Watching for New Opportunities

Fans of the Fox TV show Arrested Development — cancelled back in 2006 — were happy to see it reappear with a new season on Netflix in 2013. Though other cancelled shows have returned to television in the last few years (Family Guy and Futurama come to mind), Arrested Development returned online. That may set a precedent for other TV shows to move from television to streaming services, where the business model is different and success is defined by other measures.

The road to commercial success does not necessarily take you down the same paths as before. Just as new technologies and market changes may present serious challenges, they can also offer new opportunities, especially for companies having problems competing under current conditions. Your traditional outlets may no longer offer the potential they once did; they may be losing popularity (like, say, printed newspapers) or may have been so popular that they’re saturated (blogs, for instance). New opportunities emerge and you need to be willing to take advantage of them rather than limiting yourself to your old possibilities…possibilities that may not do you much good anymore.

Look carefully at the product you create and ask yourself how it can be used in different ways, how the effect you want to produce (both creatively and commercially) can be achieved somewhere else. Whether it’s establishing a niche market for yourself where you will be dominant, or reaching the same customer base but through different means, it’s important to find a venue that gives you the best return on your investment and helps you survive all the change and uncertainty that various markets continue to experience.

On a somewhat related (but not really) note, I was on a bus in Sydney, Australia, in 2012 when Arrested Development star Michael Cera sat down next to me. As we were chatting, he told me he learned about the return of his TV show, not from his agent, nor from the producers, but from his mom. There’s a fun bit of trivia for you.