Wired 12.10 The Long Tail

This reading discussed demand and keep and the part that interested me the most was that of companies only supplying content that will generate income that will balance out the cost of rent and purchasing. A movie theatre will only show films they believe will want to be seen by the public which will make revenue and balance the cost of renting the screen. In particular how a film that was nominated for an Oscar was only opened to six theatres nationwide, similar to the popular Indian film Once upon a time in India which only opened in two theatres. This interestingly creates a desire for people to go out of their way to see a film as  a limited amount of people can fit into a theatre.

Some productions need a high amount of viewers to watch their work as they need the high revenue and return of money in order to break even on their expensive production, however productions with little expenditure can limit to a smaller audience as their return isn’t as high as for example a Hollywood film. If the production is good it will generate a bigger audience thus making more money. Interestingly there are many Hollywood films that made plenty of money but are not particularly remembered in future years as they weren’t the best. They may have been advertised and viewed in a wide spread of theatres which is why they have made money, however it does not mean the movie was good. The reading then went into how a product or production does not need to be the best in order to generate money.

“The Rhapsody demand, however, keeps going. Not only is every one of Rhapsody’s top 100,000 tracks streamed at least once each month, the same is true for its top 200,000, top 300,000, and top 400,000. As fast as Rhapsody adds tracks to its library, those songs find an audience, even if it’s just a few people a month, somewhere in the country”. This is the Long Tail.