I notice a trend lately : I seldom watch movies or TV. I get my dose of mass media movies from my longhaul flight (SingaporeAir has great collection on their movies-on-demand). I dont watch TV because I lost interest in Mediacorp programming and more importantly, I found something that suit my need – Internet.
I can find lots of exotics shows which I can’t find in Singapore at all. The latest show I got from the Internet is a series called 仙剑奇侠传, a China-made show which as far as I know, not sold in any stores in Singapore. Neither do I have very high hopes Mediacorp will show this over the air. But you can buy it here.
It was adapted from a Taiwanese game which I love in the early 90s. And of course, the main actress 刘亦菲 is incredibly beautiful. Last I heard, she is filming 神雕侠侣, oh boy!
The problem is most thinks china-made show are lousy. Ha!1 But there is a demand for such show outside China too but they are tiny, really tiny until you aggregate them together.
This is preciesly the Long Tail phenomenal Chris Anderson talks about today. Before Internet, there is almost no way I can get these shows at all. It would be interesting to see how people going to make money out of all these long tails.
And almost every industry have a long tail – What’s your long tail?
1 Okay, I agree there are rooms for improvement but heck, who watch 流星花园 because of F4 acting skills?
Footnote: I remember arguing with a friend in 2000 that Korean shows is going to be big (after seeing what they have in Korea from my frequent trip there). No one believe me then because the rage back then is Japanese shows. Today, I say, watch out for China made shows.
