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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: American movies abroad [was Re: International Language.
Message-ID: <1995Jan17.065409.29334@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <D2D07J.4sD@spss.com> <1995Jan14.183417.5937@midway.uchicago.edu> <3fa7rb$15g@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 06:54:09 GMT
Lines: 50

Unfortunately, I deleted the reply to my reply to this post before
I could reply to it, so I'm returning to this post in order to reply
to that reply.

Alles klar?

In article <3fa7rb$15g@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> etg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (Edmund Grimley-Evans) writes:
>If you have a situation in which the cost of a developing a product
>(e.g. making a film) is far greater than the cost of producing it (e.g.
>showing a film), and if it is only possible to offer a limited range to
>the consumer (e.g. limited number of cinemas and TV channels), then
>the market will inevitably end up by being dominated not by the "best"
>products in any intuitive sense of the word but by the products produced
>by those best positioned to dominate the market.

The poster asked why I called the conclusion a tautology.  To paraphrase
this author, the market is not dominated by the best products, it is
dominated by those "best positioned to dominate the market."  Duh.
Lines are not drawn by the best pencils, they are drawn by those
pencils best positioned to draw lines.  Which are these?  Those with
the sharpest points?  The densest graphite?  Those easiest to grip?
You tell me. 

In short, the author of this post has not explained what qualities 
best position a product to dominate a market, he has merely made the 
empty statement that products which dominate a market have them.  I 
suppose I'm supposed to make some connexion with the fact that a film 
costs more to make than to show and can only be shown in a limited 
number of places (like the highly limited number of vcr-equipped tv 
sets with in the world--oops!), but the connexion is not nearly 
clear enough.

I believe the later poster went on to explain that among the qualities
necessary was a large domestic market (something which is not even
hinted at in the post to which I responded, reproduced above).
How large?  And if this is the most important factor, why aren't more
Chinese movies shown abroad?  Or Brazilian?  Or, to pick the film
industry which easily leads the world in total output, India?  (Note
that despite English's status as official language of India, virtually
none of these movies are in English and, nevertheless, the importation
of American films has not injured their popularity one bit).

I've been saying all along that this thread needs a new home and I'm
still soliciting suggestions.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
