He's not suggesting Apple is a threat to the movie industry, he's suggesting that a the complete lack of competition and options for digital distribution is the threat. There's a huge difference.
What I truly don't understand is how on earth media companies STILL haven't got their act together to sort this out. Why is iTunes still the only digital store of any note?
I think it's completely erroneous to suggest iTunes has harmed music. Music companies make money from iTunes sales. They pay Apple their cut, but that cut isn't being paid to Walmart or Amazon or HMV etc., they also don't have physical media costs.
I wish these companies would stop moaning about a perfectly legitimate enterprise like iTunes and do something about it if they hate it so much. The last time I looked, Apple don't make movies. The world doesn't owe you a living!
This is one of the most inane statements I've seen for a long time. Apple is the leader in distributing movies electronically (along with, perhaps, Netflix). Without Apple, there'd be a lot LESS electronic distribution than there is now. Just how is Apple hindering them from distributing their catalogs? Has this executive not learned of the Internet? Apple doesn't own or control the Internet. Then there's Amazon. Netflix. Walmart (or did they drop theirs?). Google. Seems like every month or so, someone else has emerged to take on Apple in this arena.
I would love to see this exec explain how Apple is hindering distribution. I would also laugh my head off if Apple actually publicly confronts him because of his stupidity.
I agree. Unless Apple demanded and received exclusivity, Apple is not hindering wider distribution. And if there was increased distribution of such movies with more vendors, that increased competition might actually hurt the studios because prices would tend to fall. And even if the above poster is correct and the exec is decrying the lack of digital distribution options, I think that's ridiculous as well. There's Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Sony's service as well as all the VOD services provided by the cable and satellite providers. My recently acquired TV (as well as my BD player and receiver) are all net connected and they provide a wide array of services, from those mentioned above to rent or purchase movies from. And you know what? Apple is not even among them. If anything, the wide array of services available is overwhelming to the average consumer, although certainly a consumer could have accounts with only one or two.
An argument could also be made that the ever-shrinking windows and wider distribution, while helping the studios' cash flow in the short term (and it also reduces some marketing costs), hurts them in the long term because it turns their movies into commodities. IMO, the current very short theatrical windows are going to slowly kill the movie theatres over the long term and without the movie theatres, movies will become "direct to video' disasters. Also, since they tend to now release to non-pay Cable and to DVD/Blu-ray at the same time, they're also hurting physical sales because my experience is that many times when I'm considering purchasing a movie on BD, I've just seen it on cable and therefore, don't bother with the purchase.
And when this Miramax exec talks about "parity in the marketplace", he is coming dangerously close (IMO) to implying price fixing.
BlueRay is a disc and HDMI is a device connection.
Perhaps you mean 1080p vs 720p?
1080 is gonna be about +4 times the file size of 720 and definitely not a 4x improvement in quality.
And it depends on the source. If the original is not recorded in 1080/HD, then there will be no quality gain, just a larger download.
Disney and others do a lot of digital work on movies to bring them up to blu ray standards when releasing on blu ray. the picture/sound quality won't be as good as a new release but it's way better than the original movie
True, many of his comments support your statement. If there's one thing that every Hollywood exec knows about Apple, it's that "They killed the music industry.... but they won't kill us".
Apple killed the music industry only indirectly. It's not the concept of iTunes or the 99 cent downloads that's killed the music industry. It's the fact that the industry has changed from an album model back to a singles model. (And one could argue that Apple saved the music industry from services like Napster, in which most people weren't paying for anything.) Singles were viable in the 1950s and early 1960s because an act would go into a studio and record three songs in a single session. They'd be mixed (if they weren't mixed live) in a few days and the record would be released within a week or two. Today, artists screw around in multiple studios with multiple producers, recording and mastering engineers and take a year to record the equivalent of an album (but sold as singles). That's not sustainable economically when you're only selling a single. And as a result, the music business is half of its 1999 peak and that's not even including inflation. And remember, a single (albeit a two-sided single) listed in the mid-1960s for $1 and generally sold at retail for 66 cents. That's $4.61 in 2011 dollars. And yet we're still buying singles (online) for a dollar.
Back in the progressive rock era, the music labels didn't suddenly decide to try and sell more albums -- consumers wanted those albums because artists were producing quality as well as album concepts. Singles largely became the province of 12-year-old girls and people who still listened to top-40 AM radio as opposed to the album oriented stations on FM. (Which brings up another issue which is that the deregulation of radio and the conglomerate "fast food" radio that has resulted has also helped kill the music industry. Music radio used to drive tremendous sales. Now hardly anyone listens to it.)
