3 My 2¢ September 2024 MAIN OFFICES 216 EAST 75TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10021 TEL: (212) 288-3933 WWW.VIDEOAGEINTERNATIONAL.COM WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG VIALE ABRUZZI 30 20131 MILAN, ITALY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DOM SERAFINI EDITORIAL TEAM SARA ALESSI (NY) BILL BRIOUX (CANADA) ENZO CHIARULLO (ITALY) LEAH HOCHBAUM ROSNER (NY) SUSAN HORNIK (L.A.) CAROLINE INTERTAGLIA (FRANCE) OMAR MENDEZ (ARGENTINA) LUIS POLANCO (NY) MIKE REYNOLDS (L.A.) MARIA ZUPPELLO (BRAZIL) PUBLISHER MONICA GORGHETTO BUSINESS OFFICE LEN FINKEL LEGAL OFFICE STEVE SCHIFFMAN WEB MANAGER BRUNO MARRACINO DESIGN/LAYOUT CLAUDIO MATTIONI, CARMINE RASPAOLO © TV TRADE MEDIA INC. 2024 The phrase muttered by some studio content sales executive when asked to sell programs that they consider to be of poor quality, is: “If they want me to watch it, I have to be paid extra.” This expression came to mind when looking at the opening weekend boxoffice revenue for the R-rated film Deadpool & Wolverine, which reached $205 million in the U.S. and an additional $233 million overseas — huge returns for a movie that I and some studio sales executives would never voluntarily watch. However, the Disney executive who greenlit the project probably received a bonus for the winning decision. It also proved that legacy media is still alive. But it might even be considered well if only the industry were to become accustomed to lower overall returns, and didn’t always depend on big box office results. Those in the C suites might have to deal with legacy media entities like boutique operations with reduced revenues. These include international content sales, cable, broadcast TV, and cinema. When combined they could still represent good business. The idea of doing away with low-performing divisions (making them “no core businesses”) in order to concentrate on high-revenue operations will ultimately prove disastrous for legacy media. Legacy media cannot compete or be placed on the same level of deep-pocketed tech companies worth trillions whose reps are happy to use content to sell other products. For studios, as well as many public legacy media companies, in order to lift their share prices the growth has to be reconsidered and resized. Their competitive edge has to be creativity and production of popular content — not trying to find a fix mimicking the tech companies. The 2024 Paris Olympics demonstrated the risk for a legacy event trying to change tradition and has been criticized for many so-called “innovations,” including the shallow depths of the swimming pools, the poor food served at the Olympic Village, the supposed parody of the Last Supper during the opening ceremony, and using the polluted waters of the river Seine for swimmers. Tradition made Hollywood all about capital efficiency. Today, in order to follow tech companies, the studios abandoned the first rule of Hollywood: Never spend your own money. In the past, entertainment companies ran their businesses as creative enterprises leveraging technological means. Today, they want to manage creative businesses inside utility businesses, but it will not work well for legacy media. And examples were provided when Japan’s Matsushita bought Universal Studios and Spain’s Telefonica acquired Argentina’s Telefe. Neither of these worked out well. Their businesses were different, and their cultures were like distant relatives growing up in different countries. The bad examples continued with AOL acquiring Time Warner, and persisted with AT&T acquiring Warner Bros. Today’s tech companies that are out-moneying legacy media work outside the TV industry’s traditional MO. They don’t advertise in the trades. They don’t support trade shows. They don’t license their productions. And they don’t provide residuals to the talents and creative people. I might be wrong, but I’m still betting on the Chinese military strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu, who said, “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” This emphasizes the importance of patience, strategy, and the passage of time in achieving success. After all, the river is already littered with the bodies of Matsushita, AOL, Telefonica, and AT&T. I’ve been a supporter of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount from the very beginning, but I’m not convinced that Skydance founder and CEO David Ellison’s strategy of transforming Paramount into a “media and tech hybrid” is the right way to go for a legacy entity. Dom Serafini After surviving 100-plus years, legacy media is in trouble because it was led down the wrong path by deep-pocketed tech companies. “Let me introduce myself: I’m the new chairman of the board.” The studios abandoned the first rule of Hollywood: Never spend your own money.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5