Media Consolidation and the Illusion of Choice

Here is a graphic posted on frugaldad.com that illustrates the effect of media consolidation:


Source: Frugal dad

There are political and economic consequences and implications to consider but for now focus on this: in the wake of such sweeping consolidation is it any wonder that movie theaters  are crammed with prequels, sequels, remakes, and reboots? Oversized media corporations have equivalently oversized appetites for profits. In fact, because they are so big they require regular blockbuster successes in order to survive and it is having a deleterious impact on American cinema. Studios have been creatively stagnant by recycling stories, characters, and formulas that have proven box office success but at the risk of diluting those properties and at the cost of ignoring original content. They have also managed to block out competition from independent and international cinema in major theater chains, booking the latest blockbuster on multiple screens at the local cineplex. Hollywood has also colluded with (or strong-armed) theater owners to inflate the ticket price with gimmicks like 3-D even while consumers have largely rejected the format. Meanwhile, studios frequently repackage older films for the home video market with special editions and extended cuts, even when those additions or enhancements actually detract from the original film or distort the intentions of the filmmaker.

For now these pursuits have worked. Glancing at the list of the highest grossing films of all time, fourteen of the top twenty pictures (and seventy-three of the top one hundred) were released since 2000. But with both production and marketing costs spiraling out of control, this model just isn’t sustainable. When blockbuster movies hit (The Avengers) they are very profitable but when they miss (Battleship, John Carter) they can be disastrous. If the film industry remains as consolidated as it is and as cannibalistic of its own successes as it has been, there may be a summer season in the not too distant future in which audiences simply refuse to go to the theater, at least not in the numbers that studios and theater owners require, and that could bring the whole system crashing down on itself.