Hollywood has reinvented its core model at least six times in a century. The nonprofit arts model has reinvented itself exactly once. Now there may no choice. But what’s the case?
What Ireland’s Basic Artist Income Experiment tells us about a new Arts Economy
Ireland demonstrated something: economic insecurity doesn’t just force workers out, it diminishes the overall creative economy. That matters enormously right now, because we are entering a period when a lot of people across a lot of industries are about to lose their job security.
The Middleware Manifesto: A Proposal for Rebuilding American Culture
That shift from content value to traffic value is what has destroyed the business model for nearly everything we’re talking about. I’m calling it a manifesto because that’s what it needs to be. Not a lament. Not a white paper, but a declaration of what is needed.
Five Year-end Observations about Arts and Culture in 2025
We posted more than 6,000 stories across all forms of culture in 2025. When you pull back and look at them in aggregate, the individual crises—the closures in San Francisco, the lawsuits in D.C., the endless op-eds about the “death of cinema”—stop looking like isolated incidents. They resolve into a structural shift.
The UnderTow: The High-flying Oil Industry fears “Demand Destruction.” Should the Arts?
Oil prices are at a record high. And profits are rolling in. But there’s an intriguing phenomenon in the oil industry called “demand destruction.” It means when prices get too high for too long, consumers invest in alternatives and don’t return. The arts have faced their own version of demand destruction when COVID shut down live performances. Is there anything to be learned from how the oil industry approaches what sounds like an existential threat?
Business Models and a $9 Billion Idea
We need a significant, stable ongoing source of new funding that is politically insulated and inflation-proof.
Five Things to Fix in the Arts
The shutdown has suspended usual rules, positions and behaviors, suggesting there may be opportunities to not just rethink but take action.
Is The Institutionalization Of Our Arts A Dead End?
In his essay looking back on Lincoln Center on its 50th birthday, Joe Horowitz suggests that the cultural citadel built optimistically to be a launching pad for the American performing arts, might have turned out instead to be a box canyon. Perhaps the buildings are to blame: the Met theatre is too big and unwieldy, and […]
Are Orchestras A Ticket Or An Art? Maybe We’re Thinking About The (Made Up) Model Wrong
As recently as 1990, American symphony orchestras accounted for an average of 60 percent of their budgets in earned income. This meant, at the time, that if you weren’t selling enough tickets (and other services) to make 60 percent, then you weren’t considered healthy. A report in 1991 – The Financial Condition of Symphony Orchestras […]
What Happens When Critical Opinion Separates From The Audience?
Three stories this week get to the heart of the question. First, the BBC polled critics worldwide and asked them what were the best 100 movies made so far in the 21st Century. Look at the list and you see something striking – the top 10 films collectively took in $213 million, or, as Barry […]
The Mass Market Ain’t What It Used To Be (And What That Means For The Arts)
What does it mean to “engage with an audience”? It’s a fundamental question for anyone who makes anything. Whether it’s a political party trying to win votes, Coke trying to sell drinks, an entrepreneur trying to sell an idea, or a theatre trying to sell tickets. Whole industries thrive on trying to define, quantify and […]
Culture-crashing – Is The Internet Killing Our Creative Class?
Scott Timberg, an arts journalist and author of the CultureCrash blog on ArtsJournal, has a new book out called… Culture Crash. It’s Scott’s attempt to look at how the digital revolution has impacted artists. The tagline of the book – “The Killing of the Creative Class” – gives you an idea of what he thinks […]
British Orchestras – Bigger Audiences For Less Money
British orchestras report an increase in attendees – a 16 percent increase no less – over an earlier three-year period: A survey by the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) has found attendances at concerts and performances between 2012 and 2013 were up 16 per cent on those three years earlier. More than 4.5 million people […]
Are you a Channel or are you a Library?
TV used to be an appointment medium. It’s Thursday night at 8 and you’re in front of the set watching or else you missed your favorite show. Then VCR’s, DVD’s and DVR’s progressively pecked away at the appointment schedule. Many of us now wait till a show has aired and then watch a saved copy […]
Do you want to be my cable company or my TV provider?
I pay my cable provider to supply me with TV. Since I don’t want to watch on my cable provider’s schedule I pay for Tivo. Since my cable provider doesn’t have all the movies I want to watch, I buy DVDs. I also have a Netflix subscription. Since I travel a lot I use Hulu. […]