Can Someone Explain How Sponsoring NASCAR Is A Good Use Of Taxpayer Funds, If Funding Sesame Street Is Not?

from the just-curious-which-standard-to-use dept

I'm sort of amazed at the silly and childish political games being played concerning attempts to cut funding here and there, but, seriously can anyone give me a logical explanation why the same folks who are so quick to demand that we stop funding NPR and PBS are so vehemently in favor of sponsoring NASCAR? Frankly, as a fan of both NPR and PBS, but not a fan of governments overspending, I actually think the complaints against pulling the funding from both are a bit overblown. I think there are some creative things that both NPR and PBS could do to make up the difference if they lost federal funding. However, if we are going to cut public broadcasting, then it seems only reasonable to cut sponsoring NASCAR as well, doesn't it? I'm curious how folks who claim to support smaller government are defending such sponsorship of a private, for-profit operation with taxpayer funding?

Filed Under: budget, federal government, funding, nascar, npr, pbs

Dedicated Fans Bring Movie Back To Life, Contributing $346k In Just A Few Weeks

from the connecting-with-fans... dept

A bunch of folks have sent over this story of how the author of the popular book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, had been working for years on turning the book into a movie, but in the middle of September, he posted to his website that it just wasn't going to happen, because the traditional funders of movies weren't interested in the movie. The book apparently is a sort of coming of age, semi-autobiographical story, involving aspects of the author's spiritual/religious journey. As Miller explained, while the book is a "Christian" book, it has elements in it that those who traditionally fund "Christian movies" didn't want to support (for example, something involving putting a giant condom on a church steeple...). And he suggested that, while the book has found an audience among students going through similar situations, those are not the people who generally fund movies.

Or, perhaps they are. Miller had been able to bring together some funding, but came up $125,000 short of what was needed for the indie film production (including some well-known actors). After saying that the project was dead, some fans apparently stepped up and suggested he try to raise the missing $125,000 on Kickstarter. In the course of about a month, not only did they hit the $125,000 mark in just one week, but fans of the book continued contributing to the cause, leading them to bring in $346,000 by the time the project closed.

That's a rather stunning amount. Prior to this, I believe the largest Kickstarter project had been the famous Diaspora distributed social networking project that got tons of press for breaking $100,000. Of course, no one is suggesting that this is the way to fund all films or that this will work in every case (we've certainly seen Kickstarter projects fail at times). However, it's yet another example of how really committed and engaged fans can make things happen where the old gatekeepers stood in the way.

Filed Under: blue like jazz, donald miller, fan funding, funding, movies
Companies: kickstarter

TV Show Released On BitTorrent Raises $20,000 Pretty Damn Fast

from the but-there-are-no-business-models dept

You may have seen the recent stories about the "TV show" Pioneer One that was made with the plan all along to release the show on BitTorrent, and to set up a tiered system to fund future episodes. While some people insist that BitTorrent users never download authorized content, after the show was released, it quickly became a top download beating out lots of more "famous" competitors. On top of that, it appears that people are donating. Zubin Madon alerts us to the news that in just about a week, the producers of the show have hit their goal of raising $20,000 to produce the next batch of episodes. This isn't a "give it away and pray" sort of deal. It's a recognition that the first episode is the "pilot" and the scarcities that are being sold are the creation of more episodes. This is one of the more complicated scarcities for people to understand: content, once created and released to the world, is infinite. However, content not yet created is scarce. So it's a perfectly reasonable business model to try to sell the creation of new content, which is exactly what the producers here have done successfully.

And, to cut off the expected usual crew of Hollywood defenders in the comments, no I'm not saying that all TV shows/movies/etc. should or could be funded this way. And, yes, $20,000 is definitely a very low budget. But it is an example of this sort of model working, and there's certainly no indication that it can't or won't scale.

Filed Under: bittorrent, crowdfunding, funding, pioneer one, tv shows

Retail Giant Tesco Gets Into The Movie Business

from the alternative-means dept

Even as the movie business has had yet another record breaking year at the box office, we still hear claims from Hollywood that online downloading of unauthorized movies is going to kill the movie business. And yet, where there's demand, new business models will be created. ethorad points us to the news that UK retail giant Tesco is getting into the business of producing movies itself based on the books of some very famous authors. The movies will be direct-to-DVD and direct-to-the-internet, but the idea is for Tesco to use these movies to generate more traffic to their stores (both online and off). In fact, if you look at the retail business, music and movies have long been used as a loss leader of sorts, to drive traffic to get them to buy other, much higher margin, goods. This is really an extension of that, but all the way to the point of helping to fund the production of the movie itself. Also, while it will have a window of exclusivity at the beginning, it sounds like Tesco is quite open to other stores selling the movie as well. Either way, it's interesting to see other third parties recognize that they benefit from having movies made, and thus are willing to partially fund the production of those movies.

