InteracTiVoty: "There Won't Be Another King of Pop" - Evan Young - MediaBizBlogger

By the time this post is published, the passing of Michael Jackson will be old news, on the time-scale of celebrity news. Some industry-related stories have discussed how in the brave new world of YouTube, Facebook, and the decline of traditional media, it will be impossible to create a star like Michael Jackson or the Beatles again. The days of half the nation watching the Ed Sullivan Show or the final episode of M*A*S*H are over. Audiences are too diffuse, the news and media cycle are frighteningly fast and fickle, the new economies of distribution don't provide the right incentives to develop artists, etc. There will be new stars of course, and new phenomena, but the cultural landscape will be quite different.

I was immediately interested in this meta-story, as the death of Michael Jackson threw many of the changes in the television industry (and media in general) into sharp relief. But the question I asked myself was, "Are these changes necessarily bad?"

In the days of fewer, bigger hits and more constrained distribution models, most of the value accrued to a few. If you were a small music act, your best chance for distribution was a major label record deal. It was difficult to get, but once you had one, the machinery of promotion and distribution was unmatched (for its time). Today, anyone can put out their own album. You can submit it to iTunes or another retailer. You can easily press your own CD or vinyl if you want. You can put up your own website and use social networks to promote yourself. Traditional labels and radio still have their role to play but there are a lot of other avenues for those who want to get their music out to a wide audience. It's harder to be a massive star, but musicians looking for a break or control over their own destiny have more opportunities than before.

This same scenario is playing out in the world of television and online video. From the Big 3 networks to 100 channels on analog cable, to 500+ channels plus VOD on digital cable, to millions of choices on the Internet, there are many more opportunities for new producers and programmers to distribute a show. And the metrics for success are different. True, it doesn't hurt to be #1 in your timeslot and for your desired demographic. But there are more ways to reach your audience than just through that first broadcast (or the broadcast syndication model). DVD revenues for TV shows (while declining now) are an additional revenue stream that is barely 10 years old. Online viewing and promotion, while still somewhat nascent, are a powerful way to engage and interact with the audience. The creators of Gunsmoke didn't have DVD or even VHS home video as an option to them. Michael Landon, in either his Little House on the Prairie or Highway to Heaven days, never had to do blog posts or film special outtakes for the web or the DVD BTS.

The loss of the entrenched few is the gain of many others. When we look at Susan Boyle, or the Filipino prisoners doing the "Thriller" dance moves, it's easy to say, "Well, that's a flash in the pan," and lament the disposable nature of our cultural tropes. But it's a flash in the pan that would not have been possible to experience on a mass scale 50 years ago. New media have not yet established any stars of lasting permanence. But it's really too early to tell.

In the end, sustained success for a musician, show or artist is based on how long one can be relevant to the audience, in combination with the patron(s), or sponsor (in modern terms). Previously, those opportunities were very limited. Michelangelo had the Medicis. Tchaikovsky had Nadezhda von Meck. Guiding Light had Procter & Gamble. The Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts had Texaco. In some cases the distributor can be effectively the patron. NBC paid dearly to keep successive seasons of Friends on the air. HBO did likewise for The Sopranos. The viewers were the beneficiaries of that patronage. We see that happening today in ways that some view as insidious, necessary or benign. Survivor contestants battle for a bag of Doritos. Liz Lemon drinks a lot of Snapple. PBS takes money from a variety of foundations. It has always been rare that an artist or show survives on the audience alone, for any sustained period of time.

My general feeling is that this change is for the better, because these opportunities for success are now open to more artists/programs on the one hand, and advertisers/networks/patrons on the other. If I have a new TV show, or even a new idea for a TV show, I don't have just three networks to pitch it to, I've got 500. I can even put it out myself on YouTube and generate some advance coverage and fan excitement to position myself better for a larger deal. I've got a lot more advertisers who I can think about partnering with, if that's the route I want to go. I can work directly with Amazon/CreateSpace if I want to self-publish and sell my content. Or, I can publish my TV show to TiVo on broadband, and people can set Season Pass™ for it and watch it on their TVs, and I don't even need to have a TV network deal.

To get back to Michael Jackson (briefly), there has been some lament that there will never be as big a star again. Perhaps that's true, inasmuch as he was a star of our time. But then again, Shakespeare's, Mozart's, and Leonardo da Vinci's works all surpassed their lifetimes and well into the 21^st century, and none of them had MTV or YouTube working for them. We'll only know the true extent of Michael Jackson's impact a couple more generations from now. We can be thankful today for having been graced by his talent, but we should be more thankful that our industries are changing to allow other talents to be discovered and supported in a multitude of ways. In the end we are all enriched (culturally or otherwise) for there being more choices, not less.

Evan Young is Director of Broadband Services at TiVo Inc.

Read all Evan’s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at InteracTiVoty - MediaBizBlogger.