Coming Attractions?

by Meza, Philip E.

• ISBN13: 9780804756600
• ISBN10: 0804756600
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-04-01
• Publisher: Stanford Business Books

Summary

Hollywood and Silicon Valley have long been uncomfortable bedfellows. Out of fear of pirating and lost profits, entertainment companies have historically resisted technological changes. Conversely, high-tech companies, more concerned with technological progress, have largely ignored the needs of the entertainment industry. Nevertheless, those products that we now take for granted, such as DVDs, MP3 players, and the Internet, are all due to the synergy of technology and entertainment. The switch to digital and web formats for entertainment represents huge potential market opportunities for both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. It has opened up new possibilities for entertainment and expanded the way content is created, distributed and consumed. Consider the phenomenon of YouTube and its wildly popular user-created content, or the ability to download movies and TV shows from sites such as iTunes and watch them on your iPod or computer, anytime and anywhere. The dual forces of consumer demand and rapidly changing content distribution are combining in new ways to create changes that will strike at the very foundations of the entertainment and technology industries. Depending upon how entertainment and technology companies respond, these changes can help them prosper or put them out of business. Media companies will have to become more like technology companies; and technology companies will need to change too. Because content creation, distribution and consumption are ever more tightly linked, Hollywood will need to understand what's happening in Silicon Valley and vice versa; changes in one industry will reverberate through the other. Some companies such as AOL and Time Warner have tried and failed (at least so far) to harness these forces, while a few companies such as Disney, Intel, and Google have recently taken the initial steps. But many more companies wait, afraid to change but knowing they cannot conduct business as usual. With an insider's knowledge, researcher and consultant, Philip Meza insightfully clarifies what managers and investors in media and technology companies will need to do in order to successfully navigate today's tricky environment. Coming Attractions? Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment discusses the history of the key forces driving the relationship between entertainment and technology today and into the future.

Author Biography

Philip E. Meza is a research associate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, he consults in strategy and has worked with firms including Bain & Company and his own clients in a variety of industries in the United States, Australia, and South Africa. He is the coauthor of Strategic Dynamics: Concepts and Cases (2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Complements in competitors' clothing	p. 3
The nature of information	p. 4
Overview of the bumpy road to prosperity	p. 7
The plan of this book	p. 9
Why today's threats and opportunities are so profound	p. 11
Innovation	p. 15
Surfing the Hertzian wave : the early history of radio	p. 16
Marconi (and only Marconi) calling	p. 18
Voices in the air	p. 20
Voices carry : the early history of the recording industry	p. 25
Lights, camera, oligopoly : history of the film industry	p. 29
There's something on : history of the television industry	p. 30
E Unum Pluribus? : history of filesharing	p. 36
Ascension	p. 41
Tuning in to network effects	p. 42
More than wireless telegraphy : radio becomes an industry	p. 43
Making money with radio	p. 49
Jockeying the discs : records become popular	p. 50
Your best entertainment : movies become big business	p. 54
Then there were three : the television industry	p. 58
It's good to share? : the emergence of peer-to-peer services	p. 60
Fear	p. 67
The Sonny Bono law : I got you babe for another twenty years	p. 68
The law needn't be an ass : a positive role for legislation	p. 71
For home use only : the battle between radio and music	p. 75
Big screen versus small : the studio system joins together against television	p. 80
The Boston strangler? : movie studios and television fear the VCR	p. 83
Refusing to face the music : disrupting the record companies	p. 85
Prosperity	p. 91
Gold records : the golden age of radio - for recording companies	p. 95
Television saves the studios	p. 96
Videos and VCRs : a cash machine for studios	p. 99
Happier bedfellows : content-technology cooperation	p. 102
The music industry post-Napster	p. 104
Conclusion	p. 113
Where the money will be : the power of complements and the risks of collision	p. 117
Convergence or collision?	p. 118
Honey, I shrunk the value proposition	p. 120
Let's get horizontal	p. 122
Linking to prosperity : the 2 percent solution	p. 124
Rules for success : company-level view	p. 126
Rules for success : industry-level view	p. 128
The forces shaping the future of entertainment	p. 131
Tools of resistance : patents and copyrights	p. 141
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