Are you really surprised that entertainment executives fail to understand the Long Tail, and are pretty much giving a huge advantage to Netflix?
I find the jabs incredibly amusing. Shows who exactly is in the know, and who isn't...
I find the jabs incredibly amusing. Shows who exactly is in the know, and who isn't...
It is amusing to watch the entertainment execs flail around. But apparently, it's not necessarily because they are incompetent. Ironically, it may be their actual competence in their current positions that prevents them from seeing the value in the long tail (or anything else made possible by new technology).
They have long made money a certain way. Now, a new method (internet streaming) is coming along. They would like to use it, but they can't. They can't because it doesn't satisfy their current customers.
Netflix is happy to pay for and take the deep catalog. They are new and therefore able take the risk in creating the new market.
I can't give the theory a good showing myself in a brief comment. But if you haven't read the book yet - go do it now. It's amazing how stuff he wrote ten years ago about older companies sounds like a history lesson to me today about Microsoft, Google, et al.
The unnamed Disney exec is glad to have an additional market for their library titles. They sound a good bit more clued in than anyone here is giving them credit for. (Though they clearly are fighting tooth and nail to keep consumers from realizing how poor the existing distribution channels are.)