{"id":354,"date":"2009-05-28T12:43:56","date_gmt":"2009-05-28T12:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/2009\/05\/power_in_numbers_there_ought\/"},"modified":"2016-09-21T05:41:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T12:41:39","slug":"power_in_numbers_there_ought-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/05\/power_in_numbers_there_ought-2.html","title":{"rendered":"10 Ways to Think About Social Networking And The Arts (the zen of "free" as a strategy)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"power.jpg\"<\/span>Power in numbers. There ought to be a simple formula to calculate it. Is it better to have a small devoted audience or a massive casual one?<\/p>\n

It depends on the scale of what you’re trying to do. TV has power because it has the ability to attract millions of viewers. The New York Review of Books<\/i> has power because though its audience is small, it is influential.<\/p>\n

The problem is when the scale of the audience doesn’t\u00a0 match the cost of production. The little magazine might be high quality but if it doesn’t raise enough money from its small band of supporters, it can’t survive. TV might have a huge audience, but if the audience slips (which it inevitably seems to) or advertisers cut back, even popular shows<\/a> get canceled.<\/p>\n

So one model is all about the size of audience. The other is about the financial commitment of a community to support something. The problem then, isn’t just finding an audience, it’s finding the scale and kind of audience you need to support you. The little magazine doesn’t just need an audience, it needs an audience committed to paying to support it. The mass TV audience doesn’t have to pay anything as long as there are enough people watching and advertisers willing to pay to reach them.<\/p>\n

The formula for audience support changes over time. In the 1980s a symphony orchestra was considered healthy if it made half its budget at the box office. Now the standard is in the 30-something percent range. In the 90s, newspapers weren’t considered healthy unless they earned profit margins in the 25%+ range.<\/p>\n

So what’s so magical about a 25% profit or earned revenue of 50%? Nothing really, except that they’re formulas to measure relative success in a structure built to support a venture or industry.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the internet, newspapers have bigger audiences\u00a0than they’ve ever had, yet because the audience scale isn’t right, the industry is in crisis. If online ad rates were close to\u00a0print ad rates, the problem would be solved. Or, ad rates could stay\u00a0the same and the online audience expand by a factor of ten and things might be fine. Or the business model could change and the ratio between\u00a0size of audience and how the content is paid for could be back in\u00a0balance.<\/p>\n

\"community.jpg\"<\/span>The audience you deserve?
\n<\/b><\/span>
\nSo what kind of audience does an arts organization need? The more often-asked question is: how do we sell more tickets? I submit that that’s the wrong question. If an arts organization makes less than half of its income at the box office, then its challenge isn’t just selling tickets, it’s cultivating a more committed audience. If tickets were priced according to what it cost to produce that concert, they would be so expensive that we wouldn’t sell enough tickets to support it. So our model is a subsidy model. But a subsidy model only works if there’s an audience committed enough to subsidize.<\/p>\n

The typical professional American orchestra performs in front of about 2.5 percent of the people in its area in a given season. This is the little magazine model, and it works as long as that small number of people are willing not just to show up at concerts, but give additional money to support it. In tough economic times, that small 2.5 percent audience has to be more committed than ever. And it must be the right kind of influential audience that can leverage corporate, foundation and government support. That’s a lot of work for a small number of people when 97.5 percent of a potential audience has no exposure to the orchestra and therefore have no relationship with it.<\/p>\n

A classic way of developing broader relationships is with exposure through the free sample. Get a shot on The Ed Sullivan Show<\/i> and millions of people will see how great you are and buy your record. The problem pre-internet was that there were few spots available on Sullivan.<\/p>\n

The internet changes the scale of the free sample. If Cory Doctorow or Seth Godin can give away millions of copies of their books, it means their ideas gain currency and some of those millions of readers will be interested enough to pay attention the next time Cory or Seth have something to say. That’s worth a lot. If they hadn’t given away their work, they’d just be a couple more guys expounding to their friends about the way the world works. Giving away work establishes their brand and creates a constituency for them.<\/p>\n

So how do we build constituency in the arts?<\/p>\n