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Hollywood, Streaming and the Decline of the Hit Driven Business Model
People have been predicting the end of Hollywood as we know it for a long time. Talking pictures were first dismissed as a novelty, then eventually embraced. Television proved destabilizing for the studio system that preceded it. And now, Chris Moore, a veteran of the hit-driven Hollywood business model of the 80’s and 90’s is bemoaning an underlying shift in the business, driven by the popularity in part of streaming services and behavioral changes unleashed by the pandemic.
The concept of an arena
We have been trained to think of our economy as comprised of “industries” and within each industry competitive advantage meant that a firm did better than others that sell similar products and services. If that was ever true, and it’s not a bad place to start with a strategy analysis, in today’s environment the most significant competitor many players will strive to contend with may not even be in the same industry at all.
Instead, I’ve suggested that we can think of competitive arenas. Rather than the relatively closed spaces with clear rules of play that conventional strategizing suggest, I think of arenas more like open territory that different players are seeking to occupy — more like the Japanese game of “Go” than the more rule-based game of chess. In the case of competitive…
