Why would they? Not everything has to be any of these things. Sometimes you can just produce decent entertainment and that's fine, as long as you don't claim to be breaking new ground.
Maybe they would, but I'm sure a bunch of people would also be wondering why they waste their time on putting on a show instead of fixing their core business :P
This typically comes from chasing after higher sources of recognition/prestige/clout, and it's especially prone to happen when you have a background in the "traditional" industry and saw the whole endeavor of producing Internet content as a stepping stone. "Finally, I can run a proper show with real production values", they say. Emulating an idol is the goal, but there's often no particular benchmark guiding it and their creative role suddenly shifts towards managerial elements, so the final product is invariably worse than whatever they did before. Plus the impulse to do it is pretty much always an indulgence running counter to market trends.
They could probably make money there, but it would take time and energy to do, doesn’t seem like it helps their brand, and seems generally a bit afield for them.
Then again, they started their own TV studio, so what do know.
I don't get it- you are right, this isn't part of their core competency. And, that's why they were smart to only buy one show, with two big names attached to it. They are reducing their risk and seeing if they can play in the content game. If yes, they will likely buy a few more shows and grow that competency.
That era ended a long time ago; nobody on a percentage basis watches legacy media any more, almost everyone clicked off. The microscopic fraction of the population who still watch, actually LIKE the five permitted media stories. So changing what's produced would be very risky; might lose the very last few viewers, might not gain any return viewers.
The author is trying to do "startup strategy" in an industry that's in "shutdown mode", that's a tough one.
Are you sure you are not judging by the standards of mass market broadcast production vs what these companies seem to be doing in terms of producing content for smaller, more targeted but still profitable target audiences?
In the broadcast world, the relevant "inventory" (ie. TV Network Channel time slot) is very limited and precious. Therefore only content with production quality that appeals to a large enough audience to attract advertisers gets greenlit.
In the past year, my family has binge watched "blown away" a glass blowing competition, 3 series about weird/exotic vacation rentals/hotels, 2 children's mysteries serises, standup comedy by specific comediens, a series about music production and composition styles of different artists and a series about design. All of these above ran multiple seasons, so clearly there's sufficient profitable viewership for multiple seasons to be made even though it's very likely NONE of them would make mainstream broadcast TV. We didn't see any of the "big/popular" shows.
The only reason we have cable TV connection at all now is when my parents or in-laws visit, they get very bored without their.regular TV channels.
Or just aiming for the lowest common denominator - and taking out anything that might be controversial in any of their global markets. (Take out sexuality for the American market, and take out politics for China).
Now would be a great time to spin off the entertainment division to let it grow without undue interference and focus on being a good, boring, corporate-centric company.
Looking on it as more than entertainment seems to be a bad idea though, as it seems to have about as much to do with good investment practices as 'The Apprentice' has to do with good hiring practices.
I wonder if you could use something like this as a platform to promote an open source project. Might be worth doing just to annoy them when asked what sort of IP protection you have on the idea you are telling them about.
No, it's in their best interest to make the show entertaining. Sometimes that means they make you look silly so you're the comic relief. They have the advantage of editing the show after the pitch so they can decide how valuable you are to them.
They decide what they value more: equity in your company or making you look silly for the sake of the show.
I don't think channel going back 15 years is good example for new creators. I would expect them to keep somewhat relevant as they have been trough enough cycles to keep some audience always.
Not sure entirely what niche they are aiming for. I don't think there is space in todays media environment for something in between superb depth (LWN) or breadth (Phoronix).
I think a lot of the remarks here are missing the sheer genius of the move. I've worked with some truly zany people in this space who were as close to living cartoons as anyone else I've met.
Not that I'd ever hire any of them, but they were good for sheer shock value- exactly what reality shows deliver.
As long as you cast enough of these personalities, aimed for a production value in excess of the capitalization of the startup, and weren't expecting anything but a spectacular failure in the business sense, then there's no reason this wouldn't be moderately successful as an entertainment venture.
Apple, Quibi, Amazon are trying to plan the perfect breakout show.
It doesn’t work like that. A lot of the networks’s and Netflix’s breakout shows were not planned to be great. That’s why they just greenlight a bunch of random pilots and see what sticks to the wall.
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