Cultural Desert

My dwindling “Saved” queue is finally at zero.  My music streaming service updated its site and now offers fewer of my favorite musicians and tracks.  My preferred podcast platform is going dark at the end of August.

It seems that some of the best cultural experiences the internet offers are drying up.  The hardest hit for me is Netflix’s discontinuing its DVD service.  The funny thing about that development was its streaming service offered better content 10-12 years ago.  Particularly during the time when Netflix partnered with Starz, I could access all kinds of obscure titles in streaming format such as films produced by the East German studio DEFA.  As Netflix transitioned into content creation, its streamed titles interested me less and the reason I continued to subscribe was mainly for the DVDs.

I’m not sure what I will do now.  I read recently that TCM had cut its staff.  Programming quality there seems to be slipping, and I watch that channel less frequently than I did before and during the pandemic. 

A casual reading of recent news coverage surrounding our culture industries points to COVID as a culprit.  Movies and music helped me through the lockdown, and I know I wasn’t alone.  When it came to music, I listened to familiar favorites, discovered new artists, and fell in love all over again those I hadn’t listened to in ages.

The spike in demand for streamed music increased the value of copyrights owned by songwriters and recording artists while yielding comparatively little return in the form of royalties, which in turn led to what I will call The Great Catalog Sell Off of 2021.  (Bruce Springsteen was reportedly the biggest winner, receiving more than a half-billion dollars for his body of work.  The buyer was Sony; I think they can afford it.) 

The passing of copyrights from what must have been scores of songwriters and recording artists into the hands of a narrow range of new owners is ominous.  It’s true that owning the rights to numerous catalogs afford economies of scale which make streaming profitable in a way it would not be for individual artists.  But it also means that un- or less-profitable artists or their works are more likely to be withdrawn.  I hope this prediction is wrong, but my tapered listening diet of late is anecdotal evidence in that direction.

Time was, there was money to be made from “long tails” marketing to a clientele who wanted niche goods and services.  Online commerce would lower the transaction cost incurred selling to small groups of customers.  I used to believe that.  But like a lot of conventional wisdom, this may not have been true in the long run if ever.  With the growing trend toward concentrated ownership in media, less mainstream consumers will be shut out.

Concentration of ownership in any industry is not a good outcome.  It compels media platforms and outlets to dumb down and reduce the diversity of content available to the viewer or listener.  In the business world, you have to positively spin changes even when they don’t benefit or work against the consumer.  I’m not convinced and you shouldn't be either.  New is not necessarily improved. 

 

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