Posted 5:24 PM by Gene

I wish I knew exactly how to rebut something like this. USAOKAY!!!!!'s crack technology writer insists the blockbuster is dead -- and then goes on to cite something called the 80-20 rule: "About 20% of the CDs or movies or other content account for 80% of revenue." (Shouldn't that be the 20-80 rule?) Those two tentpoles atop the B.O. combined have done $400 million in business thus far. That they might have done better owes to saturation marketing and the negative psychology it increasingly engenders, not technology. The recorded-sound biz suffers from the exact same problem as the movie biz -- a budding dearth of talent. Terrestrial radio not only shares recorded-sound's woes but has been thoroughly rotted by greedy consumer-products firms and their agents CHEAP CHANNEL and SUMNER, who know only two formulas: BAD and LOUD; sat radio and iPods were merely a response. Putting TV shows on video iPods may appeal to a small clique that must have every new toy but it has its inconveniences; what's a video iPod but a sexy version of a Casio LCD TV with a hard drive? And to those who say the problem isn't quality, how will a tiny bad picture improve bad TV? Moreover the book biz shows the utter futility of "niche marketing": more books, surely more niches, and fewer overall sales -- just like the recorded-sound biz, just like the arthouse-movie biz. Could it be we've lived so long with conventional media we're simply tired of it? Our thinker joins the growing chorus of hacks who must insist, out of sheer self-interest, it's not their show-biz brethren's fault.

(Via IWantMedia.com)