The long tail is a foreign place to me; I don’t dwell in the niche markets of Internet retailers. I’m not a hit-lover, but it seems more and more that I’m just not a media consumer to the extent of an average person of my age.

I think if one was to explore my iTunes history, they’d find one purchase of a certain mixtape, and nothing else but apps. The Internet is not my source for television, movies or books. The music I do download is anything but legitimately procured, and is often a hit of the now or then that I’ve just remembered is enjoyable.

The long tail is still a fascinating – and brilliant – development, and it actually makes sense. My mother turns to the Internet when she wants a song she knows will be hard to locate, as iTunes is sure to have it. I have a collection of songs from my favourite artist that are only found on YouTube. My sister downloaded the entire series of ‘That’s So Raven’, and gave me ‘Invader Zim’. If only I got ‘Sheep in the Big City’ to match.

Thanks anyway, Sis. I do like Zim.

The rise of the autre is upon us, and I’m willing to give into the revolution. Was that over-dramatic? Yeah, probably, but watch me care.

How does the flicking Long Tail affect media production today? As Chris Anderson (I may have made that name up) said, the hit will always exist. Perhaps, and this might be optimistic, producers and production houses might sit down and realise that there is an eternal market for the obscure now, and that rather than pay for three expensive films of obvious popular culture-friendly content, maybe ten risky projects could be funded.

It’s time for a bit of a plug: I’m working on a show. I don’t have a big producer looking down on me, making sure my technique is adequate (no teeth), I am a producer. This is a show created by my friends and I, and it will most likely be broadcast on the little know community network C31. And that’s fine: there are limitations associated with this, but there are also freedoms. We don’t need to find a market share instantly, because C31 doesn’t expect one. This means one thing: we get to do – more or less – what we want. For a television show!

This probably isn’t as exciting for anyone else, but I keen to get started on a show with almost full creative control to us, because if I get into television production like I want to, this will never happen again. Television is about those numbers, and DVD sales rarely come into it as a factor. Hell, my show is likely to disappear into the ether never to be seen again once it’s over. Of course, we’ll put it online for the handful of people who are curious to watch it, and I’m probably keener to see how it fares on the server than how it goes on the idiot box.

Something we’ve actually considered is putting the show online straight away, and bypass television broadcast. We wouldn’t be able to find that market of people-watching-C31-because-they’ve-stopped-caring-about-life, and we’d have to market ourselves, but the end result would be the same, with added freedoms.

C31 doesn’t like drugs. We wouldn’t have to have room for ad breaks. The length of our episodes is less concrete.

I guess that’s the gift of the Long Tail, should those in creative control realise it’s existence: freedom. There is a market for all content, and that market will find what it’s looking for, eventually. Essentially: do what ever the hell you want and the people that are into it will watch or listen or whatever.

This is undoubtably idealistic, but somewhat true. The long tail is the preservation of the weird and unique, and the motivation for the weirder and the even more unique, and that’s exactly what media needs.