I just wanted to watch an HBO production a week ago, and Google directed me to Hulu.“A Hulu subscription? Maybe,” I said, but then I learned that it wasn’t enough to have a Hulu subscription to watch the content I was looking for, but I also had to have the HBO Max package.
So my Journey ended because I decided to rent the content separately instead of subscribing to any platform.
And today I came across with one of my favorite media guru John Keeling‘s LinkedIn post. A Lucas Shaw article published in Bloomberg…
I’m so glad HBO gave up its 5 million users while creating the strategy of its own and free universe of content. Even it seems a damaging investment in the short term, but it will be very profitable in long term! As a media professional of 20+ years, I can say: “big but right decision, Andy Forsell”
Years ago, I said this at a conference:
The middlemen between the “product” and the “consumer” will disappear, very soon.
We can also construct this sentence as
The middlemen between the “content” and the “audience” will disappear, very soon.
The existence of the digital world has revealed a great area of freedom, and everyone who wants to enter into this world has taken their first steps by some middlemen, vendors, carriers, distributors, agents, agencies, platforms, and many more. Today, however, it’s time for intermediaries to bid farewell to their leadership role in the content industry. This farewell is fast approaching – in fact, it has arrived.
Thousands of digital structures and gurus, who did not exist in the production or creation processes, expanded their businesses and their commissions, by using sales and technology knowledge during their intermediation held between content creator and audiences. Producers also got their share of this wealth, who can reject a brand-new source of income that did not exist before? No one. But now it’s the time of change in profit allocation
In this enrichment process, of course, the intermediaries also gained information about the product/content they offered to the user.
But we have now come to the end of this era. You ask why?
Till today, producers and creators also learned what actions they have to take in terms of technology when they stayed one-on-one with the consumer.
A salesman with data knowledge knew very well how to profit from the requested product in the digital world.
Today
Content producers also have this knowledge (or related manpower), and producers are also very experienced in selling their content in all ways, both old and new. However, the heroes of the digital world are not very good at selling face-to-face because they are not competent in the content they deliver to the consumer. After all, no need for any creativity, talent, or experience, for reaching the audience data.
Jennifer Lopez and Rihanna, who sell products to millions of IG followers, must have a reason for these preferences, right?
Whoever creates the value gets the biggest slice of the pie. For many years, at the end of every chaos, the equation has been solved like this.
On the other hand, thanks should be given to all platforms that immerse viewers in content and enable them to learn the difference between good and bad. Otherwise, HBO wouldn’t have been able to be so bold.
