but I don't think we are on the right track here. So fare what I see is media buyers eager to get films at lower prices and sellers happy to lower prices IF they can still survive doing this, the problem is that this group is far too small to make a difference. This is not a problem what will be solved at NMM or on this listserv. The reason merchants participate in Groupon is that it is supposed to bring them a HUGE number of NEW customers. If the same people just buy more titles at a lower price, educational distiributors will still go out of business. The most popular titles will get "cherry picked" as being popular enough to sell copies within the limited market at a lower price and 95% of the films will disappear for lack of buyers. Unless those pushing the lower prices are indicating they will be able to spend 10 times what they currently do, then in reality it does not help. In order for a $250 title to sell for $30 you will need to sell 10 times as many (you will have higher costs), which means you need 10 times the market.
Unless we can collectively vastly increase the market for the hundreds of wonderful non fiction and specialized films. lower prices will simply ensure the death of 90% or more of these titles, a process that has basically been underway for a number of years. I think the only hope for saving the "educational" film market is convince public libraries to start buying them and for higher education institutions to broaden their collections. Right now public libraries can not afford the majority of these titles, at $30 they could, but would they in fact buy them? I think we need something along the lines of Library Media Project that worked with foundations to underwrite costs of curated collections to make titles more available to libraries. No need for curated collections, but bluntly there will be a need for some outside financial support to both get the word out as well as subsidize some costs. You don't want to get me started on the funding of studies to look into the needs of libraries, the technology changes, lots of conferences and consultants but nothing practical. I swear for the cost of one conference on say the difficulties of distribution African Films in the US, you could get a dozen or more films IN distribution. I am prejudiced because Mary Kirby is an old friend, but I always thought the Library Media Project went under because it spent most of it's resources getting actual physical films into libraries and not studying the concept. The point is we need help. Most of you have better connections than me, but unless we have away to dramatically increase the number of copies sold of a wide range of independent , mostly non fiction films, the few that might do well with a groupon at NMM won't make any difference. Now NMM and this listserv are the places to start working on a plan but the goal has to be a large NEW market not the mere shifting of funds from the existing one. -- Jessica Rosner Media Consultant 224-545-3897 (cell) 212-627-1785 (land line) [email protected]
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
