14
Dec
What Louis CK knows that most media companies don’t
Louis CK edits his own stuff on his Mac !
The comedian now joins the alternative rock group Radiohead and DJ mashup artist Girl Talk (both of whom have released “pay what you want” downloads”) as an example of how successful a direct-to-fans approach can be. And Louis CK’s experiment shows that this approach can have the same kind of disruptive effect on television and movies as it has had in music. So what can media companies — or other would-be independents — learn from his example? It pays to be human: Louis CK likely got a lot of support in part because he opened himself up to his fans, via both his blog and the Q & A he did on Reddit, one of the site’s popular “Ask Me Anything” features. His openness on the site about his financial stake in the video no doubt helped encourage that support. Media companies too often focus on their corporate brand, not the human beings who actually create the content. You have to make it easy: As the comedian described, he didn’t want to give his fans something with DVD region-encoding or DRM padlocks or other gimmicks because they are irritating. Instead, he made it as simple as possible for them to get something they could use in any way they want. This is the exact opposite of the approach most media companies take, and it virtually guarantees that their content will be pirated as much as possible. It’s better to be cheap: CK could probably have asked for $20 or even more for his video special — and a TV network or media conglomerate undoubtedly would have. But $5 makes it an easy choice for just about anyone who likes the comedian’s work or is even mildly interested. E-book prices have demonstrated the same thing: if you price it low enough, you can sell orders of magnitude more units than you would if you put a higher price tag on it.
