This Week’s Insights: More audience or BETTER audience?… A major Paris theatre plays Robin Hood… How the new EU copyright law will change the way we see the internet… Fox/Disney merger sets up epic battle for Hollywood’s audience… Too many streaming choices?
- The Quality Versus Quantity Debate: Is a bigger audience better than a better audience? It matters, because we reward those with bigger audiences. Quantity is what supports business models that support cultural products. Increasingly, though, quantity has become more and more meaningless. Seriously, a billion views? What does that even mean? And yet, the algorithms that steer what it is we pay attention to are attuned to quantity, not quality. Shelly Palmer: “The quantity-vs.-quality debate is now meaningless. Quality is in the eyes of the beholder. We may yearn for a narrative to explain how and why, but that’s not how the digital world works. The algorithmic curation that controls what you do or do not see on every social media company’s newsfeed isn’t programmed to provide you with an emotionally satisfying narrative; it is continuously tuned to keep you engaged and clicking or tapping. So if your key metric is engagement or completed views, “5 Ways to Bounce a Quarter Off of Kim Kardashian’s Butt” or a video of a horrible disaster will always outperform less clickbaity titles or subjects.”
- A Paris Theatre With A “Robin Hood” Mission: Paris’ Chatelet Theatre reopens with a redefined mission aimed at trying to be more at the center of the city’s life. It means addressing some of the city’s biggest problems. And it means inserting artists into the community. “One of [its] first acts will be to introduce a scheme for theatregoers to buy extra tickets for those who cannot afford them. … The theatre will also offer 10,000 €10 tickets a year to the under-25s, and there are also plans to take artists out into the community, particularly the more gritty areas of the city and its banlieues, to work with local groups, schools and colleges and encourage wider participation in the theatre and its productions.”
- The EU’s New Copyright Overhaul Will Change How The Internet Works: It requires platforms to filter out copyrighted material and it limits what can be copied. Under the law, internet platforms will be liable for content that users upload, a burden that will fall heavily on some of the most popular online services. Years in the making, the EU Copyright Directive has been heavily debated and divisive among politicians, as well as a cause of concern for the tech industry. One part of the proposal in particular — Article 13, which will govern the way copyrighted content is uploaded to the internet — has many in the tech community throwing their hands up in despair.
- Why The Fox/Disney Matters To Consumers: The battle lines are now set. Disney is now in a powerful position to compete with Netflix. And Disney and Netflix offer the two clearest visions of Hollywood’s future. The former is a media company that’s as old-fashioned as they come, trying to make movies that will pull audiences en masse to the theater. The latter is a tech company that’s largely uninterested in the theater business but has won subscriber loyalty by offering a wealth of viewing options. As the cinema business continues to evolve, perhaps only the biggest films will survive as in-theater experiences, with streaming becoming an equally profitable venue.
- Too Many Choices! Apple’s got a new streaming service. There’s Hulu. And Netflix. And BBC. And CBS. Now if you want to watch the hot new shows you have to subscribe to whichever service sells it. It’s a bit overwhelming. And it can get expensive. For the first time in many years, there’s growth in online piracy of film and TV. Some experts say it may be because fans are getting sick of paying for yet another streaming service.
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