Quality
I’ve been threatening to cancel the L.A. "Times", but as a reader e-mailed me, the problem is you can only do it once. It’s so thin, and compared to the "New York Times" and "Wall Street Journal" it’s a narrow picture of the world absent so much as to make one wonder if readers end up being less informed than those who forage for news online. A cursory stop at Yahoo or CNN.com will tell you more than the L.A. "Times" ever will. But then there’s that one story you read nowhere else that keeps you having it delivered to your doorstep, like Wednesday’s on the movie business:
Business is off twenty percent. Let me repeat that, 20%. Weren’t movies supposed to be recession-proof? Weren’t economically challenged consumers supposed to seek refuge in low-priced entertainment at the cinema?
Your retort, of course, is that films are no longer cheap. Especially those in 3-D. Still, everybody in the industry agrees there’s one true problem. The movies suck. They’re shitty. People don’t want to see them.
The film industry has lost track of its primary mission. Which is to tell stories. Special effects are superfluous. Too many directors focus on image when it’s truly all about the tale. Every few years a blockbuster emerges from the fringe, that costs almost nothing to produce. And the real reason these flicks triumph is story. It’s like trying to sell music without songs. Whoops, we’re doing that, have you listened to the Top Forty? Ever try to sing along? Good luck!
People need food. They don’t need movies or music. They can keep their wallets closed. The challenge is to create something so compelling that people need to go, price ends up being secondary. Hell, if price were such a big factor no one would overpay a broker or purchase tickets on StubHub, they’d have almost no reason to exist!
And Apple wrote the book on charging a premium for desirable product. The key is "desirable", not "cost".
You can lose the habit of going to the movies, you can lose the habit of going to the show/concert. The reason I no longer go to the movies is not the cost, but the time…wasted. I end up leaving the theatre wanting my two hours back. That’s more important than the money. I won’t go unless the film is a slam dunk. I’ve got better things to do to entertain myself, I’ve got a plethora of options. Something’s got to be really damn good, really damn interesting to get me to bite.
In order to get people to go to shows a couple of times a month, hell, once a month, focus must be placed primarily on quality, that’s more important than cost. Open the newspaper, go on Ticketmaster, how many shows do you find that are truly must-see?
I know it’s hard, with the barrier to entry in music so low. But with the laser sharp focus on money there’s been an abandonment of quality. Both movies and music used to focus on promoting quality. Sure, the blockbusters paid for the artistes, but now the marketers are not interested in the artistes, the major studios have closed their specialty divisions and major labels won’t sign anything that can’t get on Top Forty radio, unless you’ve got a touring base and are stupid enough to make a deal with the devil under the illusion you’ll make more money, which is patently untrue.
What’s Apple’s motto? It makes INSANELY GREAT products? Look at the chart, is Katy Perry INSANELY GREAT? Then why do you expect everybody to pay attention? Hell, Cee-Lo’s "F**k You (Forget You)" is not insanely great, it’s just a novelty song with a bad word. And the Black Eyed Peas… Come on!
And something insanely great knows no boundaries. Rockers will buy R&B if it’s insanely great. And vice versa. That’s the essence of Prince. Black guy plays insanely great music that straddles rock and soul and EVERYBODY is interested! Or at least they were when he was still putting gems down on wax. But they’ll still go to the show, because he’s insanely great there.
We’re living in a sea of mediocrity.
At least they’re owning up to it in the movie business.
But we’re still living in a land of ignorance in the music business. When is everybody going to agree that most music is substandard, that we’ve got very little greatness, that if we had more the business would be a hell of a lot healthier?
