Is “New Media” Dead?
Well, “New Media” is dying very quickly… 60 Frames, the New Media website helmed by CEO Brent Weinstein has shut down production. Just a few months ago there was a caucus I attended at the Writers Guild where Brent was on a panel talking about how “New Media” is going strong but still having trouble on how to properly monetize it. However since then 60 Frames is dead in the water with no more money to continue and on hold for now.
Once praised as saving the TV audience, New Media is getting knocked down more times then Rocky Balboa via the beat down delivered by Clubber Lang in “Rocky 3″. I just hope this is a “hiatus” time for New Media companies so they can restructure things and come back strong with new formulas while keeping all unions intact! I believe there is serious danger of the Unions collapsing, if that happens then its all over, call the Undertaker.
I do know this, people are not going to pay for anything that was once free (tv), or go out of their way to watch something knowing that ads will be chocking it up, people have changed. And as sad as it seems people are just tired of scripted TV, no matter how much you shorten the minutes down to (5 min, 10 min). People will watch the most mindless crap on YouTube while enduring horrible video quality along with it, I just don’t know.
Budgets for these “shorts” were costing between $15 – $25, ooo to produce, with no way to ensure a good profit as advertisers were not anteing up enough cash flow. Seems cheap compared to network shows, but just not garnering an audience for some reason and the formula for these shows are old and tired, that is my opinion mind you. I mean look, some folks just use a cheap camcorder to film a few minutes of mindless crap and get 100′s of thousands of YouTube views while not making a dime. It’s as if you expect anything you watch on the internet to be cheap and silly, that seems to be the general attitude.
Hmmm, so what now? TV seems on the way out as we know it, movies are still doing ok, and reality shows are becoming a clone like redundant formula that will fizzle out faster than twitter down the line. So do us “Hollywood” folk just wait it out or start our own thing? Well, I am not waiting around for anybody, the Internet and mobile phones are now holding the cards so we need to figure it out, and fast… Just look at the new Apple iphone and you will see an array of “entertainment” apps with much more to come. You gotta know when to hold em and know when to fold em! 
Your thoughts? Please chime in…
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