
Behind the Scenes in Media

Behind the Scenes in Media
A Podcast.
Very Slowly, Then All at Once
“The consumer doesn’t realize that at the end of the day, content is a commodity. You produce that content for ‘x’ dollars and get ‘y’ dollars, and in the case of successful content, ‘y’ is greater than ‘x,’ which sometimes happens but is not guaranteed,” he explained. Núñez added that the “triple play” era—when cable companies bundled television, internet, and telephone services—was a time of relative stability. “It was based on the idea that we would produce a certain number of series a year, and was a dependable model.”
Evan Shapiro, adjunct professor for communications and media management at the Gabelli School, and a thought leader in the media and entertainment industry who created the Peabody award-winning Portlandia and other household-name shows, said this bundling strategy was good for the consumer too, in comparison to the media maelstrom they and industry executives face today.
“Everything was in the same ecosystem, and the consumer was satisfied. There was one bill, one interface, and it was easy to find what you wanted,” Shapiro explained, adding that the consumers also benefited in terms of quality. “When you look at the last golden era of television when Mad Men and Breaking Bad and all other great shows were coming out, that’s what they were funding. I got to make Portlandia. There’s no way that show would get green-lit today. We’ve replaced that with absolute chaos.”

A Delicate Calculus
The surfeit of options caused headaches for consumers, as well. Shapiro cited the paradox of choice. “When consumers are faced with too much choice, they make fewer choices. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Or they sign up to watch that one show they want to watch, they binge it, and then they cancel. That churn is a major issue,” he said. “There are many ways to fight that. One is bundling. Not just bundling video with video, but bundling video with other things. That’s why Prime works so well. I really do think we have this existential crisis of our own making in front of us.”
This Year’s Model
“Companies like Netflix have actually said they’re not competing with TV—although I don’t completely believe them,” said Janet Gallent, Ph.D., associate clinical professor of communications and media management at the Gabelli School. “They say they’re also competing with Fortnite. Everything is about getting a share of eyeballs, a share of time, a share of heart. Netflix now has gaming. Amazon has gaming and music. The big tech companies know that you need it all if you want to be the platform where everyone goes to meet all those needs. The consumer wants a positive, seamless experience. Frictionless. That’s what we’re seeing.”

Media Microclimates Abound
“I’ve built a really good business model around those fifty-to-a-hundred thousand people. I don’t need to make more than I’m making because I’m incredibly satisfied with what I’m doing, and my relationship to my audience is really sound,” he said. Shapiro feels this is a viable avenue open to content creators with their own message. “For example, if you get 5,000 people to pay you $4 a month, that’s a quarter of a million dollars a year.”
One way of looking at the evolving scene is that new media creators are thriving in microclimates, covering defined topics like media critique and innovation—as Shapiro does—art criticism, a particular slice of the political spectrum, or photographing dogs on the street. These creators are proliferating, and while they may not compete directly with larger outlets, they do take up some of a limited resource, the attention of viewers. “Competitive pressure is growing for big organizations because each of us has a limited amount of time, so the fight for attention is much harder,” explained Mierzejewska. “Media organizations have to spend more in advertising, promotion, their own content, and also create even better content in order to compete for eyeballs with those huge amounts of independent content creators on YouTube or TikTok.”
Ready for Launch
Students want to go into media because they love media and see themselves as big media consumers, Mierzejewska added. She sees her role as a teacher as providing students with the concrete skills they will need to chart a course for their businesses even in the face of inevitable headwinds. “We focus on learning to analyze, design, and innovate in business models, because the models are the core of your strategy and adaptation. The other thing that is important is exposing yourself to the dynamism of change.”
“I’m not a case study teacher,” Shapiro said. “I teach the business of media in real time, so we spend a lot of time looking out the window, and watching the planet’s shift as it happens, and talking about what that means to us. We focus on what’s happening in the ecosystem right now, and then translate all of this into something that you can use that is actionable so you can get a job.”
Nuñez is bullish on Gabelli School graduates, in part because of the opportunities and internships on offer—which allow students to do substantive work in one of the biggest media centers in the world—and because of the experience the faculty bring to the table. “These make the Gabelli School unique, and the students therefore have a unique opportunity to understand this complex and continuously changing landscape.”