How Often Do Celebrity Production Companies Launch Hit Shows?

A recurring theme as technology has changed celebrity is that content output goes up and production value goes down. The production value of a Kardashian social media post is orders of magnitude lower than the production value of an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

When the playing field is leveled such that the only content is what people are able to produce themselves, the major advantages that celebrities have disappear: access to professional production resources and distribution through traditional gatekeepers. The remaining differentiators are entertainment value and fun.

The explosion of influencers and creators on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok has proven yet again the power of personality. The direct connection an audience feels to these stars is powerful. We’re seeing Substack and forward thinking publishers like Complex, Barstool and Axios capitalize on this dynamic. (The risk is obviously the limited enterprise... See more

The MCN companies that nurture stars have a meagre yield rate. It is widely acknowledged that without them, there would be no saleable commodity such as a celebrity or a livestreamer. So the tension between the company and the star arises.

“The fact that Netflix has that reach, means they can actually produce hits and franchises at a greater degree on an equivalent quality of other services. That advantage is enormous in a content business.”

If the future role of a media company mimics that of record labels, then we start to see a significant shift from these institutions to attribute more of their value as operators and begin to diversify their business of being just a brand.

The Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys are nothing if not vehicles for the stars who power the engine of pop culture. But the ubiquity of those stars is waning.

The major tech companies, such as Amazon, Google, and Apple, are bad at IP, games, or video (if not all three). Disney excels at IP universes and is building up expertise in film-to-TV transmedia, but it has no interactive assets. At the same time, this could change quickly via acquisition — and the applicability of theme park expertise should not ... See more