!

Cable Access extends its reach to the Web

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Who knew that a local cable access channel in Hamilton, Ontario, would be on the cutting edge of multi-platform media in Canada?

Cable 14 is streaming live on the Internet, in addition to cablecasting to the local population.

“CABLE 14 NOW is an online service that lets Hamiltonians watch live and onDemand video content, all curated by people who love Hamilton. It combines the passion and expertise of our Staff, Community Producers and Production Volunteers with the latest technology to deliver compelling local programming wherever and whenever our viewers demand it.”

The lineup includes Hamilton Life, Vital Signs, The Opinionators and The O Show.

My take: I love this! It immediately made me think of Mike Myers and Wayne’s World, his community access cable TV show broadcast from his basement in Aurora, Illinois. (Hamilton is 500 miles directly east.) Joking aside, the reason this is newsworthy is that cable access just shed its local constraints and potentially expanded its audience worldwide.

The mediascape begins tipping as internet subscribers outnumber cable TV subscribers

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Digiday reports that Network TV is now appealing to potential viewers on Facebook:

“‘Right now, the world of video content distribution is right on the edge of total chaos,’ said James Nail, a principal analyst at Forrester Research. Previously, if a network had a new show to promote, it would use a couple minutes of commercial time during the nightly broadcast. That’s not enough anymore.”

No wonder: video on Facebook has exploded.

Couple that with the fact that online viewing now surpasses cable TV watching.

According to Bloomberg Business:

“Concerns about the growing number of consumers who drop TV packages and watch programs on services offered by Netflix or Amazon.com Inc. led to a sell-off in media stocks in August, with entertainment companies losing more than $60 billion in value over two days.”

My take: it’s all about building an audience. Go to where the eyeballs are. For more and more folks, that’s their smart phones, not their TVs.

Can Web Series catch on?

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Canada is betting web series will catch on.

On Screen Manitoba reports on a new web series development opportunity and lists web series festivals in Canada and abroad.

Cogeco is piloting a new development program for “Digital Drama Series.” Apply for $10,000 with your mentor to become pitch-ready. They are betting big:

“The Development and Packaging Mentorship Program is designed to fill the funding gap in the digital production industry in Canada by encouraging producers of web drama series to be “pitch ready” in order to attract distribution, platforms, talent and production financing. This pilot project will replace the Cogeco Fund’s existing television Development, Pre-development and Corporate Feature Film Development funding programs in 2015/16.”

The Independent Production Fund also lists the best of Canadian web series.

Netflix’s House of Cards and Orange is the New Black appear on Wikipedia’s list of web series, however, I think this is inaccurate due to their length and similarity to premium cable TV fare.

Got a web series or other web content? Buffer has a guide to promotion/distribution you might find helpful.

My take: my favourite web series is Jerry Seinfeld‘s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on Sony’s Crackle app, which I Chromecast to my TV. Currently, I don’t watch anything on mobile or the web. I did like The Guild which I had heard about but didn’t watch until showing up on Netflix. I do remember the first episode of Red vs. Blue, but not as a web series — rather as one of the first examples of machinima.

Rooster Teeth set to deliver Lazer Team

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Rooster Teeth has announced that the world premiere for Lazer Team will be on September 24, 2015, at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

From the Fantastic Fest media release:

“Fantastic Fest will host the World Premiere of LAZER TEAM, the first feature film from web series gods Rooster Teeth. LAZER TEAM director Matt Hullum and cast members Burnie Burns, Alan Ritchson, Colton Dunn, Michael Jones, and Gavin Free will be in attendance to celebrate the highly anticipated sci-fi comedy and join Fantastic Fest’s official opening night party, presented by Rooster Teeth.”

Recall that in July 2014 this project became the third most crowd-funded film and video project on Indiegogo.com.

My take: kudos to Rooster Teeth for pulling this off. Their 37,000+ fan-funders must be giddy!

Filmmakers are dead. Long live filmmaking.

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Brandon Harris of The New Inquiry posted “There’s No Money in Movies” recently.

In it he discusses Abel Ferrara‘s unsuccessful attempt to crowd fund his latest film. Ferrara is a “notorious New York independent filmmaker” who wanted to raise half a million dollars on Kickstarter. And managed $20K. Harris writes:

“As traditional sources of specialty film financing have become harder and harder to come by connecting with audiences and donors through crowdfunding has become a burden many filmmakers of Ferrara’s generation have had to take on to continue working. The results for many of the elder statesmen in this new media landscape have been mixed.”

He then moves on to discuss Independent Filmmaker Project‘s Amy Dotson keynote speech at the Seattle International Film Festival.

It’s a fascinating speech. One favourite bit:

“We have to try to stop adjusting our realities to hold onto the ways we consume stories before rather than allow new forms and ideas to take hold.”

Harris takes umbrage and concludes by lamenting:

“Is this what every independent filmmaker should want? To be embraced by corporations and the entertainment mainstream? To have to be good at three or five different disciplines instead of just one? In Dotson’s telling, it’s unavoidable. These well-meaning artists will have to adopt another stance, as filmmakers are analog, too serious, and not platform-agnostic enough to allure corporate suits.”

