No Shortage of Streaming Services

Between the music catalog it amassed over time (not to mention members' credit card information) since the launch of iTunes and its subsequent acquisition of Beats, Apple was able to leverage its iTunes platform, between its extensive music catalog built up over the years and the large number of member, to create its Apple Music streaming service (with Beats Radio), directly competing with Spotify and Google in that market.

Apple is again attempting to use what it has already created (Apple TV and the TV app rolled out with iOS 10), except this time with intent to try and create its own original content, like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have all done already. I'm curious to see that if Apple does go forward with it what level of success they would have. Based on all the subscription based streaming services that are available, does it seem likely that consumers would sign up for another? People who already have an Apple TV probably have those apps already (and on their iPads and iPhones), plus all the network TV apps you can get on those devices as well. The prospect of having so many choices seems overwhelming.

Between Apple Music and the maybe soon to be original content streaming on Apple TV, it seems that Apple as media company is pretty clear that Apple is well on the way to having all 3 attributes of a media company clearly defined in its business compared to its competitors.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/31/apple-tim-cook-talks-original-video-content-on-earnings-call.html

Politics, Media and Cultural Forces

I don’t want to get super political here, but I do want to note that the new administration in the White House will have a massive impact on the responsibility of media and media perception. In the following article, which is rather bluntly titled "Trump Strategist Stephen Bannon Says Media Should ‘Keep Its Mouth Shut,’” you can see a clear line in the sand being drawn by the White House’s chief strategist, who used to be an influential player in the right wing media himself.

We talked in class about the “social responsibility of media” and how it is different than other markets because its a cultural force that shapes society and its functions are fundamental to our democracy. In this article, we see Stephen Bannon saying, "The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country…" He also throws around the terms ‘elite media’ and ‘mainstream media’ quite often in his scathing critiques of how Donald Trump is covered.

These remarks seems quite at odds to what we discussed in class. It’s fascinating but also a bit nerve-wracking to think about the relationship that the new President and his staff has with a large portion of what they deem ‘mainstream media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/stephen-bannon-trump-news-media.html

-Joe

Social Media is More than a Conduit: 

Hi everyone! I found this article interesting because it is at the  intersection of marketing and finance: an example of where the two subjects meet. It is about how the social media conduit Snapchat is having an IPO! http://www.businessinsider.com/snap-to-list-on-nyse-report-2017-1

Social Media as more than a Conduit

Hi Everyone,

As part of my job here at Fordham, I pitch faculty to the media and collect any media hits that we as an institution receive. I've come across this press release several times over the past few days:

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/34350634/twitter-composed-mystery-novel-heads-for-record-sales

Fordham adjunct communications professor Robert Blechman writes Twitter-composed mystery novels, the latest of which has just been made into an e-book and is doing very well in its first week of sales. The mystery novel was originally posted in hundreds of real-time tweets, which begs the question: can social media provide original content, be a conduit, and a distributor?

I know we talked a little bit in class about how social media is merely a conduit, but couldn't the official Twitter handle hypothetically churn out original content in the form of short stories told in 140-character increments? Or could Twitter start making short films and posting them on their official page? Netflix now creates their own content, so who's to say what the future is for social media?

What do you think?

The power of media distribution

Hello,

I am kicking off our connecting and sharing blog with a link to this interesting piece of research:

Viewers know show favorites not their networks

Interesting quote that got my attention says:
“Consumers associate great shows with the company that delivers them, not necessarily the one that created them”.

As we talked in class about the relationship of content owner/creator and distributor and about market concentration in the TV sector, this sentence is nicely illustrating market power of distributors against the creators.

Do you think such competitive situation is also true in other market sectors?
Your comments / reflections are welcome.

Welcome to the Media Systems & Markets Class Blog!

Each student is asked to use the course blog, which helps us with our personal knowledge sharing in class. Each student is assigned to:

• Share with colleagues and instructor material that you find interesting and relevant to the class. This could be an article link from quality press like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times etc. or from academic publications. Your post must also include a link to the article, and a short text, approximately 50-100 words about why you think the article is interesting. It could also include a quote, which you think, is particularly interesting or relevant.
• Post two blog entries during the semester comment on 2 blogs of your class mates.
• Schedule of when each student should post will be announced in class 2
• You can add "Labels" (seen on the right panel) to your posts for easier searches.