How big data is transforming the creative industries, and how those
industries can use lessons from Netflix, Amazon, and Apple to fight back.
“[The authors explain] gently yet firmly exactly how the internet threatens
established ways and what can and cannot be done about it. Their book
should be required for anyone who wishes to believe that nothing much has
changed.” —The Wall Street Journal “Packed with examples, from the nimble-
footed who reacted quickly to adapt their businesses, to laggards who lost
empires.” —Financial Times Traditional network television programming has
always followed the same script: executives approve a pilot, order a trial
number of episodes, and broadcast them, expecting viewers to watch a given
show on their television sets at the same time every week. But then came
Netflix's House of Cards. Netflix gauged the show's potential from data it
had gathered about subscribers' preferences, ordered two seasons without
seeing a pilot, and uploaded the first thirteen episodes all at once for
viewers to watch whenever they wanted on the devices of their choice. In
this book, Michael Smith and Rahul Telang, experts on entertainment
analytics, show how the success of House of Cards upended the film and TV
industries—and how companies like Amazon and Apple are changing the rules
in other entertainment industries, notably publishing and music. We're
living through a period of unprecedented technological disruption in the
entertainment industries. Just about everything is affected: pricing,
production, distribution, piracy. Smith and Telang discuss niche products
and the long tail, product differentiation, price discrimination, and
incentives for users not to steal content. To survive and succeed,
businesses have to adapt rapidly and creatively. Smith and Telang explain
how. How can companies discover who their customers are, what they want,
and how much they are willing to pay for it? Data. The entertainment
industries, must learn to play a little “moneyball.” The bottom line:
follow the data.