|
Traditional media is not dead. For example, Hollywood will spend $210 billion this year creating films, but production crews in LA experienced a 30-year low in production hours worked. Why? Because household streaming is up 70% over the last four years. The difference is the Creator Economy. For those that haven't heard the term, "Creator Economy" are the folks creating videos for YouTube and other social media outlets. When we think of social media, it is easy to imagine influencers wandering around talking to their mobile phones.
While true, it misses the larger picture. Leading YouTube channels like Mr. Beast and Dhar Mann run studios that employ hundreds of people. (Recently, Mr. Beast published a production guide, which I summarized here.) YouTube paid over $70 billion to creators over the last three years.
Michael Cioni, in his speech to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, stressed that the difference between traditional media and the Creator Economy is autonomy. Creators have total control over the videos they create. They are rewriting the rules of connecting with an audience, production values (both good and bad), distribution, and business models.
The old ways are not dying, but diminishing. There is not enough work in traditional media for all of us, according to Michael. Rather than give up, learn from the Creator Economy. Find ways to partner with it, enable your clients to move into it, and adopt the new rules that allow you to grow into new markets and thrive.
Storytelling is still alive and making money - but how we tell those stories is changing. We already know everything we need to know technically to move into this new world. Shifting our point of view, as Apple likes to say, requires us to "Think different." Though that is much easier to say than to do.
Until next Monday, stay healthy, stay hopeful and edit well.
| 
