Tiny Number Of Creators Hitting The Jackpot… Or Many Making A Living Wage? http://bit.ly/b3Yaog
Put me down squarely in the corner of those who’s goal from “democratized” television (music and film) is to have more people making more money (decent living/middle class wage) than ever before. This will inevitably mean that fewer people win the jackpot of success.
To me this is a much better goal than trying to win the jackpot lottery of outrageous success., Every $2 milliion that a big name makes equates to 20 people early a very decent $100 K. And Ryan Seacrest’s $15 million a year to spokesmodel American Ido is obscene: That’s 150 people’s decent middle class income.
In that post, Parsons calls the old model — the one we described as the lottery ticket — as the “gambler model,” where you’re basically rolling the dice on whether or not your career will be a success or will plummet. And notes that the “cobbler model,” may not be as sexy, but you have a higher likelihood of success. The risk is lower, and the payoff is likely lower, but you can actually build a predictable career around it — and for many content creators, that’s certainly good enough. This isn’t to suggest it’s the only model. In fact, it’s not. There’s still room for rock stars and lottery tickets. But, when we’re looking at some of these content creators who are making a good living as professional musicians, the proper comparison is not to Mick Jagger, but to what they’d be doing if they were living in the world a few decades ago: and the answer is they probably wouldn’t be making music at all.