Re: shows as events - I appreciate the few shows that stagger their releases for this reason and I hope it catches on. Recently the Fallout TV show released and I found myself quickly annoyed that the conversation was immediately centered around spoiler-heavy discussions from people who binged the entire thing on the Wednesday night it released. So much better to let people speculate what's going to happen together!
Fascinating piece! The evolution of monetization in each of these eras is also curious. It started with advertising only with broadcast, then subscription AND advertising with cable, then subscription only with streaming services. Now streaming services like Youtube TV and Hulu monetize via subscription AND advertising, but in addition they've taken away a key benefit: time-shifting to skip commercials. I'll start the NBA Finals game tonight about 30 minutes late just so I can skip commercials. That's why I pay a little more for a legacy cable/satellite provider, DirecTV Stream, where the skip-the-commercials feature is preserved. Pleased don't take that away!
The concept of monoculture is spot on: the concept has been explored as well by Malcolm Gladwell in revisionist history, from the perspective of the content creators. When producing content destined for broadcast you didn’t have as much of a blank canvas as you have today. Fragmented audiences are much less of a big deal than a national single audience: there you don’t just entertain, you influence culture. https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/when-will-met-grace
Great work! I've just added it to my Tuesday Link's newsletter for next week!
Awesome, thanks!
Re: shows as events - I appreciate the few shows that stagger their releases for this reason and I hope it catches on. Recently the Fallout TV show released and I found myself quickly annoyed that the conversation was immediately centered around spoiler-heavy discussions from people who binged the entire thing on the Wednesday night it released. So much better to let people speculate what's going to happen together!
Fascinating piece! The evolution of monetization in each of these eras is also curious. It started with advertising only with broadcast, then subscription AND advertising with cable, then subscription only with streaming services. Now streaming services like Youtube TV and Hulu monetize via subscription AND advertising, but in addition they've taken away a key benefit: time-shifting to skip commercials. I'll start the NBA Finals game tonight about 30 minutes late just so I can skip commercials. That's why I pay a little more for a legacy cable/satellite provider, DirecTV Stream, where the skip-the-commercials feature is preserved. Pleased don't take that away!
The concept of monoculture is spot on: the concept has been explored as well by Malcolm Gladwell in revisionist history, from the perspective of the content creators. When producing content destined for broadcast you didn’t have as much of a blank canvas as you have today. Fragmented audiences are much less of a big deal than a national single audience: there you don’t just entertain, you influence culture. https://omny.fm/shows/revisionist-history/when-will-met-grace
This is great research! It's SO hard to say what is truly "popular" today. The spin machine can make anything seem like a jaggernaut!