The movie business killed itself. This is what happens when you put bean counters in charge. Let's see... Marketing expenses are so high, let's make fewer and fewer movies and promote the hell out of them. Furthermore, to get a good return on our dollar, let's make sure the films can play in every country around the globe, let's not localize them, like with comedy, content that does not play overseas. And let's build franchises. Because the goal is to eliminate risk. Not only endless sequels, but comic book characters. Look at the gross!
Well, don't. Because the true metric is attendance. And somewhere along the line entire swaths of the public stopped going to the theatre.
The baby boomers...older ones might go out of habit, but so many have checked out, because they don't make the kind of flicks they got addicted to in the sixties and seventies. Deep thought pieces that stimulated your brain and engendered discussion. As for foreign flicks, the independents, there's so much product it's hard to make sense of the landscape, and movies come and go, it's no longer religion.
And then there are the families... Turns out you can see Pixar movies on Disney +, so why wrangle your kids and spend all that money at the theatre? Furthermore, the theatre is not on demand, there are appointed times, you can't be late, whereas you can stop and pick up Disney+ content whenever you want. The new Pixar movie, "Elemental," is everything adult fare is not...it's innovative, and it got some great reviews, and it's got a 92% audience score on RottenTomatoes, and the critics score is not quite as high, it's 76%, but the flick stiffed at the box office. "Elemental" is the lowest grossing Pixar pic in history, or close to it, depending on how you massage the figures. Then again, when Steve Jobs ran the company, Pixar movies were an event, by ramping up production Disney eradicated a lot of the magic. And like I said, you can watch them on Disney+ anyway.
Oh, you say, it was a mistake to put them on Disney+ during the pandemic. Well, if they held all this content back there wouldn't be a Disney+, which has the thinnest content slate of any streamer other than Apple, and that's only because Apple has no catalog, and it's making more new stuff. And the home experience is incredible these days. With giant hi-def flat screens and surround sound... Sure, there's a bigger picture at the theatre, but you've also got all those humans. Most people don't want to hang with all those humans. There's no policing of the movie theatre audience, getting patrons not to talk, to turn off their phones, and if you complain...expect blowback. People think it's part of the admission price, to do whatever they want during the screening.
And then there's the office. I get it, socialization is needed. But it turns out you can save so much time and accomplish just as much at home. All that brouhaha about innovation in the office...studies say this is untrue, that most innovation is singular, by one person, oftentimes out of the office. You don't need to go to the office to innovate, you can take a break, take a hike, that's when the neurons start to fire. And studies say people actually work harder at home. And it's so much easier, there's no commute. They're trying to bring people back into the office, but corporations don't have the power they used to, they're not the only game in town, treat me right or I'll quit. Ditto the unionization movement. You want to be on the side of the worker today, the wind has changed.
But in music?
The internet was supposed to kill music. After all, who would play if you couldn't get paid? EVERYBODY! Turns out that everybody wants their music on Spotify. As for getting paid...
This is what the oldsters don't understand, they're making less on recorded music because they're getting less mindshare. The pool used to be small. They had label deals, with advances, and marketing and promotion, and there was a limited amount of competition. But with all that competition... This is like network television, ratings have plummeted to lows incomprehensible during the last century. Because there are so many other options, never mind cable and now streaming, but YouTube and TikTok and...
So what we've got is a plethora of cottage industry acts. And in truth, today everybody starts out cottage industry, and after you've proven yourself you can make a major label deal, or not. The majors don't want everything, just what they can blow up, and that's only a fraction of what's out there.
So what we've got is an endless development pool. It's overwhelming, yet it doesn't have to be. But everybody who can separate the wheat from the chaff is addicted to the old model and refuses to do so. The streaming outlets need the major label product so they won't tell you anything sucks, it's all presented as equal, the customer is on their own, meaning you don't discover new music on the streaming platform, that's where you go once you've already heard about it. Music is broken via word of mouth, or TikTok... The streamers do a piss-poor job of breaking acts, they don't even know how to.
And now music is everywhere. The retrograde music industry finally woke up and realized it's not about shutting down new uses, but licensing them. This is why music is now so valuable, why catalogs are selling for a fortune. This is not a one time event. The revenue from music will continue to go up, because they keep inventing new uses for music. Just like things go better with Coca-Cola, things go better with music. And music, unlike Coke, has an unlimited number of brands, you can find anything you want. And it enhances your TikToks, your YouTube clips... It may just be pennies, but those pennies add up, just ask the publishers, this is their business model. Never mind sync licenses... There's more visual product than ever before, and almost all of it needs music. Of all stripes. Of all costs. There's room for the superstar and the wannabe.
