Content Is Not King

Content in not king, unless your first name is Stephen.

In an article in the October issue of The Atlantic titled "The Moguls' New Clothes" authors Bruce Greenwald, Jonathan Knee, and Ava Seave write:

Media executives lament what the Web has done to their business. But that complaint conveniently ignores the dismal financial performance of most media conglomerates in the pre-digital era. Until media companies are willing to get back to basics and jettison the flawed thinking that has guided them over the past two decades, they will continue to disappoint their shareholders.

To support their claim, the authors list four myths that have led media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone to disappoint shareholders: 1) Growth Is Good, 2) The Gospel of Going Global, 3) Content Is King, and 4) The Cult of Convergence.

The myth that most resonated with me was that content is king. Here's what Greenwald, Knee, and Seave write about this myth:

But content cannot be king, because the talent required to create it cannot provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Even if the ability to produce compelling content perennially inhered in certain individuals or groups, there is no efficient way to monetize this skill for the benefit of shareholders rather than for the producers themselves. Big media companies may consistently exploit some creative artists, but over time, that exploitation does not produce superior corporate value. For starters, where the media companies have executives clever enough to consistently exploit the talent, these executives are typically clever enough to ensure that they are paid enough to reflect that skill. Furthermore, when particular brands seem like sure things, as in the case of a popular film franchise, more often than not a well-represented creative artist essential to that level of certainty ends up appropriating much of that value.

Furthermore, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to such a proliferation of content out in the long tail that it is now virtually infinite. To say that "content is king" in today's world is like saying "a grain of sand is precious."

There are gems mixed in with the infinite content, but the conundrum is finding those jewels. In the age of the Web, the puzzle has been solved by Google, which has become the largest media company in the world by being an aggregator of content, not an originator, a creator of content.

Content is no longer king, marketing and search are the rulers now. If excellent content ruled, the best movies would be the most popular. But the movies that sell the most tickets are the ones that are marketed the most heavily, regardless of their artistic merit. And as the authors of The Atlantic article point out, established, branded creative artists such as actors and directors end up appropriating much of the value of a hit movie, leaving the corporate conglomerates with barely enough profit to cover the fixed costs of a bloated distribution and marketing bureaucracy.

If creative types such as actors, directors or writers -- Stephen King, for example -- establish a well-known personal brand, they don't need the media moguls' swollen bureaucracies to exploit them: they are in the driver's seat. See Stephen King's slick and robust Web site for a model of effective self-marketing, self-distribution, and an artist capturing the majority of his content's value.

You can see from Stephen's Web site that content is king only if it's capitalized.

 

Follow Charles Warner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CHWarner

Comments

[S1m0n]

Why does the fact that talent can't be monetised make content not king? Shurely, the reason that stars and creators have the leverage to demand a greater share of profit is precisely because the content they produce is the piece that's not easily duplicated. King, in other words.

[3fingerbrown]

A good post with lots to think about, but I'd like a clarification on one point.

I can understand how a Stephen King can deliver his product to his consumers via the web without depending on some bloated media conglomerate. Writing is cheap: all you need is a pad, a pencil, a fertile imagination, and some talent. (And if you're Dan Brown, you don't even need the talent.)

But you go on to say actors and directors could use the same model. How would that work? The most famous and beloved actor or director in the world still needs a script, actors, sets, costumes, film, cameras, all kinds of expensive lights and gadgets, and a small army of technicians and support staff to get their work to theaters or TV. Even a half-hour sitcom or a quality straight-to-web film is expensive to produce. Are you suggesting that film and TV stars self-finance their own projects? Why would they take any financial risk when there are still companies, swollen bureaucracies and all, willing to take the risk for them?

I see how a brand-name writer or musician can go it alone, but I don't see how Scorsese or Depp or Streep could do the same in the style to which they are accustomed.

[usna73]

Charles, I hope that this imprtant and excellent article is read by many more of us.

I agree with your conclusions, but please allow me to slightly alter your caption without attacking your premise to read: "Content would be king." Trouble is that it is vanishing. Content could still be king, if only we'd recognize that most of the cultural fractionilization of the web will kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

Much like our economic descent from being a culture which makes things, the absence of creative content will act as a decelerator of the very genius which it previously spawned.

The race to the bottom is not the one you want to win.

[CharlesWarner - Huffpost Blogger]

You make an important point, that with the proliferation of content, the bad content often drives out the good, but when there is virtually an infinite amount of content, it means there is also a lot more excellent content -- the problem is finding it. One way I've found that helps me keep up, just a little, is to use Google Fast Flip to scan pages of the content that I often access -- try it.

[jhNY]

Anybody whose income has been tied to the value of content has known that 'content is king' is a myth now that the frame has become more important than the picture-- and in part because the owners of the frame also are more than occcasionally the owners of content-- which they chose not to protect from freeloaders.

See the 'synergy' that arose out of AOL's merger with Time Warner-- The cable division's Roadrunner service sold itself to consumers on the basis of fast download times (downloading fast makes the process of transferring of music files more practical and attractive)during the same period AOL never got around to establishing a music outlet for Time Warner product. Then AOL-Time Warner sold off its music division, which, not incedibly, has been mostly struggling ever since, along with all other music companies.

The problem with good content is rarity of producer, which as the quote in your story outlines, causes a problematically large portion of the profit to go to the producer of same, and not to the conveyor. But that's the problem for the conveyor, who though talentless, is capable of intense self-regard and an over-tendency to grab that which by rights belongs to others.

[CharlesWarner - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, it's harder to build an individual content brand like Steven King has or certain popular musical artists, but once they do, they can capture more of the value of their brand than the producers or distributors can. Thanks for a very intelligent comment and thanks for the authors of The Atlantic piece for clarifying the issue.