Lost in the headlines this fall was the wrap up of the writers strike in Hollywood.
That means we can get back to our regularly scheduled program of humorless spinoffs of intellectual property (IP) created two decades ago.
The strike itself wasn’t particularly interesting – but there were a few points of “how the sausage is made” in Hollywood.
First is the “writers room.” Back in the day if you wanted to get a series written, you would get a couple creatives, lock them in a room with coffee and snacks until they get the plot lines knocked out.
Streaming services have broken this model. They give writers fewer staff and shorter time to come up with the big picture, and the rest gets “filled in” by less talented folks.
This is one reason I can’t sit still through TV series anymore… they’re just not that good. Derivative work, boring tropes, and constant pandering have caused me to quit shows in the middle of Season 1 because I can’t get through them.
One of the stipulations in the bargaining agreement was that when a new series hits, you must have six writers, and at least three writer-producers.
Maybe we get lucky and start to see some better content pushed through… but the juicy part comes around the discussion of AI.
The writers are terrified that AI is coming to take our jobs. Which is hilarious because we thought that it would go after the math-heavy jobs.
But it turns out the “large language models” are really good at… language.
The funny thing about this is the agreement allows the writers to use AI, but not the production company itself. They want to use the tech to work less but still want to get paid the same.
This isn’t going to work out in the long run. Very soon you will see disruptive entertainment companies that can quickly spin out shows without a ton of overhead.
It’s going to create a massive amount of leverage around these technologies.
Imagine a couple college kids using AI, an iPhone, and some special effects packages. A decade ago it might show up at some obscure film festival, or Aspen if they’re lucky.
Very soon it will be difficult to tell the difference between Hollywood and Indie productions…
Which spells disaster for the studios, because they are forced to use old business models.
But what about firms that can adapt to it?
If you’ve got existing IP and brands that are very well known, you can overlay all this new AI technology in a way to create value with much higher margins.
We’ve discovered a company in this space. They own a few top tier brands in sports, lifestyle, and finance.
Plus, they just picked up 20 TV stations they can leverage even further.
We’re looking at triple digit gain potential on this one…
And I’ve already sent the buy alert to my paid readers.
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