So the public is music-crazy. They're exposed to music 24/7, they can't escape it, except maybe when they're asleep. And all these uses pay. Get your mind off the old paradigm of selling physical product. It's not about a short arc of sales, but an endless life of copyright, you get paid when people stream your music decades from now, assuming they do.
And most music doesn't get streamed. It's not only the oldsters who complain about compensation, but the youngsters too. Everybody thinks they're being ripped-off, not realizing there's only so much money and attention to go around. And people want stars. But a star might be a bluegrass band that can sell a thousand tickets everywhere it plays. You see there are kings (and queens!) in every genre. And those at the top can make a good living. You read all about the acts in the Spotify Top 50, but those who never enter it oftentimes make more. Today music is a long game, you pay your dues and you build your fan base and you monetize it forever. Never mind merch. And so much more.
Yes, the paradigm has changed, but the new paradigm is even better, because there are so many ways to monetize. But the competition is fierce. This is what happens when a business matures and the compensation goes up. Baseball players fifty years ago drank and could be overweight, whereas today's seven figure athletes, sometimes eight figure per year athletes, are incredible physical specimens, they lift weights, they work out, they need to be in shape to battle the competition, but also to ensure longevity. So if you're complaining it's harder today... Let me tell you, the "good" old days are never coming back, never.
And with everybody having the same smartphone, possessions becoming commoditized, it's become about the experience. Come on, why do you think food is such a thing? And so is the concert. There are different levels, there are superstars who play to hard drive, but those unknown by many playing different songs every night can sustain for decades. Come on, did you ever encounter a casual Phish fan? No, either you're a diehard or don't care. And the diehards might have seen a hundred shows. Believe me, that keeps Trey, et all, in dollars.
Music is everywhere. There are more stadium shows than ever, more acts that can sell stadiums, and although the bar business is rough, having been supplanted by recorded music, seemingly every burg hires acts to perform, as a cultural benefit to the locals.
But with an unclear top. And those at the top making tons of bucks while reaching fewer people... It's hard to make sense of the world. But if you pull the lens back... There seems to be a market for everything. Morgan Wallen, a country act, is the biggest chart performer. And then there's the Latin act Bad Bunny. Sure, hip-hop and pop seem to dominate, but there's so much else.
And I just can't see a downside.
Ticket prices? Believe me, they wouldn't be high if people didn't want to pay. Scalpers? Bots? They're all a result of demand. Sure, there are some problems here that need to be addressed, but not making enough money is not one of them. And it's hard to get sympathy from the government. Now let's see... The business is raining down cash and you want us to spend time and money enacting and enforcing legislation to undercut the law of supply and demand?
People want music, do you know how much else they don't want?
Sure, superstars draw attention. I'm not saying a new Beatles or the equivalent wouldn't juice the business even more, but the culture is not ready for that. Because to be iconic and believed in you have to leave money on the table and say no, and that's just not today's culture. Everybody wants everything, especially in a world with an elite tier living a lifestyle the rest of us don't. You might read about the compensation of artists, but they're low compared to the CEOs, who get paid astronomical sums year-in and year-out.
But the content of the content... Turns out music is so strong that it can survive even on mediocre content. Everybody talks about streaming television, people may not talk about music the same way, but maybe music has become like food, air and water. A necessity. You wouldn't think of signing off the streaming music service. As for those who do, who complain? They're going unheard, just like the oldsters who complained their cheese was moved twenty-odd years ago. You see twenty plus years have passed. The boomers are in their seventies, young people never knew a different world from today. Where you own little but pay for everything on demand. That's what Netflix is, that's what Spotify is, they call that access, and you don't want to forgo it, you NEED IT!
And then Netflix clamps down on subscription sharing and what happens? The freeloaders pony up. They can't live without Netflix. The product is just that hot.
But music is more visceral. And there's the live component. And when done right it embodies the personality, the identity, of the maker. And you can go to the show and see these acts in the flesh. There's a human component absent from any film, any TV show.
Are tweaks needed? Compensation rates, getting paid for recordings on terrestrial radio... Sure, but anybody who says the music business is upside down and in the sh*tter has their head up their a**.
Kick back and listen to the music.
It's morning not only in America, but the whole damn world.
IT'S GLORIOUS!
--
Visit the archive: lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
Listen to the podcast:
-iHeart: ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj
-Apple: apple.co/2ndmpvp
--
www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, Unsubscribe
To change your email address this link
No comments:
Post a Comment