Explaining the Business of Entertainment
Entertainment topics simple and complex explored in-depth.
A few years back, I was at a party—more like a family get together—and the subject turned to TV. Everyone at the party started raving about the latest The Big Bang Theory. Then raving about other CBS shows. As an effete, Millennial, west coast liberal, with New York values, I
My dad didn’t like the ending of Empire Strikes Back. His felt that it didn’t finish the story, it left off with a, “See you next movie!” conclusion. That irritated him. He hasn’t seen Avengers: Infinity War yet, so you know he won’t like that. My article yesterday probably did
You want to know a secret? The underlying secret to all media and entertainment? The peak behind the curtain that explains all you see in film, TV, music and more? Here it is. “Logarithmically distributed returns.” Once you learn it you can’t forget it. Like how to do a magic
(This is Part VII of a multi-part series answering the question: “How Much Money Did Disney Make on the Lucasfilm deal?” Previous sections are here: Part I: Introduction & “The Time Value of Money Explained” Appendix: Feature Film Finances Explained! Part II: Star Wars Movie Revenue So Far Part III:
To put it simply—why not just answer the question in the title early for once?—customers love (some) subscriptions because the consumer surplus is tremendous! Yesterday’s post really captured why customer hate some companies, so let’s explain the few times when customers love subscriptions. Let’s be clear: in the digital age,
Here’s a list of companies. Think about how you feel about them: Netflix. Spotify. Dollar Shave Club. Here’s another list of companies. Think about how you feel about them: Comcast. Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable). Verizon. AT&T. Sprint. My guess is you love the first set of companies; you hate
My favorite Chuck Klosterman rant is in his book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs about the phrase “apples to oranges”. In short, is anything actually more similar than apples and oranges? How is that a synonym for difference? He finishes his rant with the line, “in every meaningful way, they’re
If you want to know why I started this website, just take a look at the furor unleashed on the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences when it announced (via Twitter!) that it would add a new category called “Achievement in Popular Film”. First came the questions: “How would
Was I too strong in calling this series, “Debunking the M&A Tidal Wave in Media and Entertainment?” I don’t think so. I want emphasize the “think” in that previous sentences. I’ve thought about this a lot. I mean, asked myself many, many, many times, “Wait, are you sure there won’t
One of the challenges of “big data” is that it is so…big. For any given subject, we have so many ways to measure things. I can pull one set of data to prove my point; you can take the same set of data and pull a different metric to prove