Kevin Spacey Challenges the TV Industry

Just in case you haven't watched this, now is the time to do so!  Highly regarded actor Kevin Spacey speaks about radically changing media and technology, and challenges the TV industry to listen up or else be irrelevant. This will be one of the more iconic speeches we'll hear about how our world is so different now.

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"Spacey, who gave the keynote James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival this evening [August 23rd], said: "Clearly the success of the Netflix model -- releasing the entire season of House Of Cards at once - has proved one thing: the audience wants control. They want freedom. If they want to binge - as they've been doing on House Of Cards - then we should let them binge."

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[Spacey] said that way of working "demonstrated that we have learned the lesson that the music industry didn't learn -- give people what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in, at a reasonable price, and they'll more likely pay for it rather than steal it".

There is more to what Spacey is doing:  

Jameson Irish Whiskey has partnered with Kevin Spacey and his production company, Trigger Street Productions (The Social Network and 21), to discover up-and-coming talent from America, Russia and South Africa. In the search for fresh, fearless film makers, Jameson invite you to take center stage and enter a short film competition with a once-in-a-lifetime prize like no other. One where you call the shots, direct Willem Dafoe and have the backing of an award-winning production company. If you believe you have the talent but have yet to get your big break, Jameson First Shot is the competition you've been waiting for.

Since the time I began to conceive Dr. Ron Art - my multimedia arts projects, across genres - I saw creativity and commerce as two sides of the same coin.  Unless they have the fortune of creating without need for income, artists know full well that they have to navigate and reconcile both sides.  They have to put food on the table, no matter what.  That's what Jameson First Shot is all about.  

But more than that, Spacey is among just a few in Hollywood who are embracing the wild-and-crazy new media and technology at our disposal and the tectonic changes this has heralded.  Highers-up in the TV industry may sit pat, for now, with their business models and so-called best practices.  For now, TV has withstood the initial, even predatory forays of new media.  But mark Spacey's words:  The Netflix model will be the sign post of the coming future.  It already is.  

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD