This Week’s Insights: The physical toll of being a fan… What kind of diversity are we missing?… Want people to watch something long?… Saudi Arabia builds a new audience for entertainment… How Amazon figures out if it’s got a hit.
- The High Physical Cost Of Being A Fan: Researchers have studied sports fans to determine the impact wins and losses have on them. After a loss fans eat less healthy food, are less productive at work, and increase their risks of heart attacks. Wins boost testosterone levels and increase aggression.
- If The Arts Are So Diverse, Where Are All The Conservatives? One of the most-discussed issues in the arts over the past year has been diversity. But what about political diversity? When we in the arts champion “diversity, equity and inclusion,” do we mean everyone? Do we mean conservatives? Religiously, culturally or otherwise? Are conservative artists not identifying as artists because the arts are a predominantly liberal sector?
- Audience – It’s All About The Expectations: No, attention spans haven’t got shorter. People post on social media how quickly they watched an entire season, not unlike the days when young readers stayed up all night to buy, and then read, each instalment of Harry Potter. They binge-watch hours of streaming shows when they find a series they like. “Yet when they hear of spending all day in a theatre, the average person will look at you as if you’ve gone mad. Six hours of Peer Gynt, even with intermissions and a dinner break? They react as if you’re a cultural masochist, enduring theatre like some David Blaine stunt.” Maybe it’s the format? Or the expectations? Or the experience?
- Saudi Arabia Starts To Build An Entertainment Industry From Scratch: The kingdom hasn’t even had a movie theatre in decades. No theatre, no concerts. Now, all of a sudden official policy has been reversed and there are comic book festivals, dance performances, concerts and monster truck rallies. The kingdom needs to build an ‘entire ecosystem’ for arts, tourism and entertainment, and has budgeted $64 billion for it over the next decade. And that means building an audience too…
- How Do You Measure Whether Your Show’s A Hit? Here’s The Odd Way Amazon Does It: Just measuring views doesn’t do it. It’s when you view. Amazon pays most attention to the series or show you watch first after you sign up for the streaming service. It figures that whatever that show is is the reason you were motivated to sign up. The “acquisition cost” for each show is fascinating. While The Man in the High Castle, for instance, had one of the lowest costs per first stream after its first season, $63, that number jumped up to a whopping $829 following the production of Season Two. Mozart in the Jungle season two, despite having one of the studio’s lowest budgets at $37 million, cost $581 per first stream. Feminist cult favorite Good Girls Revolt was singled out as the highest cost per stream: $1,560 against its $81 million season one budget. The show got the axe after one season and just 1.6 million viewers.
Leave a Reply