The Long tail Vs Blockbusters theories

Chris Anderson, The Long Tail (2004) For too long we've been suffering the tyranny of lowest-common-denominator fare, subjected to brain-dead summer blockbusters and manufactured pop. Why? Economics. Many of our assumptions about popular taste are actually artifacts of poor supply-and-demand matching - a market response to inefficient distribution. The main problem is that we live in the physical world and, until recently, most of our entertainment media did, too.

Hit-driven economics is a creation of an age without enough room to carry everything for everybody. Not enough shelf space for all the CDs, DVDs, and games produced. Not enough screens to show all the available movies. Not enough channels to broadcast all the TV programs, not enough radio waves to play all the music created, and not enough hours in the day to squeeze everything out through either of those sets of slots. This is the world of scarcity. Now, with online distribution and retail, we are entering a world of abundance. And the differences are profound.

LONG TAIL HYPOTHESIS VERTICAL: Sales HORIZONTAL: Popularity (στη γκρι περιοχή είναι προϊόντα που ο μέσος φυσικός διανομέας δε μπορεί να βάλει στο ράφι γιατί δε βγάζουν τα έξοδά τους)

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Οι 3 κανόνες This is the power of the Long Tail. The companies at the vanguard of it (Google, Amazon, Netflix) are showing the way with three big lessons. Call them the new rules for the new entertainment economy. Make everything available (vs artificial scarcity) Cut the price in half. Now lower it Help me find it

Ο αντίλογος: Anita Elberse, Blockbusters (2008) As predicted by Anderson, the number of titles that sold only a few copies almost doubled for any given week from 2000 to 2005. However, at the same time, the number of titles with no sales at all in a given week quadrupled. Thus the tail represents a rapidly increasing number of titles that sell very rarely or never. Rather than bulking up, the tail is becoming much longer and flatter. Hit products are even more concentrated than they were in the past. From 2000 to 2005 the number of titles in the top 10% of weekly sales dropped by more than 50%.

Why does the tail not work? Firms invest more in blockbusters. It is simpler to have access & better conditions with the distribution channels when you are a potential blockbuster. The best predictor of a commercial success in the film industry is not the actors, the genre or the competition, but the number of screenings. Customers never consume only niche products. The ones that rented a niche movie will rent 50 other movies in the same period. The most active consumers are just going deeper into the tail. And more occasional consumers are focusing on the blockbusters. The digital economy changed nothing about that: the supply increased but consumer behaviour stayed the same.