The way the music industry can turn this around is to develop artists who are good enough to make an entire album interesting.
But having said that, I would maintain that services like Pandora are actually a bigger threat to the industry than services like Apple's. At least you're still paying by the track with Apple.
What's even more disgusting is that he waited for Steve Jobs to pass away before he gathered the balls to speak his mind. What an asshole.
You're assuming a lot, I think you need to gather the facts before making such a bold assumption. This story was posted before news of Job's death broke, so I highly doubt your accusation is true.
The biggest threat to movie industry in my view is the movie industry itself. There seems to be more and more movie companies popping up everyday, giving us more and more movies. More movies means the money gets divied up between more movies or movie companies.
As well, I've noticed that movies are going to DVD faster which means they go to the movie channel on TV faster where they can be watched for FREE. Yes, I can actually watch your movie for FREE guys!
There are more movie channels which also hurt the movie industry.
Apple iTunes hurting the movie industry? Yeah, right! If nothing it's helping them by giving everyone easier access. And the only reason no-one can compete with Apple is that no-one can seem to get the same big catalogue as them. As Pokemon says it best, "You have to catch them all!". You need to get all the movies you can in your catalogue.
The problems of the American entertainment industry have nothing to do with communications technology and everything to do with their their product. They've very little to offer beyond a hyper-conservative, formulaic, rehash of 20th century clichés, sensationally degraded beyond recognition in a futile attempt to inject novelty into what has long since become as tediously uniform as the dripping of a leaky faucet. Both the film and music industries have been aesthetically, intellectually, artistically, ethically, and spiritually bankrupt for so long that it's financial failure is a consummation devoutly to be wished. They're parasitic, sapping the vitality out of an entire culture by depriving it of art, which - all bombast aside - is a basic human need up there with food, companionship, and a reasonably safe place to sleep.
Their obsession with short-term profits and form over content has finally caught up with them. Their market now treats their products and their producers with all the respect due disposable trash. Given that the primary goal of the industry is duping people into paying to be targets for advertising, stealing their product, giving it no more than the 30 seconds of attention it deserves, throwing it away, and forgetting about it is not just the only sane approach to it, but a decidedly moral one.
After all, what would we call someone who avidly purchased a $25 bag of potato chips and treated it as haute cuisine? A chump.
I agree to some extent. There is a lot of garbage out there.
Add to that the copycatism. No Strings Attached comes out and a year later, it's Friends with Benefits. Of course, this isn't recent - It's a Bug's Life comes out and a year later, it's whatever the silly copy was called. There is too much tendency to simply copy successful movies.
Then there's the issue of cost. If I take my daughter to see a movie and get drinks and popcorn, we're out nearly $30. Even the discount theaters (with their more limited selection) will set me back $15 for the two of us. For that price, I'm perfectly happy to wait 6 months and watch it on Netflix.
That said, there are occasionally good movies. Avatar was exceptional by almost any standard. If you like the genre, I really enjoyed The Blind Side. No Strings Attached was pretty good, again, if that's the type of movie you like.
I think the problem comes down to the movie theaters never understanding the concept of supply and demand. They have a philosophy of "If you film it, they will come". There seems to be more focus on getting lots of movies out there rather than spending the time, energy, and money releasing a smaller number of very good movies.
Of course, that problem is completely internal to the industry. They can't blame it on Apple or anyone else. Until they learn to focus on quality rather than quantity, their situation isn't going to improve. (BTW, my own view is that the music industry had some of the same problems. Even if piracy hadn't been a problem, I suspect that the music industry would have eventually faced the same problems. The fact that it's much cheaper to make a movie slowed the process down, but didn't stop it).
[...] "Apple is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can't then influence packaging, merchandising, all the things that are vital," Lang said. "As the movie business we have to be very cognizant of that." [...]
Apple dominates the music industry, but they got there the hard way. By building the best infrastructure and products and by winning consumer mindshare one person at a time. Not by competing unfairly or by acting in an anti-competitive way.
And what insight did Apple gain to help them design the best infrastructure and products? One of Apple's greatest strengths as a competitor is the ability to analyze another company's business model. Or an entire industry's business model. They analyzed the music industry, understood the old business model, and designed a better business model. Apple, and Steve in particular, knew the music industry better than anyone else, including old-school insiders. And they built an entirely new and better music industry.
