Thursday, September 1, 2011
On: The Long Tail
In reading "The Long Tail" I kinda' feel as if I could have written a chapter of the book myself. There are a lot of stats about the decline of the entertainment industry over the last 10 years, and none of it can be disputed. As an industry insider for some years now, I would add my two-cent to the mix. While it is true that new technology has spelled ruin for former mainstrem entertainment outlets, part of the blame for this downfall can be traced to the lack of content. That is to say, homogenized music (Andreson's example of the Boy-Bands)removed the individual creativity of the music produced for the popular culture. Just as the failed football league that was created by NBC and the WWF focused on the non-essential elements of the game, under-estimating the sophistication of football fans, the music industry did the same. Anderson states that "Most of the top 50 best-selling albums of all time were recorded in the 70's & 80's and none after 2000". Part of the magic of the 60's, 70's, & 80's music was the many different styles that were produced. Each singer or band had an individual style that was unmistakable to even the most casual listener. Part of the downfall of traditional entertaiment - particularly music - has to be blamed on executives and marketing managers under-estimating the sophistication of their audience.
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I think a lot of the appeal of niche products is directly related to your last point--the mainstream industries, especially in music, have under-estimated their audiences. In part this is due to the desire to chase massive profits. They would rather go for the sure-fire hits than take a chance on a less-traditional artist with a smaller (but possibly more dedicated) audience.
ReplyDeleteI've seen people making similar claims about the movie industry, too--that all the sequels and remakes are a function of Hollywood being too scared to take risks on more thoughtful movies. And yet, if you look at Netflix, people have a wide range of tastes.
I totally agree. In that respect, I welcome the new possibilities independent artist, musicians and filmmakers have to get their works published. I think most of them are not that "nichy" as many would argue - but with the help of independent film or music festivals (advertised on the internet, let us say via Facebook) or independent album releases they can appeal to a much bigger and by the same token much more dispersed fanbase, nationwide or even globally. Powerful Hollywood managements should realize that and should dare a tiny little bit more of a risk instead of doing reboots, spinoffs or remakes of Spiderman, Superman, Iron Man, X-Men...
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