Memo to Media Execs

There’s an inter­est­ing Michael Wolff piece in New York about the declin­ing value of con­tent. (Dis­claimer: I used to work for Michael in the early 90s) While I gen­er­ally agree with the con­cept that con­tent is becom­ing more wide­spread and that there is an increase in the amount of con­tent being pro­duced, I fun­da­men­tally dis­agree with his assump­tion that peo­ple do not pay for con­tent. If that were truly the case, where would box-office rev­enues go? What about video and DVD rentals?

His point­ing out the fact that changes in behav­ior show that most peo­ple will steal music and movie con­tent on the Inter­net is largely due to the fact that there are no clear alter­na­tives. Attempts to offer a crip­pled ser­vice like the new Nap­ster or Press­play are not enough (After all, if I pay for a ser­vice, why does the stuff I down­loaded expire). Give us an all you can eat legal buf­fet at a price point that does not gouge us and we will come. Or start pay­ing the artists and your case will be stronger when you tell us that we are starv­ing them.

Right now, many peo­ple pay for cable TV. Basic price gives you some access but other chan­nels (like HBO) cost extra. How­ever, peo­ple can still record shows and movies once they paid. Why can’t the same be true of music? And why do I have to fol­low the path the media indus­try is set­ting to get my con­tent (for exam­ple, why do I have to go to a movie the­ater to see a first run movie? Why can’t I get access to it either on DVD, pay-per-view or online down­load on the same day? Yes, this would com­pletely change your busi­ness model (couldn’t sell as much soda, adver­tis­ing, and tick­ets at the movie the­ater) but it might be what the cus­tomer wants.

A pos­si­ble way to change this would be to keep charg­ing the same price for movie the­ater (and enhance the movie expe­ri­ence by get­ting rid of those com­mer­cials before the movie), offer the DVD for pre­mium rental only at an ini­tial point (for exam­ple, I could get today’s release from the cor­ner store for $25, hence avoid­ing the ticket line and watch­ing the movie on MY sched­ule (if I want to see the movie at 7:30pm or 8pm or 7:54pm, I cur­rently have to find a the­ater that matches my needs). In the same fash­ion, I could open up a video on demand feed either on my TV and/or com­puter and watch the movie at my leisure for a 24 hour period.

Just a few ran­dom thoughts (and I just came up with those off the top of my head so there might be oth­ers out there): Start think­ing of how your busi­ness will evolve or suf­fer the same fate as the dinosaurs.