Storytelling sits upstream in culture and, as such, can catalyze any manner of societal change or commercial transformation. In the fast growing, global, commercial market for premium storytelling across film, television, animation, audio, and interactive (games and web3), there is a MASSIVE product market fit problem. Eighty percent (80%) of media consumed worldwide is produced in the United States, largely in Hollywood, where it is controlled by a small group of intermediaries, gatekeepers and ultimate decision makers. American youth are already “minority majority,” and coupled with the larger POC demographics, are the “engines of future growth.” And of course, in terms of global growth, the vast majority of the world is non-white. We are the largest creators – and consumers – of global culture and commerce.
We believe this creates a singular opportunity to build the technical and creative infrastructure for the content studios of the next 100 years of storytelling. Such studios will rest on three pillars: (i) deep cultural connectivity, with an intersectional and global aperture, (ii) expertise in long form storytelling and original IP building across media and formats, and (iii) technical mastery of data sciences, AI & machine learning, with new, proprietary products and tools to discover, evaluate, audience size, market and distribute talent and content in fundamentally different ways than the traditional Hollywood systems. (Note: GTAM in 2030 for film/tv, nearly $200B; for audio, $150B; for gaming, nearly $600B; add in web3, fuhgettaboutit.)
We believe there is and always has been outsized value in the margins, and compile the growing third party research and data that supports this thesis here. Feel free to reach out to us for even more data on this topic, including our own analysis of the past 40 years of American film history, and also to send us anything you find of note on the topic. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, just a selection from our research.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/arts/television/disability-representation-tv-movies-study.html
https://news.uga.edu/multicultural-economy-report-17/
https://frey-demographer.org/demographics-news-category/majority-minority-trends