Same thing happened in the record business.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 Distribution widened and the traditional players lost their stronghold, lost their power.\u00c2\u00a0 The paradigm shifted and the big money turned out to be in the niches as opposed to playing to the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not exactly.\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa is still wildly profitable, like "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 But losing at the mainstream game is incredibly costly.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, it costs a fortune to play.\u00c2\u00a0 You ramp up to reach everybody and if you don’t??\u00c2\u00a0 Notice how fast they cancel network TV shows these days? Isn’t that a reason not to go with the major label?\u00c2\u00a0 If they spend all that money and don’t have quick success, they’re going to move on to another one of their expensive priorities.<\/p>\n
Used to be there were six major labels.\u00c2\u00a0 And they controlled the distribution channel.\u00c2\u00a0 You might be able to get into the store as an indie, but getting paid was hell.\u00c2\u00a0 Just look at the four majors today.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re owed gazillions by retailers.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are fewer of them and they’ve got less power than ever before.\u00c2\u00a0 Blame digital.\u00c2\u00a0 An iTunes world where any punter can make a deal with Tunecore and offer their wares for sale.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe nobody buys them, but enough people are buying enough niche product to depress sales of mainstream product.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, network TV ratings were hammered by cable.<\/p>\n
Does Conan O’Brien reach as many people as before?\u00c2\u00a0 No way.\u00c2\u00a0 Does he make as much money as before?\u00c2\u00a0 No way.\u00c2\u00a0 But do his fans care that he’s on TBS instead of NBC?\u00c2\u00a0 No way!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only oldsters who feel locked to the networks at the end of the dial. Younger people see the whole cable universe as a smorgasbord, there’s no difference between channel 28 and channel 2.\u00c2\u00a0 And oldsters are enamored of HBO, oftentimes in HD way up the spectrum.\u00c2\u00a0 So, a low channel number means something, but no longer everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like price and positioning at Best Buy and Wal-Mart still mean something, but less, especially in a digital universe.<\/p>\n
Think we’ve got chaos in the TV world?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s even worse in music.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a limit with TV, Comcast, et al, can only beam out so many channels, in music, the universe is unlimited.<\/p>\n
But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are stars on cable.\u00c2\u00a0 To the younger generation, they are Letterman and Leno.\u00c2\u00a0 And who inherits the championship belt when the two L’s retire?\u00c2\u00a0 Mmm…\u00c2\u00a0 Seems like the Comedy Channel guys.<\/p>\n
And the Comedy Channel guys win online.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got the best linkability.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the problem with network, especially Leno, they play it safe.\u00c2\u00a0 That doesn’t work too well online, where edgy and honest rules.\u00c2\u00a0 Conan can use the Web to truly spread his brand.\u00c2\u00a0 His great pieces can get exposure online to the point where the TV is gravy.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, many people don’t even watch Stewart and Colbert at their appointed times.\u00c2\u00a0 They catch the rerun the next day, or DVR it.\u00c2\u00a0 Television is a changed universe.\u00c2\u00a0 And so is music.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Same thing happened in the record business.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?\u00c2\u00a0 Distribution widened and the traditional players lost their stronghold, lost their power.\u00c2\u00a0 The paradigm shifted and the big money turned out to be in the niches as opposed to playing to the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, not exactly.\u00c2\u00a0 GaGa is still wildly profitable, like "American Idol".\u00c2\u00a0 But losing at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Jt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}