Looking at the old-school cronyism, archaic distribution model, and technological backwardness in the movie industry, I can see why Mr. Lang is concerned. Mr. Lang knows that Apple has big plans for movies and TV. That's the next area for disruptive innovation, Apple style, and there's not much Mr. Lang or anyone else in Hollywood can do about it.
iTunes paved the way for Apple's evolution over the past decade. iCloud and media distribution to home and mobile will pave the way for Apple's evolution over the next decade. Movies and TV are going to be a major part of that. It's inevitable.
Has anyone else noticed who is conspicuously missing from the rolls of those acknowledging Steve Job's passing? As near as I can there hasn't been a word, let a lone a tribute from Disney/Pixar, the other company that Steve Jobs saved/founded. Even if the Disney Corporation (which also owns Miramax) is too arrogant to admit they needed "saving," or that the Pixar purchase was a Hail Mary pass, Steve Jobs was still their largest stockholder (right?). The silence from Emeryville/Anaheim/Burbank would seem to be in poor taste.
Apple killed the music industry only indirectly. It's not the concept of iTunes or the 99 cent downloads that's killed the music industry. It's the fact that the industry has changed from an album model back to a singles model.
You are spot on here. Which is why I think that comparing what happened to the music industry to the movie industry is dumb. Unless Apple starts selling scenes from movies, people are going to buy the whole movie.
Keeping Apple out of the game won't increase competition, it will decrease it. But the studios know that. Who would want to buy a blu-ray DVD for $35 if you could stream the movie for a couple of dollars? What would happen is that the price would have to drop on physical media to the point where having the disc was worth the extra money.
When these companies complain that something won't be good for competition they are full of crap. Competition lowers prices. How do lower prices help studios? They don't. He is right though that iTunes would cause them to lose control, but only of control to charge ridiculous prices for mediocre products.
Has anyone else noticed who is conspicuously missing from the rolls of those acknowledging Steve Job's passing? As near as I can there hasn't been a word, let a lone a tribute from Disney/Pixar, the other company that Steve Jobs saved/founded. Even if the Disney Corporation (which also owns Miramax) is too arrogant to admit they needed "saving," or that the Pixar purchase was a Hail Mary pass, Steve Jobs was still their largest stockholder (right?). The silence from Emeryville/Anaheim/Burbank would seem to be in poor taste.
Someone already pointed out earlier in this thread that Disney sold Miramax last year. But the Disney response is conspicuously absent, they don't even need to say anything about needing saving to throw some accolades onto the pile, though ESPN is 80% owned by Disney. But if bitter rivals join in the game, Disney should but its name in the ring.
Comments
He's not suggesting Apple is a threat to the movie industry, he's suggesting that a the complete lack of competition and options for digital distribution is the threat. There's a huge difference.
What I truly don't understand is how on earth media companies STILL haven't got their act together to sort this out. Why is iTunes still the only digital store of any note?
I think it's completely erroneous to suggest iTunes has harmed music. Music companies make money from iTunes sales. They pay Apple their cut, but that cut isn't being paid to Walmart or Amazon or HMV etc., they also don't have physical media costs.
I wish these companies would stop moaning about a perfectly legitimate enterprise like iTunes and do something about it if they hate it so much. The last time I looked, Apple don't make movies. The world doesn't owe you a living!
This is one of the most inane statements I've seen for a long time. Apple is the leader in distributing movies electronically (along with, perhaps, Netflix). Without Apple, there'd be a lot LESS electronic distribution than there is now. Just how is Apple hindering them from distributing their catalogs? Has this executive not learned of the Internet? Apple doesn't own or control the Internet. Then there's Amazon. Netflix. Walmart (or did they drop theirs?). Google. Seems like every month or so, someone else has emerged to take on Apple in this arena.
I would love to see this exec explain how Apple is hindering distribution. I would also laugh my head off if Apple actually publicly confronts him because of his stupidity.
I agree. Unless Apple demanded and received exclusivity, Apple is not hindering wider distribution. And if there was increased distribution of such movies with more vendors, that increased competition might actually hurt the studios because prices would tend to fall. And even if the above poster is correct and the exec is decrying the lack of digital distribution options, I think that's ridiculous as well. There's Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Sony's service as well as all the VOD services provided by the cable and satellite providers. My recently acquired TV (as well as my BD player and receiver) are all net connected and they provide a wide array of services, from those mentioned above to rent or purchase movies from. And you know what? Apple is not even among them. If anything, the wide array of services available is overwhelming to the average consumer, although certainly a consumer could have accounts with only one or two.