Filed Under: funding, loss leader, marketing, movies, promotion
Companies: tesco

There Are Lots Of Ways To Fund Journalism

from the if-you-look-around dept

As various folks in the news business (and outside of it) continue to fret about how it could be possible to ever fund the production of news, some are taking more positive looks at the space. Jay Rosen has listed out 18 different sources of subsidies for funding journalism (or journalism-like) work. Some of them are better than others, but it's a useful list to get you a thinking. Full disclosure: a part of our own business model is on the list. Along those lines, since people have been saying nice stuff about our business model, Jesse Hirsh has a way-too-nice writeup about our CwF+RtB experiment, which I still think is a bit short of a full business model, but is getting closer. Based on our experiences with it, we're getting more and more ideas on how to fund not just journalism, but all sorts of content creation.

And, really, that's the idea. There are lots of different ideas and experiments going on -- and many of them are showing early signs of success, and I'm sure more will come along at a later date that are even more successful. Really, the only ones complaining and demanding changes to the law are those who represent the old way of doing things, and don't want to change. They talk up all sorts of horror stories and moral panics about how "journalism" or "music" or "movies" are going to go away -- despite the fact that we actually have more of all three of those things happening today than at any time in history. Based on that faulty reasoning, they demand special protection not for "journalism" "music" or "movies" but for the old business models and old institutions that produced all three.

Eventually, as these new business models and new institutions work themselves out, it'll suddenly seem "obvious" what the right answers were, and people will forget the hundreds if not thousands of different experiments -- both good and bad -- that went into developing the new model. It's a time of upheaval, for sure, but there's no indication that there's any real risk to the production of content. Just a few businesses that got big and don't want to change with the times.

Filed Under: business models, funding, jay rosen, journalism

New Service Helps Musicians Pre-Fund Releases From Fans

from the useful-tool dept

Andrew Moffat from the site Musicslu writes in to let us know about its service, which is effectively a tool to let musicians get fans to "pre-fund" their releases. We've talked about such models in the past -- and it's similar to what Jill Sobule did last year. Other musicians have done it as well, but Musicslu tries to make it easier for artists. Basically, the band announces how much it needs to raise to release its album, and fans pledge money. No one actually pays until the full pledge number is hit -- and then once it's hit, the music is released for everyone totally free (covered by a Creative Commons license that encourages sharing). They've put up a YouTube video explaining how it works: Again, this isn't an entirely new idea, but it's nice to see a tool that makes it easier for artists who don't want to go through the hassle of setting it all up themselves. I'm sure some folks will complain that this sort of model only encourages "free loaders," but that ignores the reality. The band gets to set exactly how much it needs to make from the album, and be guaranteed that amount. If there's freeloaders after that fact, so what? If the band really builds up a huge following, then the next time around it can set a higher price. Besides, the band can continue to make money by selling other scarcities.

Filed Under: fans, funding, music
Companies: musicslu

Journalism Isn't Dead: More Journalism Projects Getting Funded

from the ain't-dead-yet dept

Last week, in yet another post about old school journalists complaining about the supposed "death" of journalism, someone complained in the comments, saying that the "utter lack of interest" from venture capitalists concerning journalism startups should disprove that there are others out there who can build such a business. That seems like a ridiculous criteria (venture capital interest is hardly a barometer of what works and what doesn't). But, even if we assume that you need to see VC interest, well, then that commenter is wrong also. Someone anonymous pointed us to the recent launch of Patch, a company that is hiring full-time journalists and building hyperlocal community sites and is funded by Polar Capital. And that's hardly the only one. In the last month alone I've had conversations with three different VCs looking at journalism startups and exploring whether their models made sense. Once again, we're seeing that if there's demand for a product (journalism), there will be businesses that will figure out ways to supply it. Not all will succeed. In fact, many will fail. But from that we'll certainly come up with models that work.

Filed Under: funding, journalism, startups
Companies: patch, polar capital

EMI Might Not Like The RIAA Very Much

from the distancing-yourself dept

Kevin Stapp writes in to point to the rumor making the rounds that EMI is considering scaling back how much it supports the RIAA and IFPI financially. While this is positioned mainly as a cost-savings move, it could have much larger ramifications. EMI, of course, has actually been shifting slowly away from some of the more troubling positions of the RIAA. It was the first major label to sell DRM-free tracks on iTunes. More importantly, it was recently taken private by a private equity firm, whose bosses don't seem beholden to the old way of doing business, and are willing to rethink the business. For example, when Radiohead began its experiment with "name your own pricing," the CEO of that private equity firm used it as a call to action for the company to start thinking creatively about new ways to distribute music -- rather than trying to diminish its importance as the other record labels did.

If EMI lowers its funding of the RIAA and the IFPI it's basically an (all too late) admission, that the strategies of those two organizations are not helping EMI achieve its long term goals. This shouldn't be surprising, as it's been obvious for nearly a decade now that the RIAA's focus was solely on short-term goals at the expense of any long-term vision. Many people have pointed this out over the years, and people would respond that the RIAA was simply doing what the labels wanted it to do (even if those actions, like pissing off a huge number of fans) was incredibly damaging to the labels' own long-term prospects. EMI pulling back funding shows that even it no longer thinks the RIAA's actions are in its best interests.

Filed Under: funding, record labels, riaa
Companies: emi, riaa