My take: surely the new economics of film is not news and only further proves that the Long Tail now rules the mediascape. A handful of media companies/franchises/directors get the majority of the money/tickets/attention. The bad new is that there is less room in the middle for small, esoteric ventures to make an economic go of it. The good news is that the rest of us at the shallow end can now play digitally and globally — and just stop dreaming of dollars.

The Creative Class

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Mike Bielenberg of MusicRevolution has posted twice this year on The Creative Class.

In April, he introduced ‘my group of people’ — ‘people from whom original thought constantly emanates‘ — whose job is to be creative and innovative or use information to solve problems.

From Wikipedia:

“The Creative Class is a posited socioeconomic class identified by American economist and social scientist Richard Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.”

In his July post, Mike reports on the job growth of the creative class in the United Kingdom between 2011 and 2013.

Analyzing data from the Office for National Statistics, he concludes:

“Information technology outpaced every category in terms of volume…. With concert ticket prices at an all time high, live music must be the primary economic driver behind the growth in music…. Nobody reads books or goes to museums anymore; because that would require the slow, meaningful absorption of text that isn’t floating on a screen with music blaring underneath. Who’s got time?”

Ultimately he’s encouraged because the ‘creative thought pie’ is not finite and will never stop growing.

My take: I think the denizens of today’s creative class are the modern equivalent of the artisans of the analogue age. In the past, you had a patron, a shop or gallery representation. Now, geography is less restrictive and digital production potentially allows for unlimited duplication. Your reach is global, but so is your competition. Looking forward to Mike’s next post on the creative class.

West-coast TV and film writers earn over $1 billion in 2014

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Variety reports that motion picture writer earnings are down, whereas TV writer earnings are up for 2014:

“Hollywood screenwriter earnings slid 5.4% last year to $313.9 million — the fifth straight year of decline — while TV writing earnings rose 2.3% to $725.6 million, according to the Writers Guild of America West…. A total of 3,888 writers reported TV earnings, a gain of 39 slots. Feature film employment fell 5.6% to 1,556 writers, or 96 fewer than in 2013.”

Note that this totals over $1 billion and includes almost $400 million for residuals:

“The WGA West, which has about 8,000 members, reported that residuals surged 2.5% to a record high of $383.7 million with gains of 4.8% in TV to $245.4 million while sliding 1.5% in features to $138.3 million. But the five-year comparisons show that film has been flat while TV has been surging. Film residuals are up 2.8% since 2009 while TV has gained 60.4% since 2008.”

No word on what the WGA East writers earned in 2014.

See the WGA Schedule of Minimums.

My take: TV writing seems to earn twice as much as film work, even though film pays more. I think that’s because there are just so many more TV episodes to write. One of the takeaways for me is to learn just how few professional media writers there are actually writing.

How you will be paid, post-capitalism

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For the last ten years, I’ve been wondering about the future of the media industry. I realized in 2004 when video first started showing up on the web that the old ways of doing business were threatened and would be replaced with a new model, one day.

Now, I have a glimpse of that future.

In a new book, Postcapitalism, Paul Mason makes the case that we are living through the end of one era and witnessing the dawn of another. Capitalism is dying and the Collaborative Commons is rising.

Paul writes in The Guardian:

“Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. First, it has reduced the need for work, blurred the edges between work and free time and loosened the relationship between work and wages. Second, information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. Third, we’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production: goods, services and organisations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market and the managerial hierarchy.”

Further:

“Today, the thing that is corroding capitalism, barely rationalised by mainstream economics, is information. Most laws concerning information define the right of corporations to hoard it and the right of states to access it, irrespective of the human rights of citizens. The equivalent of the printing press and the scientific method is information technology and its spillover into all other technologies, from genetics to healthcare to agriculture to the movies, where it is quickly reducing costs.”

So, what’s the future?

Christopher J. Dew lays out some thoughts in Post-Capitalism: Rise of the Collaborative Commons on Medium.

Christopher believes:

“Vast increases in productivity and efficiency will be realized in the years ahead through an integrated network of smart-products (termed the Internet of Things, or IoT), accessible renewable energy harvesting technologies, energy sharing across a distributed smart-grid, the decentralization of manufacturing through 3D printing, open online education, the decentralization of finance, legal contracts and governance through Blockchain applications, and the progressive automation of the workforce.”

He argues:

“On the Collaborative Commons, a new type of incentive is driving creativity and innovation. The expectation of financial reward loses relevance when prosumers begin to produce their own products for use and exchange, and marginal costs approach zero. In the Commons, the expectation of financial reward is quickly being replaced by the desire to advance the social well-being of humanity.”

How will all this be paid for? A Universal Basic Income and the Blockchain.

“Smart contracts are computer programs that can automatically execute the terms of a contract once the agreed upon conditions are fulfilled. These could include simple transactions such as an online shopping purchase, or executing the terms of a will. Moreover, as smart devices and products continue to proliferate across an Internet of Things infrastructure they will increasingly integrate and register with the Blockchain and be able to be bought, sold and operated in line with the terms of smart contracts.”

My take: I love this big picture! Imagine a world where every piece of media was recognized by the Blockchain so its creator could be fairly compensated. I called for something like this in my short animation Right2Copy, only in this future, we don’t need any middlemen at all.