This Business of Television

This Business of Television is a landmark volume in our practice (entertainment industry economic forecasting) for three reasons.

Reason # 3: it is incredible that guys of this stature would take the time to compile such an essential and complete perspective of the television business. Goodenough, a seasoned entertainment lawyer, law professor, and a scholar pioneering the study of law and evolutionary biology, brings the structure and rigor, while Blumenthal, a prolific TV, multimedia, and online entertainment producer and businessman brings the been-there-done-that street savvy.

Reason # 2: it is, after all, the business that pays for the content (the subscriber, pay-per-view, advertising, syndication, and the latest, e-commerce revenue models) and the content that drives the migration to new technology (streaming media webcasting and video-on-demand, interactive TV, and wireless). The clear understanding of the financial systems supporting television and video entertainment offered by Oliver and Howard in this book facilitates the modeling of future monetary transactions.

Reason # 1: video programming spread from broadcast to cable and then to satellite in one generation. The last decade found it spreading to the PC via CD-ROM, DVD, and broadband Internet. In the future it will be found on our cell phones, wristwatches, car seat backs, and refrigerators. There will be innovations in business arrangements along the way, but those who cannot converse in the basic economics will be doomed.

This segues into a jacket quote by Morty Morton, former producer of the Late Show with David Letterman, who remarked, "This Business of Television has gotten me through years of moderate success in the TV business. I'm now ready to burn the damn thing and open a restaurant."

Our start-up entertainment company has used the first edition as our essential reference book. We have not found anything else like it. We are excited about ordering the second edition.

The first edition was handy, detailed, and filled with suggestions on where to find further information. I'm glad the revised edition includes a disk. Highly recommended for anyone in the television, video, or CD-ROM production business. And not a bad price, considering the cost of other texts.

This book is not as informative as you think. It rambles on about every person in America should know. Any person with common sense could figure these stats, facts, etc. found in this book. It was a waste of my time and money.