The American Viewer, Part 5: Final Advice
Pencils down. FASTs, programming holes and audience right in front of us
Today: prescriptive conclusions drawn from my four-part series on the American Viewer, for paid subscribers only. Part 1 covered geography, age, race and gender; Part 2, politics, money and religion; Part 3, how and where we watch TV; Part 4, what types of shows are most popular, and which genres work best on streaming.
The not-so-subtle point of publishing my week-long series, The American Viewer, the week before the Emmys broadcast was to illustrate the contrast between the types of shows that are “officially” sanctioned as Hollywood’s best and what most Americans actually watch. And sure enough, look who won:
That tweet wasn’t the only piece of feedback I received for that series, and I wanted to respond to and highlight some of the best comments we received.
This in particular stood out to me from coverage of our coverage. Keith Rauch, a marketing exec and podcaster, quoted his old boss Tomas Jegeus, with this brilliant phrase:
“As Tomas once said… the biggest problem with Hollywood is that almost all of us work behind gates and live behind gates, whereas nearly all of the audience does not.”
To respond to some of the feedback and tie a bow on this series, here comes the bonus finale: Part 5!
This will allow me to connect parts 1, 2 and 3 (what America looks like and how it watches TV) to part 4 (what those viewers watch) and connect those to my general thoughts on the strategy of the streaming wars.
As I wrote last week, one of the more interesting questions of the streaming wars isn’t “Why is streaming growing?” It’s, “Why hasn’t streaming grown more and killed TV yet?” Or as I phrased it on my own site earlier this year, “What will the next generation of cord cutters look like?”
In this edition, we’ll discuss:
Why linear streaming is probably the next big thing in streaming
How personal validation influences the creative process
How much bad press and political controversies drive churn in streaming
The one genre of TV I would start developing more of NOW
How the lack of ratings led streamers astray