The idea of Six Flags being like Disney or Universal melted away when Time Warner divested. However, after a proxy battle, CEO Kieran Burke was removed in December of 2005 and replaced by Mark Shapiro, a former Executive Vice President with Disney’s ESPN. Harvey Weinstein (formerly of Miramax – remember?) was placed on the Board. Since then, Shapiro has actively tried to steer Six Flags back in a more Disney-like direction in terms of operations and demographic appeal.

Over the years, there has been talk of Universal Studios getting out of the theme park business, and they did sell PortAventura in Spain. With the NBC deal, though, it seems even more useful to have Universal Studios Hollywood around and operating as a theme park, and as I noted previously, GE does have a nice history in theme parks. It’s a good sign that in late 2006, Universal unveiled a plan to expand the theme park, add soundstages, and build a residential development.

Like Disney, Universal, which has a park in Japan, is planning to expand in Asia - currently with a park planned in Singapore.

Even where studio companies aren’t good at operating theme parks, licensing of their content to theme park operators still seems like a natural thing to do. If a theme park can take you into – or at least evoke – your favorite film or television show, isn’t that a good thing for both the theme park and the TV show or film? Yes, if done right. So perhaps there will be a renewed melding of cinema and television with theme parks. Perhaps sometime in the future we’ll see Busch pair up with a studio. Then again, maybe it’ll just team up with Cedar Fair and Six Flags and create a monster.

In Conclusion
Surveying the communications and entertainment industries, we see that old media may change, but they don’t necessarily go away. We still have live theatre, long after the advent of radio and cinema. We still have radio and cinema, though some people thought TV would be the death of both, and we still have broadcast TV even though we have the Internet, though the audience has been diminished and fragmented. Now, software, networking, and broadband is changing TV.

International market expansion for programming, cinema, and theme parks, with characters and other content made familiar to worldwide audiences via online communications, mean that companies that had their start in the U.S. are finding foreign profits a bigger part of their revenue pie. There are also more ways for that content to be enjoyed. It used to be that you could only see James Telluride Kirk on the TV screen, and then in cinema. But now, you can see him on your phone, and he can even tell you when you have a call. Thanks to special effects, he can continue to appear in new ads even if William Shatner were to give up playing him. Have you noticed that Orville Redenbacher is back? The real Orville Redenbacher passed away years ago.

In each case, the companies must get their revenue either through advertiser funding, direct audience funding (subscriptions, tickets, etc.), or a combination of both, and we’ve seen some changes there.

So what do all of these changes mean for you?

There are more media than ever for distributing information and entertainment. It isn’t just television (cable, satellite, or broadcast), or radio (terrestrial, satellite, or Internet), cinema, books, theme parks, DVDs, or video games. It is web pages, message boards, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and cyberbooks. You can view on them on a TV-sized screen or a pocket phone. I can watch programming on YouTube and MySpace, and I do so more than I watch ABC Television.

Technology has made it possible to produce programming for audio, cinema, and broadcast from your home. It is easier than ever for individuals to create content that is accessible to the world. We have more and more “independent producers�?, and more choices in how and when you will enjoy films, television shows, songs, and radio programming.

There is a significant “but�?, however. Fewer large media and communications companies are doing the major financing and marketing and owning the distribution pipelines. Many of you get your Internet access, your television, and your phone service through the same company. As long as those companies keep access affordable and distribution open, someone can still become a worldwide star by performing in their living room. Healthy competition may be prompted by smaller-scale breakups like the possible Tribune one, and the larger-scale breakups like Viacom. If Time Warner undergoes a major split, it may signal a trend.

Optimistically, software and hardware advances are going to allow you to use handheld devices seamlessly to customize and integrate your home entertainment and news set up from your desktop to your big screen, take your work home, and access your files, news, and entertainment wherever you are.

What are your thoughts on all of the changes over the last 3-4 years? Do you think things will settle down, or is this pace of change going to become the norm, thanks to factors like technology?

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