Entertainment industry: are streaming platforms the new labels?
--
From over there … to fame: A launch pad called label. In the media and entertainment world, the thing commonly called label is a brand, a trademark to discover, produce, market film or music content. Once, such labels served as titular saints for powerful companies that acted as mighty gatekeepers. They initiated and were home to some of the most relevant market- and pop-culture- developments in their respective industries ever. Until they lost ground through M&A landslides or technological progress. Or simply, because the driving forces behind them burned out. Finally, everything digital and the internet seemed to drive the business model towards extinction. Until, now in 2020, a good argument can be made that companies running streaming platforms are about to revive this influential position in their own — updated — ways.
Traditionally, in the entertainment world, labels served everybody well. They are masters in designing true fanboy paradises. If you have been a fan of certain artists or styles of film or music over the last decades, you probably have known or do still know a couple of label names that help you navigate the diverse worlds of content, art and entertainment to find what you are looking for. Apart from that, labels gave — and sometimes still give — comfortable homes to the business of creatives, artists, creators by offering safe havens to do great things with great partners, while providing everything relevant about economics and trade as well as about creative processes.
Mainly with the rise of the entertainment industries in the second half of the nineteen hundreds, labels became the industry flagship efforts and household names to brand and market the work of the underlying industry structures that included back office’s…
