HITS

By Devendra Mishra, MESA –

Since its inception, Hollywood has successfully deployed new technologies that enhance viewing quality and the efficiency of production and business operations. Today, we are at a new crossroads of innovation, as the entertainment industry is being further transformed for a greater consumer experience.

The historical constraint of Hollywood as a B2B marketplace is finally giving way to the B2C reality where historical borders are being eliminated. Oct. 11, 2017 marked a turning point when Hollywood took charge of its destiny with five studios coming together for the Movies Anywhere Service.

This Disney-driven entity will operate with an advisory board made up of the participating studios to deliver movies for purchase from Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Entertainment, as well as The Walt Disney Studios, which includes films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm.

Digital retailers, including Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu, are supporting consumer demand to buy movies from a digital locker that they can enjoy on their personal devices.

This collaboration is in response to consumers’ insatiable demand for Hollywood stories around the globe. In a time-constrained world where subscription and streaming have emerged as compelling preferences for experiencing personal entertainment anytime and anywhere, the studios have entered the playing field that has been dominated by digital distribution intermediaries.

Furthermore, while the disruptive technologies of peer-to-peer file-sharing, digital and internet decimated the music industry and crippled the home entertainment industry, the nightmare of the studios may now recede, when digital pennies will be replaced by subscription dollars from a global community connected socially through the smartphone.

Fertile ground for innovation

It’s a reassuring development to find Hollywood attracting technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to Silicon Beach, where a whole new breed of entertainment, gaming, ad tech and video companies are proliferating. While Silicon Valley has been a garden of innovation, it is Hollywood that has sown the seeds. How can we ever forget that innovators have been spurred by shows such as Star Trek, ET, and Lost in Space, Aliens, Terminator and Avatar! After all, Hollywood brought science fiction to the masses and inspired people to venture into the unknown.

Entertainment technology is driving the consumer-centric marketplace where smaller, numerous projects replace the mega ones of the past. Innovators are being called upon to propose solutions to problems instead of being requested to respond to water-tight, cumbersome requirements that may have been too specific and therefore limiting.

While this change in interaction between CIOs/CTOs and technology companies may appear onerous, it augurs well, for creative storytellers whose entrepreneurial spirit will give our industry the quantum boost it has long needed. What more can we ask for?

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