Studios vs. Streaming: Which ‘logic’ will prevail in Hollywood?

What is it about?

The battle between traditional Hollywood studios and streaming services like Netflix is a matter of “institutional logics” – commitment logic versus convenience logic. The traditional movie studio business model is based on “commitment logic” that bets on customers choosing to view a theatrical release on the big screen, while the new streaming models of Netflix and Amazon Prime instead rely on “convenience logic” in driving subscriptions by offering customers a big variety of films “ATAWAD” – “AnyTime, AnyWhere, and on Any Device”. The study focuses on four alternative scenarios as to how these two differing logics will play out in upcoming years: complementary logics scenarios would reduce the current threat to the traditional movie studios, while competing logics scenarios would increase the logic of one business model dominating the other.

Featured Image

Photo by CardMapr on Unsplash

Photo by CardMapr on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The four scenarios developed in this article are intended to help all players delineate and inform their strategic moves. Our hope is that industry experts find them useful standpoints for their analyses, at a time when the perception that “nobody knows anything” in the film business (Goldman 1983) may be stronger than ever.