The Medium
Member Mailing: The New Economics of "General Entertainment"
In Q1 2023, PARQOR will be focusing on four trends. This essay focuses on "The definition of scarcity is continuously evolving away from linear. What happens next?”
The PARQOR Private Slack now live!
The plan is to test out a few different use cases over the next few months. The primary objectives are to figure out better ways to:
- Share articles that are must-read and related to PARQOR's Key Trends (#parqor-essays channel)
- Create an environment for real-time discussion around "seismic shifts", major market headlines and earnings calls in the media marketplace ; and
- Build the foundations of a community for quarterly in-person events and education.
So, we are starting simple and small. If you are on the free tier and are interested in testing it with me, please respond to this email.
The day after Disney CEO Robert Iger expressed his concern about owning and distributing “general entertainment”, The Watch podcast (from The Ringer) had a terrific discussion on the topic between host Andy Greenwald and journalist and author Chuck Klosterman. The question they dove into was, what is “general entertainment” in 2023?
The term refers to something Iger told investors:
“general entertainment is generally undifferentiated as opposed to our core franchises and our brands which because of their differentiation and their quality have delivered higher returns for us over the years. So we think we have an opportunity to, through more aggressive curation, to reduce some of our costs in the general entertainment side and in general, in volume.”
Some of this was in response to moves under his successor/predecessor Bob Chapek to expand general entertainment content production. But it also reflected how both Disney’s Hulu and Star services rely heavily on a content library acquired via the 21st Century Fox merger. Hulu, in particular, also has relied on NBCUniversal and Discovery content, to date (and both have recently pulled content in favor of their own service).
Key Takeaway
Disney CEO Robert Iger’s rethink of “general entertainment” effectively asks: “Why are we spending billions to compete with and lose share to free services with a similar value proposition?”
Total words: 1,000
Total time reading: 4 minutes
Klosterman and Greenwald discussed how Paramount-owned-FAST Pluto TV had become “general entertainment” with channels of content that had been traditionally more niche general entertainment, like its Slow TV channel. Pluto describes that channel as “the marathon watching experience about ...