It is done. Stick a fork in it. We are looking at the end of an era.
Hollywood is on the way out. This means actors, writers, directors, and executives are going away. It is a foregone conclusion.
Add to the pile most in cable news. They are history. Late night television. Likely going to meet the same result. And let us not forget ESPN, which is owned by the dumpster fire Disney.
Pull the plug and watch them go down the toilet.
How can I make these proclamations? After spending 25 years watching and monitoring technological trends, it becomes easier to spot what is happening. The end result is rather simple to predict; the timing near impossible.
In this article I will go through the demise of Hollywood along with the media.
Understanding Technology
There is no other way to say it:
-If you do not have some basic understanding of technological trends, then you have no clue what is taking place.
It is really that simple. In a world which is advancing so rapidly in terms of technology, one is a lost ship without being able to fully grasp the implications. Even then, foreseeing how things unfolds is still rather difficult. However, some things become very obvious, especially over the long term.
Technology is a growing animal, and a very hungry one at that. This decade along we are going to see a number of "retail apocalypses", i.e. industries totally upended by disruption. These forces cannot be stopped. The only choice is whether to believe they exist or wait until the carnage is too much to ignore.
Can anyone in the United States make the claim shopping malls are doing well? Did you see this coming around 2010? How about 2013 when I finally clued in? Or did you start to grasp it when the media began to talk about it in 2016 or 2017?
The point is the signs are there long before it is evident to the masses. We are closing in on the point where it is becoming evident for cable news, the media, and maybe even late night television.
Hollywood, on the other hand, is still hidden away.
That is what we will clear up.
The Overriding Technological Trend
We start with a basic premise: technology is advancing at a pace that is going to disrupt many professions and industries. This is especially true for AI. We are seeing the advancement charted in months, not years. It presents a situation where we will see a radically different product in 24 months.
That means the things that humans can do better than the applications is going to decline. When it comes to Hollywood, we basically are dealing with the ability to develop scripts, video, and distribute. The last one is decades old so we will only briefly touch upon that.
The other two are still in the primal stages. However, we are already seeing the numbers moving against Hollywood. The trend towards social video is in full swing. It is one that is going to mirror photography.
Eyeballs
Hollywood and the media were always about eyeballs. They understood the attention economy long before crypto (or Web3) was even a thought. The companies involved in these industries fully grasped the importance of gaining an audience. It was also a direct translation into dollars.
The attention economy was completely disrupted by the Internet. It also affected many industries to the point where the traditional companies are suffering.
One of the keys is we are dealing with abundance. Hence, let us look at photography.
Here is an industry which was completely obliterated by the Internet and smartphone. The combination of these two caused a massive explosion in the number of photos taken each year.
Let us look at this chart:
The number of phots went from around 600 billion in 2013 to around 1.75 trillion a decade later. This is expected to grow to 2 trillion by 2026 with a growth rate of 14.6% annually.
Smartphones made taking photos easy. Were these professional quality? Not even close. But they were good enough for grandma to see how her granddaughter is growing or the funny ways the cat sleeps.
With the Internet, people had an easy way to share the photos. Social media allows for the uploading of photos that can be shared with the world.
People are taking advantage of this. The success of Instagram is all we need to know.
This is a very important lesson for Hollywood and the media.
Video
Unfortunately, the numbers are a bit dated since Google doesn't seem to update them. However, we can still get an idea of what is going on. If anything, with the addition of other platforms such as Rumble, things are only growing.
The future is really nothing more than a game of numbers.
Here is what Hollywood produces:
Hollywood released about 15,000 hours of new TV episodes and films in the U.S. in 2022. Compare this to YouTube which creators upload 500 hours of content to YouTube each minute, or over 250 million hours per year (as of 2019 stats).
Certainly, we are not talking about the same thing. Hollywood produces feature length films along with top notch television shows. YouTube cannot compete with that.
Actually, when it comes to attention, it can.
Disruption occurs when a product is less expensive and available in great3r quantity, albeit with less quality. Over time, as the quality gets better, the gap closes as those who feel it is "good enough" and are more price sensitive.
Is this what is happening with YouTube and other social video platforms?
At the moment, perhaps not. But, based upon the numbers, if 0.01% of this to be competitive with Hollywood, then we are looking at a doubling of the annual output. This gets crazy if we see a .1% of the output accepted as a replacement for Hollywood, registering a 20x.
Of course, while this might not take place today, it is a given down the road.
Content Creation
The Internet forever chanced content distribution. We only have to look at the distribution of photos to see how this is true. It also applies to blogs, videos, podcasts, and anything else is digital.
What did not change a great deal is the tools available to content creators. Sure that was progress but it still took a certain degree of writing skills or graphic design to be able to produce top notch content. Basically, the masses could do okay stuff that couldn't compete.
That is all going to change. We are seeing the massive explosion of software. This is the downfall of Hollywood and the media.
When looking at film production, we have scripts, filming, editing, sound, and a host of other things that go into it. Then we have actors, crew, and directors who ensure it is pulled off. For more than a century, this is how it worked.
Today, there is software which will write a script for you. Then we have others that will design characters. Finally, there are applications which will turn all of this into video.
There are all the components.
The question is does this compete? At the moment, not even close. However, where will it be in two years? Some might believe nowhere near good enough to compete with humans. On this I disagree.
We have another factor to consider. There is work being done in each area of the process. Hence, as the video software improves, it is compounded is the scriptwriting gets better. Add in the ability to generate characters and we see massive improvement.
Does that mean it will be the best there is? Not necessarily. What it means is that, on the whole, the amount generated at an inexpensive price will saturate the market. Again, if only .01% of the video content out there is deemed acceptable as a replacement for Hollywood, it will take a huge chunk out of those companies.
Shift In Expectations
In a future article, we will show where Web3 enters the picture.
For now, we will close with the fact that expectations are declining in terms of high production content. The average person is not able to produce this and, quite frankly, might not get there for a long time.
That said, we see something more important rising. The need for high production content in the marketplace is less than it use to be. Just like grandma will love pics of the grandkids posted on Instagram as opposed to a professional photographer, the same is true for video. Even today, many will watch video game quality films that were designed by small companies nobody ever heard of. They are all over YouTube and generate a fair number of views.
These productions will only get better over the next few years.
High production was desired for decades because it was the only game in town. Today, that is not the case. If the content creation follows the same path as content distribution, which I believe it will, then we are dealing with something that is going to radically transform the entertainment industry.
How soon will this take place? That is the tricky part. Technology always advances faster than humans change. In fact, it often takes the removal of one generation before we see the societal shift. This is the case with the cable news channels. They are still in business because of the Baby Boomers. The Zoomers certainly aren't tuning in. Once enough of those people depart (die off), those channels will have a problem.
Ultimately, we can expect the market to be overrun with "decent quality production" video which will overwhelm everything. If you think things are bad now, just wait another few years.
This is how technology works. A few see it coming but most get run over by it. Again, take a look at the shopping mall and all the retail experts who were wrong on that one.
Hollywood as we know it is a fossil. It will be obliterated. Some companies will adapt but their market share will get much smaller.
After all, there was a time when "as General Motors went, so did the United States". That hasn't been the case in decades.