The Entertainment Industry Seeking to Kill Innovation Due to Control Only?

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Writers on April 16, 2011  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

Mike Masnick at Techdirt has written an interesting article on control and why the entertainment industry is seeking to kill innovation which is helping it to adapt to new dynamics.

One paragraph out of the article states:

The simplistic answer is that the entertainment industry is all about control, and they freak out about these success stories (that make them money) because they realize they're losing control. I think it's a little more complex than that, but not too much. The established entertainment business, for many, many years, has operated under the principle of being the gatekeeper to their industry. They've (incorrectly) believed that their value and the key to their business is in being the gatekeeper. But the amazing thing about the internet is that it knocks down fences and walls with ease. 

I can't help thinking back to the article which I read last week on the growing/exceeding performance of SBS Broadcasting where one of their sr. executives stated that people are often thinking that new developments are killing off in total the existing business, whilst this is hardly true in any case.SBS Broadcasting reported for instance a 10% increase in TV ad revenue. Besides this, he reported that tv ads amidst TV content is not letting people switch to other channels. 

However I think this is culturally dependant up to a degree and certainly not applicable on any market, the second -rather "simplistic"- explenation is that people's instinctive reaction is that the new will destroy (in a negative manner) the existing. 

This is an interesting article on technology and growth from a "creative destruction" point of view, which is also referred in this article. It's not only technology that pushes transformation, societal developments are the second one. Think of Generation C, the ever-connected consumer (of content), the Everywhere concept, the entertainment industry needs go along with this type of consumer.

The only control that the entertainment  industry has, is curating and creating great content where consumers can identify with.