An argument could also be made that the ever-shrinking windows and wider distribution, while helping the studios' cash flow in the short term (and it also reduces some marketing costs), hurts them in the long term because it turns their movies into commodities. IMO, the current very short theatrical windows are going to slowly kill the movie theatres over the long term and without the movie theatres, movies will become "direct to video' disasters. Also, since they tend to now release to non-pay Cable and to DVD/Blu-ray at the same time, they're also hurting physical sales because my experience is that many times when I'm considering purchasing a movie on BD, I've just seen it on cable and therefore, don't bother with the purchase.
And when this Miramax exec talks about "parity in the marketplace", he is coming dangerously close (IMO) to implying price fixing.
???
BlueRay is a disc and HDMI is a device connection.
Perhaps you mean 1080p vs 720p?
1080 is gonna be about +4 times the file size of 720 and definitely not a 4x improvement in quality.
And it depends on the source. If the original is not recorded in 1080/HD, then there will be no quality gain, just a larger download.
Disney and others do a lot of digital work on movies to bring them up to blu ray standards when releasing on blu ray. the picture/sound quality won't be as good as a new release but it's way better than the original movie
True, many of his comments support your statement. If there's one thing that every Hollywood exec knows about Apple, it's that "They killed the music industry.... but they won't kill us".
Apple killed the music industry only indirectly. It's not the concept of iTunes or the 99 cent downloads that's killed the music industry. It's the fact that the industry has changed from an album model back to a singles model. (And one could argue that Apple saved the music industry from services like Napster, in which most people weren't paying for anything.) Singles were viable in the 1950s and early 1960s because an act would go into a studio and record three songs in a single session. They'd be mixed (if they weren't mixed live) in a few days and the record would be released within a week or two. Today, artists screw around in multiple studios with multiple producers, recording and mastering engineers and take a year to record the equivalent of an album (but sold as singles). That's not sustainable economically when you're only selling a single. And as a result, the music business is half of its 1999 peak and that's not even including inflation. And remember, a single (albeit a two-sided single) listed in the mid-1960s for $1 and generally sold at retail for 66 cents. That's $4.61 in 2011 dollars. And yet we're still buying singles (online) for a dollar.
Back in the progressive rock era, the music labels didn't suddenly decide to try and sell more albums -- consumers wanted those albums because artists were producing quality as well as album concepts. Singles largely became the province of 12-year-old girls and people who still listened to top-40 AM radio as opposed to the album oriented stations on FM. (Which brings up another issue which is that the deregulation of radio and the conglomerate "fast food" radio that has resulted has also helped kill the music industry. Music radio used to drive tremendous sales. Now hardly anyone listens to it.)
The way the music industry can turn this around is to develop artists who are good enough to make an entire album interesting.
But having said that, I would maintain that services like Pandora are actually a bigger threat to the industry than services like Apple's. At least you're still paying by the track with Apple.
What's even more disgusting is that he waited for Steve Jobs to pass away before he gathered the balls to speak his mind. What an asshole.
You're assuming a lot, I think you need to gather the facts before making such a bold assumption. This story was posted before news of Job's death broke, so I highly doubt your accusation is true.
As well, I've noticed that movies are going to DVD faster which means they go to the movie channel on TV faster where they can be watched for FREE. Yes, I can actually watch your movie for FREE guys!
There are more movie channels which also hurt the movie industry.
Apple iTunes hurting the movie industry? Yeah, right! If nothing it's helping them by giving everyone easier access. And the only reason no-one can compete with Apple is that no-one can seem to get the same big catalogue as them. As Pokemon says it best, "You have to catch them all!". You need to get all the movies you can in your catalogue.
the movie channel on TV faster where they can be watched for FREE. Yes, I can actually watch your movie for FREE guys!
Well, you're paying for the 'movie TV channel'.
You need to get all the movies you can in your catalogue.
But I'm pickier than most. I've seen far more than this; these are the ones I felt were cinematically worth allocating my (currently) limited space.
The problems of the American entertainment industry have nothing to do with communications technology and everything to do with their their product. They've very little to offer beyond a hyper-conservative, formulaic, rehash of 20th century clichés, sensationally degraded beyond recognition in a futile attempt to inject novelty into what has long since become as tediously uniform as the dripping of a leaky faucet. Both the film and music industries have been aesthetically, intellectually, artistically, ethically, and spiritually bankrupt for so long that it's financial failure is a consummation devoutly to be wished. They're parasitic, sapping the vitality out of an entire culture by depriving it of art, which - all bombast aside - is a basic human need up there with food, companionship, and a reasonably safe place to sleep.
