Win or Die by Bruce Craven

Author:Bruce Craven
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

7) Am I making sure I’m not in denial?

McGrath writes, “I see a lot of denial in organizations whose main business models are shifting underneath them, and yet their executives simply don’t want to be exposed to this information.”32 The examples of RIM and Adobe provide two contrasting stories of senior leadership approaches to transforming, competitive change.

The entertainment industry is fundamentally volatile in terms of the unpredictable success of content, due to the enormous number of variables that interconnect in the development and creation of fictional and nonfictional visual narratives: series and limited series and the variety of shows now available, including cinematic film releases. Yet, despite this volatility, there are strategic choices being made on what projects to support.

Successful organizations have benefitted from not denying the reality of their industry. Television experienced a competitive opportunity when cable channels saw they could reach a niche of customers with edgier, complex storylines. HBO put in the order for The Sopranos in 1997 and the show premiered in 1999. The success of the dramatic series catalyzed the creation of a variety of dramas on different channels. Based on the recognition that the cable business model could benefit from rethinking previous constraints on story structure and content, television narratives were able to carve into the story territory previously controlled by feature films.

Amanda Lotz, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan, describes how Netflix, when it launched in the late nineties by distributing DVDs by mail, disrupted the film rental industry.

Broadcast networks and cable channels made their money, as Lotz explains, “by selling audiences to advertisers.” The Sopranos and other shows that followed on HBO and similar cable channels transformed the way television entertainment was perceived. “Because many of these channels earned revenue from both subscribers and advertisers, they could be successful even if these programs didn’t reach a mass audience.”33

The production of edgy dramatic and comedic programming grew in the new century. “Then, during the early 2000s, advances in compression technology—coupled with more homes gaining access to high-speed internet services—allowed large video files to be easily streamed over the internet.”34 Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had said for years that Netflix recognized that streaming was the future. Netflix made the move away from mailing DVDs to streaming their product in 2007. Creating product to appeal to this new market and leverage a competitive advantage over network television became the new normal, and HBO had been at it a long time, adapting and leading. Their senior leaders might have chosen to keep making shows set in urban locations, such as The Wire, or on simple, one-location sets, such as Deadwood, but they didn’t deny the competition. They recognized the volatility in the industry. It was a risky time, but a time of opportunity. HBO went all in for a new show and authorized not just a huge, multi-location show that demanded costumes, sets, and special effects but backed up their decision when the two showrunners of the epic fantasy, after some negative feedback, asked to reshoot the pilot episode.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.