Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Entertainment Industry Economics
- Part I Introduction
- Chapter 1 Economic perspective
- Chapter 2 Basic elements
- Part II Media-dependent entertainment
- Part III Live entertainment
- Part IV Roundup
- Appendix A Sources of information
- Appendix B Major games of chance
- Appendix C Supplementary data
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- References
Chapter 2 - Basic elements
from Part I - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Entertainment Industry Economics
- Part I Introduction
- Chapter 1 Economic perspective
- Chapter 2 Basic elements
- Part II Media-dependent entertainment
- Part III Live entertainment
- Part IV Roundup
- Appendix A Sources of information
- Appendix B Major games of chance
- Appendix C Supplementary data
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
Listen to the technology and find out what it is telling you.
– Carver Mead, chip design pioneerEntertainment and media industries all operate within a framework of commonly shared elements. All sectors are conditioned by the same underlying rules, are affected by changes in distribution technologies at approximately the same time, and, because of the nature of the products and services offered, are often both buyers and sellers of advertising services. The relevance of these basic and usually invisible aspects common to every entertainment and media business sector is explained in this chapter.
Rules of the road
Laws of the media
Media pioneer Marshall McLuhan (1964, p. 305) early on noted that “the content of any medium is always another medium.” In other words, each medium, whether it be books, music, film, games, or theater, borrows from the others and is interdependent: The content of the movie may be based on the novel, or the novel may inspire the movie or the song. The Lion King animated movie, for example, led to the introduction of a children's game, while the video games Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider ended up being made into movies. Chicago went from a play to a Broadway musical to an award-winning film.
This notion, however, forms the basis of only one of McLuhan's four immutable “laws” of media (McLuhan and McLuhan 1988, p. viii), which may be directly verified by observation and applied to every product of human effort.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Entertainment Industry EconomicsA Guide for Financial Analysis, pp. 39 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007