Screen Play

Whereas my personal Los Angeles community of technological early adopters tends to be driven to buy the coolest, most cutting-edge gadgets, we often forget (and I'm the most guilty here) that a huge chunk of the population is driven more by a good value. It could be a function of generation, socioeconomic status, the overall economy, or simply priorities, but while I expected to immediately put digital deals in place with my new film library, I've been forced to recognize that I must first focus on selling this audience entertainment in the way that it wants it right now. That just happens to be on the uber-traditional DVD.

As digital natives immerse themselves in emerging entertainment channels-and concurrently force old ones to change in order to meet their expectations-they are reshaping the way people are entertained, as well as how they entertain. In the natives' world, the tools of content creation available through these emerging platforms are free (or cheap) and readily accessible. And they have been that way since a native first thumbed his name into a smartphone.

For Hollywood studios, rigidly defined distribution windows have traditionally dictated the sequential release of a movie: first exclusively in theaters, then on DVD, then on premium cable, and so forth. Previously pleasant relationships are being strained as theater owners try to maintain their place in the chain and studios try to bleed out as many bucks as are left in Walmart's dying (but still substantial) DVD revenues. As these battles distract the traditional Hollywood players, new platforms are quickly sneaking past the guards.

One day last October, we looked up and-unbelievably-the Rangers had made it to the hallowed World Series. These underdogs' day had come: They were finally the big dogs. Today, the same has come true with content. For most of my life, content has been limited to a handful of sources: a radio, a book, a TV. But now, content has become limitless in the ways that it dominates our lives.

I was part of a conversation the other day with the CEO of a niche animation company. He explained the company's digital strategy, which was to drive audiences solely to its website because, as he boasted, once your living room television talks to the internet, people will navigate to his company's site and it'll have "twice as much value." This presented me with the opportunity to hypothesize on what actually might happen when your TV does merge with the web.

Though we're still very much in the Wild West of digital content, what we see today often feels like history repeating itself. This notion must have triggered considerable thought among audience members because I spent the rest of the day being stopped in the halls and reminded of more and more instances in which this was proving true. And while it's safe to say that I'm no history scholar, it is clear that the people who forget history are doomed to repeat it.