The Age of the Mass Market Is Over
Hard as it is to believe, we are better than a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century. Yet most of the entertainment industry still defines success in terms of mass appeal. Whole industries revolve around the assumption that prosperity means attracting the largest possible audience.
Not only is that definition obsolete, it has been for years. What’s changing now is people are finally starting to notice.
This month, the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery sparked another round of debate about the future of Hollywood. Studio execs argue that larger companies are better equipped to compete under rapidly changing conditions. Meanwhile, critics of the merger point out that combining struggling giants could just as well create a bigger struggling giant.
What both sides miss is that their preoccupation with whether Hollywood is too big glosses over the fact that the age of entertainment conglomerates is over.
It’s easy to overlook that the mass market isn’t a necessary constant dictated by economic laws. Instead, universal shared culture resulted from quirks of twentieth-century technology.
When Americans had three television networks, a handful of national magazines, and one local newspaper, practically everyone consumed the same culture. If you wanted to reach millions of people, you only had a few routes, each of which was gated. Whoever controlled those artificial bottlenecks reigned as de facto tastemakers and kingmakers.
It sounds facile to say, but the internet really did change that equation. At first, many assumed the worldwide web would just give us the same institutions, but bigger.
Read the full post on Substack.
The deep lore of Tolkien. The brutal action of Berserk!
