2019年经济学人 6500亿美元的狂欢--美国娱乐业投资热潮(2)（在线收听）

The entertainment business is fast-moving by its very nature. It has few tangible assets, it relies on technology to distribute its wares and its customers crave novelty. The emergence of sound in the 1920s cemented Hollywood as the centre of the global film business. But by the end of the 20th century the industry had grown as complacent as a punchline in a repeat episode of “Friends”. It relied on old technologies—analogue broadcasting, slow internet connections and the storage of sounds and sights on fiddly CDs, DVDs and hard drives. And the commercial approach was to rip off consumers by overcharging for stale content packaged into oversized bundles.

本质上，娱乐业发展快速。几乎没有什么有形资产，依靠技术来销售产品，其消费者渴望新奇。20世纪20年代声音的出现巩固了好莱坞作为全球电影产业中心的地位。但到了20世纪末，该行业变得自满起来，就像《老友记》中反复出现的笑话一样。它依靠的是老式技术——模拟广播、网速慢以及将声音和影像存储在精巧的CD、DVD和硬盘上。而商业方法是通过对包装成超大包的陈旧内容收取过高费用来敲诈消费者。

The first shudder came in music in 1999, with internet services soon putting established music firms such as emi and Warner Music under pressure. In television Netflix broke the mould in 2007 by using broadband connections to sell video subscriptions, undercutting the cable firms. When the smartphone took off it tailored its service to hand-held devices. The firm has acted as a catalyst for competition, forcing the old guard to slash prices and innovate, and sucking in new contenders. The boom has seen star writers paid as if they were Wall Street titans, sent rents for Hollywood studio lots into the stratosphere and overtook the 20th century’s media barons, including Rupert Murdoch, who sold much of his empire to Disney in March.

第一次颠覆发生在1999年的音乐领域，互联网服务很快将百代和华纳音乐等老牌音乐公司置于压力之下。在电视领域，Netflix在2007年打破了这一模式，使用宽带连接来销售视频订阅，从而比有线电视公司更便宜。当智能手机普及流行时，它为手持设备量身定制服务。这家公司已经成为竞争的催化剂，迫使老一代的卫道士们降低价格，进行创新，并吸引新的竞争者。在这股热潮中，明星作家们拿着高薪，仿佛自己就是华尔街的巨头，好莱坞工作室的租金也一路飙升，并超过了20世纪的传媒大亨，其中包括鲁珀特?默多克。今年3月，默多克将其帝国的大部分资产出售给了迪士尼。