Traditional network television programming has always followed the same script: executives approve a pilot, order a trial number of episodes, and broadcast them, expecting viewers to watch a given show on their television sets at the same time every week. But then came Netflix's House of Cards. Netflix gauged the show's potential from data it had gathered about subscribers' preferences, ordered two seasons without seeing a pilot, and uploaded the first thirteen episodes all at once for viewers to watch whenever they wanted on the devices of their choice. In this book, Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, experts on entertainment analytics, show how the success of House of Cards upended the film and TV industries―and how companies like Amazon and Apple are changing the rules in other entertainment industries, notably publishing and music. We're living through a period of unprecedented technological disruption in the entertainment industries. Just about everything is affected: pricing, production, distribution, piracy. Smith and Telang discuss niche products and the long tail, product differentiation, price discrimination, and incentives for users not to steal content. To survive and succeed, businesses have to adapt rapidly and creatively. Smith and Telang explain how. How can companies discover who their customers are, what they want, and how much they are willing to pay for it? Data. The entertainment industries, must learn to play a little “moneyball.” The bottom line: follow the data.
Author(s): Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2016
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 229
Tags: Streaming, Sharing, Stealing, Big Data, Entertainment
Contents......Page 9
Acknowledgments......Page 11
Personal Acknowledgments......Page 12
I Good Times, Bad Times......Page 15
1 House of Cards......Page 17
2 Back in Time......Page 31
3 For a Few Dollars More......Page 45
Extracting Value......Page 50
Enabling Information Discovery......Page 56
Controlling Competition......Page 59
4 The Perfect Storm......Page 61
II Changes......Page 75
5 Blockbusters and the Long Tail......Page 77
6 Raised on Robbery......Page 93
Does piracy harm producers?......Page 96
Does piracy harm consumers?......Page 100
Appendix......Page 112
7 Power to the People......Page 117
Artists......Page 119
Consumers......Page 125
Business Partners......Page 126
Distributors......Page 128
8 Revenge of the Nerds......Page 131
Consumer Search Costs and Switching Costs......Page 142
Platform Lock-in......Page 143
Information Bundling......Page 144
Platform Development......Page 145
9 Moneyball......Page 147
You can’t use data to make creative decisions. If you do, you’ll interfere with the creative process and destroy the business.......Page 162
These companies rely on us for content. If they get too powerful, we’ll just stop licensing our content to them.......Page 164
All we have to do is open our own streaming channels, and we can get all the customer-level data we want.......Page 165
III A New Hope......Page 167
10 Pride and Prejudice......Page 169
Product......Page 179
Place......Page 181
Price......Page 182
Promotion......Page 184
11 The Show Must Go On......Page 189
Chapter 1......Page 201
Chapter 2......Page 202
Chapter 3......Page 204
Chapter 4......Page 205
Chapter 5......Page 206
Chapter 6......Page 207
Chapter 7......Page 210
Chapter 8......Page 213
Chapter 9......Page 216
Chapter 10......Page 218
Chapter 11......Page 220
Index......Page 223
