USA Today Cover Story Sparks Refute

UTAOnline made the cover of May 30th’s edition of USA Today. The article entitled “Amid rush to sign online talent, agencies ponder how to profit” broadly talks about the changing landscape of the entertainment industry. This article only touches on the surface of the subject but it is a great piece of press for our department (pictured below).

Last week, Hollywood insider blogger Nikki Finke posted an article written by “video game guru” Keith Boesky in reaction to the above USA Today article. At first glance, Keith appears to be attacking the major talent agencies’ approach to the online space. The article was originally titled “UTA, CAA, Endeavor Just Don’t Get It” before Nikki Finke changed it to the less pointed “Why Hollywood Agents Just Don’t Get It.” If you look past the intentionally incendiary opening, there is some quality insight. Below are some of his best points.

“By viewing the on line world through the lens of traditional media, the agencies are advocating unidirectional content for distribution via channels owned by other people and subsidized solely by advertising. During the original dot com days these same people acknowledged it was the people who made the shovels got rich during the gold rush, so why are the agencies making the shovel makers rich again? They are supplying the content upon which to build distribution channels, and they are ignoring the connections among the audience, as well as the pipe coming out of the home.

Value on-line is created by consumer engagement and community, not eyeballs alone. People are turning television off in droves…The winner in this market will be the one who figures out how to maximize consumer engagement and harness community. They will figure out how to make consumers use the technology to invite their friends to share an experience with them every day…

Some Valley companies are threatening to take this next step into content creation, but they will soon learn they are not as good with narrative as Hollywood. This is the place for the agency focus. I am not talking about a lunch box equivalent license grant to an on-line game. It is an implementation of a core IP, designed specifically for the media. This is, something people like Heroes’ Jesse Alexander and MIT’s Henry Jenkin refer to as “transmedia,” The IP exists independent of all media. Each media exploitation is tailor-made for the extant media. Rather than a Coen brothers video releasing on the Web and then being stitched together to show up on television. The Coen brothers IP would be interpreted by an ARG creator and turned into an on line experience, the Coen brothers would direct a film or television show, a novelist would write a book, a graphic novelist does a Manga or graphic novel, People magazine covers the production and more. Each element is unique and stands on its own, telling a different story, which points back to the core IP, thereby making the IP stronger and the consumer commitment deeper….

By no means are these the only options, but if they continue on their current path, the agents can rest assured their unidirectional content will be more entertaining than content created anywhere else, but they can also be assured they will be building networks owned by other people. They are painting themselves into the same corner they stand in today – all the content, none of the access.

If the agencies want to profit from the new opportunities, they have to stop thinking evolution and more revolution. Television is a solo experience. A show can build an audience, but it does not build a connected community, and with very few exceptions, the community has no impact on the show. The audience watches, and then shares around the water cooler the next day. The web is about community. Real time community. I can feel impotent in real life, I don’t need my computer tell me I have to sit and listen to what someone else has to say. My computer empowers me and let’s me join in, the entertainment on it should as well.”

~ by barbash on June 16, 2008.