Their obsession with short-term profits and form over content has finally caught up with them. Their market now treats their products and their producers with all the respect due disposable trash. Given that the primary goal of the industry is duping people into paying to be targets for advertising, stealing their product, giving it no more than the 30 seconds of attention it deserves, throwing it away, and forgetting about it is not just the only sane approach to it, but a decidedly moral one.
After all, what would we call someone who avidly purchased a $25 bag of potato chips and treated it as haute cuisine? A chump.
I agree to some extent. There is a lot of garbage out there.
Add to that the copycatism. No Strings Attached comes out and a year later, it's Friends with Benefits. Of course, this isn't recent - It's a Bug's Life comes out and a year later, it's whatever the silly copy was called. There is too much tendency to simply copy successful movies.
Then there's the issue of cost. If I take my daughter to see a movie and get drinks and popcorn, we're out nearly $30. Even the discount theaters (with their more limited selection) will set me back $15 for the two of us. For that price, I'm perfectly happy to wait 6 months and watch it on Netflix.
That said, there are occasionally good movies. Avatar was exceptional by almost any standard. If you like the genre, I really enjoyed The Blind Side. No Strings Attached was pretty good, again, if that's the type of movie you like.
I think the problem comes down to the movie theaters never understanding the concept of supply and demand. They have a philosophy of "If you film it, they will come". There seems to be more focus on getting lots of movies out there rather than spending the time, energy, and money releasing a smaller number of very good movies.
Of course, that problem is completely internal to the industry. They can't blame it on Apple or anyone else. Until they learn to focus on quality rather than quantity, their situation isn't going to improve. (BTW, my own view is that the music industry had some of the same problems. Even if piracy hadn't been a problem, I suspect that the music industry would have eventually faced the same problems. The fact that it's much cheaper to make a movie slowed the process down, but didn't stop it).
[...] "Apple is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can't then influence packaging, merchandising, all the things that are vital," Lang said. "As the movie business we have to be very cognizant of that." [...]
Apple dominates the music industry, but they got there the hard way. By building the best infrastructure and products and by winning consumer mindshare one person at a time. Not by competing unfairly or by acting in an anti-competitive way.
And what insight did Apple gain to help them design the best infrastructure and products? One of Apple's greatest strengths as a competitor is the ability to analyze another company's business model. Or an entire industry's business model. They analyzed the music industry, understood the old business model, and designed a better business model. Apple, and Steve in particular, knew the music industry better than anyone else, including old-school insiders. And they built an entirely new and better music industry.
Looking at the old-school cronyism, archaic distribution model, and technological backwardness in the movie industry, I can see why Mr. Lang is concerned. Mr. Lang knows that Apple has big plans for movies and TV. That's the next area for disruptive innovation, Apple style, and there's not much Mr. Lang or anyone else in Hollywood can do about it.
iTunes paved the way for Apple's evolution over the past decade. iCloud and media distribution to home and mobile will pave the way for Apple's evolution over the next decade. Movies and TV are going to be a major part of that. It's inevitable.
Apple killed the music industry only indirectly. It's not the concept of iTunes or the 99 cent downloads that's killed the music industry. It's the fact that the industry has changed from an album model back to a singles model.
You are spot on here. Which is why I think that comparing what happened to the music industry to the movie industry is dumb. Unless Apple starts selling scenes from movies, people are going to buy the whole movie.
Keeping Apple out of the game won't increase competition, it will decrease it. But the studios know that. Who would want to buy a blu-ray DVD for $35 if you could stream the movie for a couple of dollars? What would happen is that the price would have to drop on physical media to the point where having the disc was worth the extra money.
When these companies complain that something won't be good for competition they are full of crap. Competition lowers prices. How do lower prices help studios? They don't. He is right though that iTunes would cause them to lose control, but only of control to charge ridiculous prices for mediocre products.
Has anyone else noticed who is conspicuously missing from the rolls of those acknowledging Steve Job's passing? As near as I can there hasn't been a word, let a lone a tribute from Disney/Pixar, the other company that Steve Jobs saved/founded. Even if the Disney Corporation (which also owns Miramax) is too arrogant to admit they needed "saving," or that the Pixar purchase was a Hail Mary pass, Steve Jobs was still their largest stockholder (right?). The silence from Emeryville/Anaheim/Burbank would seem to be in poor taste.
Someone already pointed out earlier in this thread that Disney sold Miramax last year. But the Disney response is conspicuously absent, they don't even need to say anything about needing saving to throw some accolades onto the pile, though ESPN is 80% owned by Disney. But if bitter rivals join in the game, Disney should but its name in the ring.