October 05, 2002
Hollywood vs. Internet

Doc Searls reports on the Digital Hollywood Conference last week, in The Real Battle.

He quotes one of the speakers, describing the problem everyone in my business (broadcast and cable television production) is dealing with:

"Let's look at the larger skew. There are today 380 digital television networks. Ten years ago there was one Discovery Channel. Today there are fourteen Discovery Channels. Now you cannot tell me there is fourteen times as much advertising money flowing into Discovery Channels. They have fourteen times as much programming costs, fourteen times as much satellite transponder costs.... This is a train wreck. This cannot sustain itself..."

No kidding. Except, there aren't 14 times the programming costs. There's less and less available to produce each program, with ever greater production quality required to cut through the haze of channels and get the show watched.

Yes, I'm a burnout, but it's not just me. I built my career making shows faster and cheaper, sometimes smarter. But we're hitting the wall.

Posted by Dave at October 05, 2002 04:29 PM