loudhail » paradigm shift

R.I.P. Jericho?

loudhail — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:13:26 +0000

A few months ago I wrote about the fans, who brought back their favourite TV programme Jericho by protesting online, getting organized and sending CBS about 18 tonnes of peanuts. Now CBS has announced that next week’s episode will be the last one. The ratings weren’t high enough for them.

Naturally, fans are rioting again. The show has very passionate followers, but not enough followers to make it worthwhile for CBS to air it on TV. This reminds me of one of my favourite TV shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy never had huge ratings, but a dedicated followership, that still wants Buffy to come back (myself included). Now imagine, as this article nicely illustrates, that all these fans sign up to buy a new season on DVD or iTunes or where ever… creators wouldn’t need networks to produce their shows, because they could sell them directly to their audience.

I’d happily pay normal retail price of a season on DVD to co-fund a new season of Buffy in advance – where do I sign up? Don’t think I’d do the same with Jericho, but I am conviced that there are heaps of people who would. I think Jericho’s creators should turn to their fans immediately, strike the iron while it’s hot and distribute the show via new channels. Also, I think this will happen more and more – again, the paradigm is shifting, and we are making it happen.

Loudhail’s new product

loudhail — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:27:58 +0000

Those of you following this blog will have noticed an increasing amount of posts in connection to the film industry and the paradigm shift happening in the way we watch videos, and how they are being promoted and distributed via the web (a shift which is definitely aided by the WGA strike). There is a good professional reason for this aside from my personal opinions and observations:

Half a year ago I have started developing a concept for an online platform (the working title is filmbooster.com, which is just that at this stage – a working title), which will help filmmakers (independents, but also studios and film funding agencies) find the appropriate online marketing and distribution channels for their specific film. It will be fully automated – you tell us what kind of film you have and what you want to do with it, and we tell you which online channels to use to achieve those goals. We will also take into account the “old” marketing and distribution channels (like e.g. film festivals) that may have restrictions on how eligible you are for their festival in case you want to screen your film online in its entirety.

Basically, we will provide comprehensive and the most up-to-date online marketing and distribution data for the film industry. How and where to reach your audience, how to achieve your marketing goals for your film, how to raise your filmmaker profile, how to raise awareness for a specific project,… you name it. And the best thing is: this will be affordable to a large number of people. Working as the Wellington Fringe Film Festival Co-ordinator, and on countless short films in my life in New Zealand film I know that money is often tight – and filmmakers usually just want to get their film finished, but have no money left to get it out there. We will be able to help you promote and distribute your work on a very limited budget.

But wait, there’s more: my dear friend Marian Adolf pointed me towards a funding agency based in Vienna called departure, who had a funding round for projects incorporating Web 2.0 into their business model in October. I pitched filmbooster to them, and received a grant of € 200 000 to complete and promote the platform within the next couple of years. This is so great – without this grant it would have been doable, but not as comprehensively as planned. And certainly not as fast. I am very grateful and honored. And I am excited and inspired about the fact that we will help filmmakers as well as take part in this paradigm shift by building a tool that will assist filmmakers, producers, studios, etc. in making the best use of the web for their specific agenda and leveraging the Long Tail.

Work on the project has started already (I have obviously been working on it for a while now, as have my colleagues Ursula Seethaler, Andreas Hafenscher, Matthew Kerr and Hans Lamprecht; currently I am recruiting more people into my team), and in the next little while I will approach more and more filmmakers to be part of our experts that will help us get the right info together, in exchange for lifetime free membership on our platform. If you’re a filmmaker who has promoted and/or distributed a film online – flick me an email. We want you! The big kick-off will be mid-March, which coincides with my move back to Europe. Loudhail will be based in Vienna, but not to worry: I will of course keep working globally as a consultant, not only to the film industry!

There have been some reports in the Austrian press and online about the funding round and the funded projects: departure had about € 1 Million to spend, and 7 projects got funded. Read more here and here (in German only).

Thanks so much to all the people who have contributed to this so far and who are making this happen. Watch this space!

WGA strike: the effects so far.

loudhail — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 05:56:53 +0000

The writer’s strike is still in full blast, and I thought it was time for an update. I will not bore you with re-hashing what others have written already, but point you at some ressources. Read them first, and then read my opinion on this subject further down in this post.  Here a nice summary of the course of events when the negotiations broke down last week. It basically states the ridiculousness of the AMPTP’s “offers”, and how they walked out.
This is a post of the AMPTP blaming the WGA for the collapse of negotiations.    Here a good insight into the issues that they are fighting over. This one is another great summary on this subject, including numbers.
But this is all just about what the two parties are fighting about. The effects on the media-universe are becoming quite big:   Read this post about the real danger of networks running out of TV shows (and the devastating financial impact). There is talk that dramas might actually be replaced by more politics on TV (not just the obvious choice of reality TV). The planning and programming is also proving to become quite challenging, with no one knowing how much longer this strike is going to last. And here you can find some details on the falling stock values of entertainment companies in the US.   I have said this before (to some of you in person, most of you know this through my blog) that we are looking at a major paradigm shift in the way that video content is being promoted and distributed. This whole strike is a symptom as well as a catalyst for said shift. I am very passionate and excited about it, because when (not if, in my opinion) the writers get fair compensation for content that is being streamed or sold online it will institutionalize the trend we can see already: that more and more people are watching content online. Content creators should be paid accordingly. After all, the internet is just another medium. Now we are figuring out how to utilize and honour its full potential – all of us: the audience, the creators, and the ones doing both.   What do you think?

Hello?! Paying customer here! Hello!? Anybody?

loudhail — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:42:18 +0000

This time last week my mind was somewhere completely different. Which is why I missed the only show I am currently watching on network TV: Californication (yes, it is awesome!). Which sucks, because I could not find it legally ANYWHERE online to watch. So I had to make do with my friend Monique’s summary – which was just nowhere near the same as watching it, of course.Today I read this post, and I can relate! I share this poor soul’s pain! And I am hereby joining in the request for pay-per-download or -stream online-TV! I want to give you my money – I really want to watch Californication, Season1, Episode 3. Badly! Showtime, please, take my money, and show me that episode (and show me ep. 5 too, I will miss that next week). This is the perfect solution to the network’s piracy-issues: people who are crying out to pay you for video-content. Now they just have to listen, and sell us what we want.Is there something you really wanna see? Join us in our petition!

Get your money back?

loudhail — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:50:38 +0000

So, the WGA has gone back to renegotiate their contracts with the producers yesterday. No word as of yet how that is going. In the meantime, advertisers are getting nervous. I only just mentioned this possibility to a colleague last week: If TV sellers can’t hold their end of the bargain (which is: deliver the target audience they promised, due to cancelled TV programmes), media buyers might actually ask for their money back! Yesterday I found this article in AdAge, talking about just that. Have a look at it for more details on what might happen as early as next quarter, if the strike doesn’t get resolved soon (and more shows have to stop production). I think that advertisers as well as networks are increasingly learning that as eyeballs are migrating to the web, the paradigm on how online content is monetized will have to change. The crisis in TV advertising is nothing new - TIVO has been wreaking havoc with it in the US for years. But the WGA strike, which makes people with access to broadband internet look online for their video-fix, is illustrating just how ripe the time for online video is. The writers know it, the audience knows it, the media moguls know it. Now they just have to start acting on it – and allow a paradigm shift on a large scale. And the new WGA contracts will have a lot to do with the size and speed of this shift.