What does current state of Independent Film Distribution look like in 2020?
2019 was quite a year for most of us, and while we’re entering 2020 with more stable economic footing than we expected, there are definitely some notable industry trends heating up that I thought to weigh in on a bit and let those of you who frequent my tiny corner of the internet know my thoughts on the matter.
Note from the future: Oof. That stable economic footing did not last.
The SVOD Wars
Anyone who’s been on the internet, watched TV, or stepped out of their house in the last 10 months has probably seen at least about 50 ads for Disney+. It’s the latest major entry into the Subscription Video on Demand market (SVOD) and it really changed the power dynamics of that particular section of the industry. Disney is moving a lot of their legacy content onto the platform as with the fall of DVD the vault isn’t as profitable as it once was. Now that Disney is here, it’s going to shape up the landscape a significant amount. For more on that, check back in a few weeks for a post elaborating on the state of SVOD and how it changes the whole landscape.
The fallout from the Distribber Debacle
If you follow Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle as I do, you’ll be well aware of the issues facing Distribber and GoDigital. Through reports from the people they took money and films from, it seems clear that they’ve proven themselves to be every bit as untrustworthy as the sales agents and distributors we’ve all heard about. So the big question here is if aggregators don’t deliver or screw you, where else can a filmmaker go to get their film out there? Should they use the old path, and go to a film market?
Film Markets
I’ve said it before, and I maintain that I would not have a career had I not gone to the American Film Market. However, if I were to give advice to anyone starting out today, I don’t know if I’d tell them they should go. While there were a lot of buyers at AFM last year, none of them seemed to be buying enough to sustain that sort of system. According to the Hollywood reporter, this year AFM hit “Schlock bottom” and the rich got richer.
It’s not the right political climate for that to continue, and most of the people reading this probably aren’t studio heads or those making 5-10mm dollar features.
For more on Markets, Check out my book!
AVOD Surges
I think it’s very likely that we’ll see a massive surge in the Advertising supported video on demand market over the course of 2020. That market is poised to explode, especially in the even of an economic downturn. People are aware of AVOD, but many don’t really watch much of it due to a lack of content. That’s changing. Quickly. TubiTV and PlutoTV’s buyers were some of the only people acquiring catalogs en mass at AFM in November. Their user base is global, and growing.
If there is an economic downturn, it’s likely that more people will have less money and more time. That spells a boom for free entertainment, and the longer people watch the more ad impressions the platform racks up, even if the Cost per impression goes down due to lack of purchase power of the viewer. If your content is up there, the more you engage with a new user base and the greater the royalties.
So how do you maximize your profit in this landscape?
BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE!
Everything mentioned above are tactics to make your content available to your audience. They all share the same problem, the inability to generate an audience or help a new audience discover your work. So if you do one thing to build your filmmaking career, it should be to grow your audience. If you have an engaged audience, it can sustain your career more than anything else. It can make it more likely you’ll get picked up by an SVOD platform, it can help you have leverage with aggregators and sales agents you meet at markets, and if you are looking to grow your audience by having a free AVOD platform they can watch your content through that’s much more selective than something like YouTube can help you to do so.
So if you want to grow your profits from film distribution, the solution is simple. Build an audience hungry for your content. If you want some help with that, the button below will let you join my email list and get a marketing packet that will help you with some additional information, money saving links, and templates.
