The Rise and Fall of the Hit

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  Originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail which is now  available at Amazon, penned this great piece in Wired about the rise and fall of hits.

If you are in the entertainment business, you need to read this.

Comments

[jackson]

Well I'm happy the era of N'Sync is over, but I don't think anybody 'wins' with the new model, sure here's more choice, but what about quality? Only the rich will be able to afford to record in the big rooms, which are closing because the labels can't keep them booked like they used to.

We will never see the likes of 'Dark Side' or 'Sgt Pepper' again.

[steven Kane]

i dont see this as a zero sum game.

while i agree the economics of the long tail are here and exciting, i dont see that this must mean the "death" of hit driven culture.

for one thing, i agree with jackson -- quality matters, and "harry potter" and "seinfeld" and "dark side of the moon" will out, and will win out.

second, just because people can do something doesn't mean they will do it.

blockbuster (while perhaps a now failing business) doesn't focus on selling new releases and hits because they want to, they do it because they have to -- video stores that boasted deep selection and readily available "niche" content quickly found themselves marginalized by the customer, who in the end really only wanted hits and new releases (a reality which blockbuster then made a core merchandising strategy.)

on a larger note, i pretty much yawn whenever i hear the "death" of anything giddily prophesized -- always a solid way to sell prognosticating books and magazines and personalities and TV, but rarely if ever actually true

[Nicholas]

the "Pirates" opening numbers, of course, are slightly inconvenient for Anderson's argument...

[Avner Ronen]

nice theory, but in reality hits are not going to go away.

now there is also a great platform for niche content to come out and for unknowns to get audience.

more power to consumers does not mean we all got smart and sophisticated, watching movies from poland, listening to indie music and talking about nitche near the virtual watercooler.