Future of entertainment
SepT 13, 2005
| Future of entertainment |
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Letter from the publisher
 Ah, the future.So near -- imminent even -- yet unknowable beyond the certainty that it holds big change. For this particular journey, informed speculation is the closest we'll get to a road map. Here's how it looks from my perspective: In the future, we will have no physical media, just digital streams delivered by broadband. Studio libraries will be searchable -- cataloged by genre, year of release, talent and combinations thereof -- and available to download with a few clicks. Recommendations will drive a great deal of entertainment sales, like the current Amazon.com model. Collaborative filtering also will facilitate retail sales Simultaneous release will exist, and piracy will all but disappear. Vertically integrated networks will be the rule, replacing mainstream networks as we know them today. Audiences will not be measured in terms of personal characteristics -- age, gender, etc. will give way to classifications by common audience interests such as cooking, golf or gaming. Advertisers will find value in smaller audiences that have a more intense relationship to the product offered. Time paradigms will change. Advertisers will no longer chafe under the restrictions of the 30-second commercial, and programrs of serial entertainment will be freed from 22-minute half-hours and 48-minute hours. With the home-theaters standard issue and cell phones, PDAs and other mobile devices just about everywhere, audiences will hunker down for full-season viewathons just as readily as they'll catch snippies while waiting in lines. Programming will be configured for every device and all time frames at the viewer's request. Entertainment forms of five minutes or less will facilitate a different style of artist. We will retrieve music, film, news, games and whatever else we want simply by tapping into the wireless ether or plugging into a socket not unlike the current electric wall socket. Product will be ported to a variety of devices, but the "television," with its full-search capabilities, will be the preferred hardware choice to which every other device is compatible. The theme-park ride concept will translate first to hotels, malls and other public gathering places, then migrate to the home, where we will be able to feel the motion and experience the activity. And furniture and room designs will develop to improve the experience of home entertainment. Theaters will shrink in number. Only the largest will survive and offer the consumer an unequaled experience. Audiences will pay for the extrasensory privilege. Studios will concentrate exclusively on expensive blockbusters, while indies and individuals take up the art cinema slack. The business will slowly migrate away from Los Angeles and become a truly international industry. Games will be become commonplace in the classroom, as educators embrace interactivity as a device for teaching. On the entertainment side, games will become even more interactive and will migrate largely to online and group play. Books will be available electronically. They won't be confined to a finite beginning and end but can be continual works in progress, doled out piece by piece. Readers might even be invited to participate in finishing a chapter, giving ideas or completing the book. News will come from everyone. When an event takes place, someone on the scene will record it and send the file out over the Internet -- no commentary, just what happened and a few background facts. Others on the scene will agree or not, sending out images on their own and engaging a news dialogue. The blogging community will drive the news, creating an array of "stars" that will make the network news anchors largely irrelevant. We will have national referendums online that can and will be tabulated instantly, thereby providing a real democracy, not unlike what is going on in so many reality shows today. Professional sports will migrate away from teams as the chase for money and other purely ethical issues will destroy their credibility. Individual sports will emerge as the spectator pastime of choice for the majority of fans. This year, The Hollywood Reporter celebrates its "diamond anniversary." The paper was founded 75 years ago by William "Billy" Wilkerson, who gave the industry its first daily trade paper. Wilkerson was a man of vision. He had the foresight to see that entertainment -- then something of a novelty -- was poised to become a formidable industry, with the power to shape ideas and opinions. Through the years, we hope we've continued, day by day, to shed a bit more light on that future, helping to put it in perspective for you, our readers. Furthering that goal, we present this issue themed around the future of entertainment. We hope you enjoy it. Robert J. Dowling Editor-in-chief and publisher The Hollywood Reporter  Back to index |
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