Distribution Revolution is a collection of interviews with leading film and TV professionals concerning the many ways that digital delivery systems are transforming the entertainment business. These interviews provide lively insider accounts from studio executives, distribution professionals, and creative talent of the tumultuous transformation of film and TV in the digital era. The first section features interviews with top executives at major Hollywood studios, providing a window into the big-picture concerns of media conglomerates with respect to changing business models, revenue streams, and audience behaviors. The second focuses on innovative enterprises that are providing path-breaking models for new modes of content creation, curation, and distribution—creatively meshing the strategies and practices of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And the final section offers insights from creative talent whose professional practices, compensation, and everyday working conditions have been transformed over the past ten years. Taken together, these interviews demonstrate that virtually every aspect of the film and television businesses is being affected by the digital distribution revolution, a revolution that has likely just begun.
Interviewees include:
• Gary Newman, Chairman, 20th Century Fox Television
• Kelly Summers, Former Vice President, Global Business Development and New Media Strategy, Walt Disney Studios
• Thomas Gewecke, Chief Digital Officer and Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Warner Bros. Entertainment
• Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer, Netflix
• Felicia D. Henderson, Writer-Producer, Soul Food, Gossip Girl
• Dick Wolf, Executive Producer and Creator, Law & Order
Michael Curtin is the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Professor of Global Studies in the Department of Film and Media Studies and Director of the Media Industries Project at UC Santa Barbara.
Jennifer Holt is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies and Director of the Media Industries Project at UC Santa Barbara.
Kevin Sanson is the Research Director of the Media Industries Project at UC Santa Barbara where he oversees the development of MIP research initiatives and publications.
"Distribution Revolution asks the right questions of the right people at the right time as the entertainment business grapples with monumental changes. Michael Curtin, Jennifer Holt and Kevin Sanson deliver intriguing and contrasting perspectives on the disruption caused by the growth of digital distribution options through interviews with a cross-section of smart industry leaders who are in the eye of the storm."—Cynthia Littleton, Editor-in-Chief, Television, at Variety and author of TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War over the Internet
"An immensely valuable resource. Required reading for anyone trying to engage with and understand digital media’s profoundly disruptive impact on media distribution. The book cuts through academia’s speculative penchant for shortsighted futurisms; mining original insights of major industry players from the normally segregated sectors of management, business, technology, and creative development in a single interactive meeting space. Productively avoids media industries research and production studies’ inevitable traps: the inaccessibility of industry insiders, the scripted spin of their handlers and trade publishing, and the ‘halo effect’ generated by grateful aca-fans and overly deferent scholars. The provocative conversations and lengthy interviews here will surely generate a round of productive new research questions for media studies scholars."—John T. Caldwell, Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, UCLA, author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television
272 pp.6 x 9
9780520283251$29.95|£25.00Paper
Sep 2014