Time to be entertained

In David Poland's Monday column, he attempted to argue against the prevailing thought that the studios are struggling because people are choosing to do other things. Although people are clearly being entertained by the Internet and game consoles more now then they were in the past, Poland notes that we are still going to movies quite a bit.

Here's some of his more interesting excerpts:

http://www.thehotbutton.com/today/hot.button/2006_thb/060508_mon.html

In any case, the mantra became that people, especially teen boys, were busy making other choices. And the endless hum is that people will, or are, making other choices now. But the fact is that how we consume has changed and has changed forever. It's not about where we consume. It's not about what we consume. The future is about how much we can consume...

For instance, watching TV shows on iPods and the idea of monetizing reruns on an individual viewing basis is very interesting. Yet the same people who are touting this as The Future are also complaining that the theater experience is getting worse and worse and slowly becoming equal to or inferior to home viewing. Why "yet?" Because there is no debating that the iPod viewing experience is the worst possible viewing experience for anything that might otherwise play on a regular size TV.

The conceit of the video iPod is not quality… it's time shifting and ease of access...

The choice of staying home and watching a rented or purchased DVD for a couple in their 40s after they put the two kids to bed is not the same kind of choice as "steak or chicken?" To make the choice to leave the house to go see a movie - which will, coincidentally, cost at least 10 times what the home rental cost, even with modest choices at the concession stand - also means planning, boundaries on the evening (God forbid the 8:30 is sold out and you have 15-year-old Lisa babysitting, who absolutely has to be home by midnight… waiting for that that 10p show is not an option), the stress of leaving the kids if they are not used to being left behind on weekend nights, and of course, the cost of the babysitter, parking, etc. The evening at the movies we had when we were in college - yeah… let's see two films back to back - leaving home at 6 and coming back at 2am after a late snack at the burger joint are not the way it is now. It is not just choice. It is not just quality. It is hard damned work to leave the house for any adventure in that situation. And something you pay more per ticket for - live theater or sporting events - or a dinner party with its own politics is more likely to get you out of the house than any movie, good, bad or indifferent.

It's basic math. If you are a single person in your early 20s and you sleep 8 hours a day and work 8 hours a day, you have 8 more hours to entertain yourself. If you are an adult with adult demands in your life, you have to fight to get any shred of those 8 hours as free time. And the less of it you have, the more you value it.

Now…

How do you fill your eight/seven/six/five/four/three/two/one hour(s)?

But it's an even bigger question than that now because you are now assaulted by entertainment options during those eight working hours as well. Fifteen years ago, you could read a newspaper at your desk or even in the bathroom, but there was no web. Maybe you were playing solitaire at you desk. But you weren't getting, at minimum, continually updated news, information flying in via e-mail, endless e-mail correspondence and indeed, a wide variety of filmed entertainment...

Perhaps by no coincidence, that is also the internet. In addition to creating a niche universe, the internet and other technological advances have given us so many choices that we now make affirmative decisions and, with a few exceptions, not passive ones about how we spend our entertainment time.

I think Poland's onto something here. Entertainment is becoming less of an event "I'm going to read a book, or go to the theater, or watch tv" and more of a way of life. During our non-sleeping hours the norm is that we are being entertained, so much so, that when we're not being entertained we get restless and pull out our iPods to watch Lost.

Much like Huxley predicted in A Brave New World, entertainment is shaping us so much that the entertainment industry's product is on the verge of becoming a necessity because our minds can't live without it. Studios no longer have to convince us to consume their products, they simply have to convince us that the flavor of the day is more worthy of our time than some other brand, and then make their flavor accessible