What Can the Movie Industry Learn From Books and Music? [Video]

  By Tac Anderson | December 29, 2011 - 1:32 am | Biz

The first link I read this morning was about the movie industry and how bad of a year 2011 was. It was really bad. The worst year since 1995.

While this is bad, I wouldn’t feel too bad for the movie industry as they’ve still managed to squeeze out record profits, despite what they tell congress as they push for #SOPA.

I was still thinking about the story when I jumped on the tube this morning heading to work. I was fortunate enough to have the entire car to myself so I pulled out my trusty Flip cam and shot another quick video between Gunnersbury and Turnham Green.

Sorry about the noise on the train, but nothing to be done about that. It’s not bad though.

There are obviously a lot of differences between books, music and movies. Books and music’s primary product is a physical (or digital) copy. A movie in the theaters is the primary product while the copy sold later (or rented) is the secondary product.

Instead of jacking up the prices I think the movie industry needs to get real serious about the subscription option. I think this coupled with DVD, Digital sales and merchandising are the only way forward for movies as we think of them today.

Beyond that I’m really waiting for someone to champion the direct model. It will take some big name to legitimize it, much like Radiohead did with direct music sales.

[Update] Roger Ebert weighs in: I’ll tell you why movie revenue is dropping…  

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About Tac Anderson

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.
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  • http://timbursch.com/ timbursch

    How cool would it have been to have a subscription to the Star Wars saga as it was being made? Or LOTR? I’d sign up for that! I wonder if the challenge in going direct is the production costs. Does the direct book/music model work for such large dollar projects? Or maybe they could look at a Netflix-like subscription. You get full access to new movies from that studio and behind-the-scenes exclusive content. Hmm. BTW, nice update on the blog. 

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    We’re starting to see Netflix and YouTube starting to fund original TV content and I imagine the next step would be feature length movies as well. I really liked what Joss Whedon did with Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog during the TV strike. I’d love to see more content like that. It was basically a 90 minute movie serialized into 3 parts and he sold each part on iTunes and I think direct from his website as they came out. 

    I do think that if movies wanted to go this route they’d have to flip their model to distributed content being the primary product and events being the up-sell. Maybe direct distribution movies that received enough sales would then get to play in theaters. Make it more of an event for the fans. 

  • http://timbursch.com/ timbursch

    Good example. A new distribution model will upset the current landscape, just like bookstores and music stores. But maybe studios will see the advantage of digital distribution. 

    I like the idea of movie theaters being more like a concert or speech from your favorite author. The experience becomes more unique, valuable, and probably scarce. Looking forward. 

  • http://twitter.com/staceygamble stacey @alluresound

    The movie industry is now just starting to see a major technology shift that has previously hit music and books – Anyone can by an HD camera and an iMac and start creating “premium” content.  When a band starting being able to put out an album on their own budget and use the same (online/social media) tools that the major labels were using – the music industry had a serious threat and needed to quickly start adopting new models.  Now the once extremely expensive content created by the major TV/Film studios are being consumed digitally alongside other self-created published / distributed the lines are starting to blur and the consumers are going to start making a shift to consuming content where and when they want it – regardless if it was created by their neighbor or hollywood.  

    There really isn’t the need for all the networks / studios to be a middleman when you can look at some of the people who have been successful at direct distribution – Louie CK just made $1 million dollars in 12 days from directly releasing his comedy special online for $5 ( http://mashable.com/2011/12/23/louis-ck-million/ )- why do the content creators need a network or studio to distribute their work when they are going to do it in a way that isn’t cost effective or efficient.  

    It would be a great idea for those who own the movie theater’s to start figuring out how to offer independent content creators a cost-effective method that allows them an efficient way to use theaters for their own releases – which I know already happens to some extent.  Then again will we even need the theaters once the movie industry actually distributes content the way consumers actually want to use it.

    I’m a fan of the subscription model and a fan of those who directly distribute their content , I really hope to start seeing more efforts to support these models not just afterthoughts and half-executed projects that end up with negative user experiences.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/ tacanderson

    Excellent point about production costs going down. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before we see a slew of indy directors who grew up using these tools and will be able to come out with stuff as good as anything else. The only differentiator Hollywood will have will be big names, but they’ll even start to defect. Thanks for the comment @twitter-12350832:disqus