Why Haven't Any Movie Studios Become The 'Fan Friendly' Studio?
from the makes-you-wonder dept
Copycense points us to a recent, if short, David Pogue blog post, in response to a reader question, complaining about the ubiquitous unskippable FBI warnings at the beginnings of DVDs. The questioner asks why the industry bothers with them, when all they serve to do is annoy legitimate customers (infringing copies cut that stuff out). Pogue makes an interesting point in response, questioning why some studios don't stand up to become the "friendly" studio, in the same way that newer discount airlines, like JetBlue have tried to become a more customer-friendly airline:I don't understand why some movie studio doesn't decide to become the Good Guys of the industry. Get rid of all those annoyances, all the lawyer-driven absurdities, and market the heck out of it. Be like the breath-of-fresh air new airline (as JetBlue was in its day) or cellphone company (like T-Mobile, the only company that drops your monthly rate after you've repaid the subsidy on your phone). Dare to be different -- and win a lot of customer loyalty as a result.There are some smallish indie studios that are sorta trying, but that's not quite the same thing. Part of the problem, I imagine, is the overall ecosystem. Studios can't become "fan friendly" without pissing off the theaters (even if the theaters are probably overreacting). Still, it does seem like this is the direction that movie studios should be moving in. While there will always be some who will automatically distrust the big studios, I would imagine that if a big studio actually stopped treating people like criminals and embraced a much more fan-friendly attitude, it would pretty quickly find that fans were more than willing to reciprocate.
Filed Under: fan friendly, fbi warning, movie studios, movies, warnings
