The Long Tail Theory

Lucy Richardson & Emma Sugarman

The Long Tail Theory 2006

The Long Tail Theory describes how the Internet has influenced economics, commerce and consumption. Since Broadband was introduced in 2001, these impacts have been most prominent.

i.e. The Head is ONE shop that has 50 customers.The Long Tail is 50 websites than each have 1

customer.

Chris Anderson

The Film Industry

The Long Tail theory can be applied to the film industry in terms of how films are distributed.

i.e. The Head is a high street film retailer such as Blockbuster.

The Long Tail is an online film distribution service such as Amazon.

The Film Industry

This means that high street shops (the Head) that sell films are gradually becoming less popular due to the restrictions they experience in terms of shelf-space.

Internet retailers (the Long Tail) do not experience this as they do not have a physical shop. Their unlimited space shelf allows them to provide for niche markets, increasing their customers as they have a wider variety of products.

For example…

The Head may contain: Cinema chains such as Cineworld, Odeon; film retailers such as HMV, Blockbuster etc.

The Long Tail may contain: Internet sites such as Netflix, YouTube, LOVEFiLM etc.; iTunes etc. Due to the growing accessibility of the Internet, more and more films are being downloaded online rather than bought in the shops.

Head Long Tail

Impacts on the Film Industry

Advantages Disadvantages

Films are more available online, increasing views and popularity.

Illegal downloads i.e. Putlocker, Sockshare, 1channel.

Facilities such as film forums allow customers to give feedback, helping the film industry to improve.

High street shops lose sales as customers resort to online purchases.

People can narrow down their choices of film via filtering services.

Those without internet access are limited to only films that are in shops.

Customers can see what films are similar to those that they like, broadening target audiences for other films.

The atmosphere of going to the cinema is lost.

HMV, Blockbuster (stores)Amazon (hard copy and digital such as Ebooks or DVDs and Digital Downloads)

Purely online – LoveFilm, Netflix