Media Ecology : the changing nature of media ownership and distribution models

What is Distribution?

• Film distribution is the commercial process that makes a feature film available to the general public. It usually also includes determining a marketing strategy.
• today the film distribution process is far different than it was even ten years. Forget about what it was like 20 years ago. Or 30 years ago.
• In the old days, major film distribution companies put a movie into theaters, it ran there for up to a year, and then was gone.
• Nowadays movies are everywhere. That "everywhere" is called ancillary rights. 
• The average theatrical run was trimmed by these ancillary rights from up to year down to 3-4 months. This was because people are chomping at the bit to see the movies at home or on their mobile device.

Simultaneous release

Ancillary rights have become so important that now movies are doing a simultaneous release. This is where the same day you can see a new feature in the theaters, you can also see it at home.

• The data shows people are more likely to view, download, and buy a movie if it's in the "new releases in theaters" category. 

• So that means in some cases a movie is only one of the "new releases in theaters" because it'll help boost the on-demand sales by people at home.
• There is a good side to this and also a bad side. The good side is your movie can be seen and purchased in many places, more places than you can track. The bad side is you do not get as much money from this since there are so many movies distributed on other platforms, so it can be hard for people to find your film.

Using social media to help with your Distribution:

When distributing your film or song, etc, starting up a social media page would help a ton. You can avoid so much trouble and problems and just direct people to your film