Hollywood survival strategies in the post-COVID 19 era

Michael Johnson

doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00776-z

Michael Johnson

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00776-z

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Abstract

Since the arrival of the Coronavirus in the United States, Americans have been forced to quarantine themselves at home in dramatic fashion, unlike almost any other time in the nation’s history. Moreover, the American workforce has been equally impacted by virtue of state-imposed shutdowns that have affected innumerable businesses, including the Hollywood entertainment industry, which is the subject of this research. I examine how commercial entertainment conglomerates like AT&T, Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS, and Fox have responded to mandatory closures for businesses that employ a human workforce upon whom they rely for their labor, and to human consumers they seek to distribute their film and television commodities to for profit. Using historical and discourse analyses in a political economic theoretical framework, I review contemporary reports about the economic conditions which have influenced the industry’s technological adaptation and innovation and argue that the Hollywood television and film industries will capitalize upon this current public health crisis as a motivator to adopt streaming platforms as the new preferred distribution mechanism of entertainment long after COVID 19 is a memory. This qualitative research examines the technological adaptations employed by these entertainment conglomerates to analyze (1) how the transition to streaming video on demand has occurred, and evaluates (2) what the adoption of these survival strategies mean for Hollywood’s long-term economic future and survival in a “digitally competitive” (Smith and Telang, 2017) marketplace.

Highlights

In 2020, the unexpected emergence of the novel Coronavirus aka “COVID-19” has produced a dramatic change in the economic productivity of the American entertainment industry
This research provides a brief summary of events leading up to the emergence of the Coronavirus, the ensuing governmental and social consequences that stem from the pandemic’s spread, and the Hollywood entertainment industry’s reaction and adaptation to this public health emergency’s impact to their profitability model
According to Jeremy Owens and Jon Swarts, Netflix gained “a record 15.77 million paid subscribers globally in the first quarter—double the new subscribers it expected—propelling its stock price more than 65% higher” (2020) and similar to Netflix’s performance, Disney+ attracted over 60 million paid subscribers in the same timeframe, accumulating 100 million paid subscribers earning 19 Emmy nominations along the way—

Summary

Introduction

In 2020, the unexpected emergence of the novel Coronavirus aka “COVID-19” has produced a dramatic change in the economic productivity of the American entertainment industry. In the ensuing months during which Hollywood has been shut down, those streaming networks have seen a substantial increase in demand, and financial profitability, which foreshadow other more ominous consequences for Hollywood’s traditional system of production and distribution to retail cinemas.

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Conclusion