Seth Shapiro's Blog

The internet has always held a lot of promise for creators. It hasn’t always delivered.

In a creator’s utopia, they would have unmediated access to their audience — no red tape, no gatekeepers, devoted audiences, and the ability to make a sustainable living from their art. Instead, things got complicated and the creator economy made an enormous promise that it’s only fulfilled in certain cases.

Some creators hit the jackpot — a combination of timing, luck, talent, and being on the right pl...

When Henry Ford put the world on wheels with the Ford Model T in 1908, he had no clue that cars would become one of the primary causes of global warming. Likewise, when the plastic drinking straw was invented, nobody predicted that they would be ingested by marine wildlife.

When you’re in the early stages of bringing an idea to life, you have to think in terms of days, not decades — especially when you’re ushering in a massive technological breakthrough. Such is the case with the NFT boom we’...

A quick mobile search for “NFT” turns up hundreds of thumb-stopping headlines.

A highlight of a LeBron James dunk sold for $208,000. The artist Grimes garnered nearly $6 million for a series of digital art. Jack Dorsey auctioned the first-ever tweet for $2.9 million.

NFTs are turning every type of art — from fine art to music to anime — into an asset that can be bought and resold for big returns. That’s particularly exciting for the reseller, but what about fans who just want to dip their ...

According to the Leichtman Research Group, the average cost for pay-TV service in 2016 was $103 per month. While streamers no doubt have access to more content than ever, the question remains whether the current à la carte streaming era is actually better for consumers.

With more streaming services entering the market in the next few years, you wonder when consumers will start feeling subscription overload. If cord-cutting was originally driven by cost, it no longer seems to be the main benef...

And it’s not only promos that are creeping into streamers’ screens. YouTube recently announced that all creators in their YouTube Partner program can now turn on non-skippable ads for their videos.

Amazon is also launching a free, ad-supported service for its Fire TV customers. They also announced that Twitch Prime members will no longer get ad-free viewing and will have to upgrade to their $9.99 per month turbo level to do so.

It’s an open question whether the ad-free paradise streaming v...

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“What is the most important thing that has happened in the TV industry in the past decade?”

The overarching one is this huge shift from a linear environment to a nonlinear place. The movement from ‘appointment TV’ to random access TV. You can watch as little or as much as you want anywhere, anytime and on any device. This influences the limits imposed by business rules tremendously.

Most TV business models percolated first in the US, where we had a number of small broadc...

In 2015, the most frequent question we heard was, “how do the economics of OTT work?” 

In 2016, the most popular question was, “is the hype around VR justified?” When we answered “yes,” the inevitable next question was, “what VR projects should I look at first?”

We’re updating our 2016 White Paper now; it will be ready in April. Till then, here’s a subjective list of ten places to start, with links to each.

To see the entire post, click here

ALLUMETTE 

Studio:  Penrose Studios

Dir. Eugene Ch...

In 2015, the most frequent question we heard was, “how do the economics of OTT work?” 

In 2016, the most popular question was, “is the hype around VR justified?” When we answered “yes,” the inevitable next question was, “what VR projects should I look at first?”

We’re updating our 2016 White Paper now; it will be ready in April. Till then, here’s a subjective list of ten places to start, with links to each.

ALLUMETTE 

Studio:  Penrose Studios

Dir. Eugene Chung

“Six degrees o...

Article originally appeared in Seth’s column at the New York Observer.

In 1970s America, the initials MTM meant three things: actress Mary Tyler Moore; the show she starred in; and the company she and her husband Grant Tinker founded.

All three changed American life, but the third did so for decades, reinventing popular culture and turning the small screen into the dominant art form of its time.

In syndication, The Mary Tyler Moore Show inspired of a new generation of performers and writers....

This article originally appeared in Forbes.

In an interview with Billboard Magazine earlier this month, Grammy host James Corden got candid about his paycheck. “Oh, I can tell you something I envy about all of them: their salary. That’s the only thing I envy,” the comedian and host of The Late Late Show said of his fellow late-night hosts.

No one does this for money. He’s not in the first tier in terms of name recognition, so to get his face in front of people who may not be familiar with is...