Strike.TV: a good example for changing only if and when the pain gets big enough?

Peter Hyoguchi, the CEO of Strike.TV has posted an interesting write-up on AlwaysOn, here. The idea behind Strike.TV is to give the troubled screenwriters and their colleagues a place i.e. website where they can produce and show i.e. stream their own original shows. To quote Peter: "In total, Strike.TV has forty new web series created by the writers of The Office, The Daily Show, Die Hard, Child’s Play, Robot Chicken, Malcolm in the Middle, The Black Stallion, Star Trek, Top Gun, ...many, many more. To date, this is the largest collection of original Hollywood produced content ever created for an Internet audience". I checked this out a bit, and some compete.com stats on Strike.tv are here - obviously this is still very early - but I shall be watching! 

In any case, Peter's story made me think on another level: do we only really get going when the big is big enough? When the screenwriters went on strike did the pain-level finally increase sufficiently to actually allow or shall we say force people to make some of those changes we have been talking about since the rise of the Net and the Netscape IPO, to do things differently, and on their own. Would Strike.TV have happened if it hadn't been for the strike that fueled it, and all the pain that went with it? 

What does this tell us about Change - looks like disruption, and to some degree destruction, needs to happen before we are ready to make real changes. The pain pushes until the vision pulls - as Michael Beckwith says? If so I guess some of us could argue that right now a lot of change is gearing up, since there is a lot of pain around, given the current economic circumstances. Will this force us to reinvent, to actually let go of the old vine and seize new ones?  Let's hope so.

Here are some more quotes from AO and Peter Hyoguchi: "... 2007 was a perfect storm. New electronic inventions were unleashed setting off the largest tectonic shift Hollywood has ever known. Looking back at the history of motion pictures, there's nothing really to compare it to..Making movies has always been reserved for the very rich... At a hundred dollars a minute for 35 millimeter film, only the super elite can afford to make movies. Until now. Last year HD video cameras came out that equal the image quality of 35mm film cameras, instantly changing the cost of shooting movies from hundreds of thousand of dollars to just a few thousand. In 2007, inexpensive software was released which allows you to edit professional, high definition video on a laptop. Also last year, streaming HD video over the internet became virtually free. Without the need for millions of dollars to make and distribute professional quality movies, creators have instantly been given incredible freedom over their medium. We are witnessing the dawn of a Hollywood Renaissance..."

A brief comment on this last piece: probably more like the dawn of a movie-making renaissance since all these changes will probably mean that's is no longer about the location 'Hollywood' but the occupation 'Hollywood'? 

No matter what business we are in, I think we can learn something from what Peter says, further:  "Strike.TV represents the opportunity for creators in Hollywood...to tell their stories totally unchanged and unaltered. Their vision exactly realized for the audience. A first in Hollywood history. And because they don't have to make back X amount to pay the huge costs the networks and studios need to cover their vast overhead, these shows can be as odd-ball, strange and as niche as they want to be. They don't have to make millions of dollars. They don't have to appeal to Everyone. A smaller audience who really digs it is enough to support the show."  Another argument for the rise of niche-markets in the future, indeed - the Longtail, take 2 (pain-enforced)? But how long will this take?

"And the coolest thing of all, Strike.TV's shows are totally free. No cable bill. No movie ticket. No video rental charge. Strike.TV works in a new economic model that is still being tested. Ad-supported entertainment". This is a very, very important point: free or feels like free to the user / viewer / listener, but still creating revenues for the creator. The scary part is that we are soooooo early in the process of generating those new revenues - this cook-book isn't written yet, and there are even very few recipes.

But Peter goes on to explain: "The reality is there's nothing new about it. Shows in the Golden Age of TV like Kraft Television Theater, Ford Theater, Goodyear Television Playhouse and others were funded directly from Madison Avenue. History repeats itself. Right now, the Internet is where television was before it’s first hit. Cynics were saying TV is a fad. A gimmick. There's no money to be made in TV. Then Howdy Doody became the first smash hit and a whole economy was created around TV. We now are standing on ground zero of the Golden Age of the Internet. We are pre-Howdy Doody. And of course there will be a hit Internet show. And that show will be a Global phenomenon. A new economy will be created around original web shows. There will be modest niche hits and out-of-the-ballpark mega-hit shows..."

Not much too add here - this is right on-the-money. Now let's get to work - and not just for TV content.

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