June 1, 2007

News Analysis: Royal Opera House Purchases Leading DVD Production Company of Performances

The news announced Wednesday that the Royal Opera House has purchased Opus Arte UK Ltd, a company that produces and distributes classical music and dance on DVDs, will be remembered as a pivotal turning point in how the global dance community promotes and sells its content beyond live performances.

Since starting Great Dance in September 2005, I've written extensively about emerging digital distribution channels for dance. And I've been wondering which dance companies and performing arts organizations would be the first to produce video-based versions of their work and distribute this programming through multiple online and offline channels.

Well, we have the answer. It's the Royal Opera House. To quote from their acquisition press release:

Ownership of Opus Arte enables the Royal Opera House to capture and disseminate the work of The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet more widely than ever before; allows, for the first time, easy and affordable international access to Royal Opera House productions and those of other performing companies; provides the Royal Opera House with the skills and capabilities, content and platform for wider industry collaboration, and the creation of a revenue stream through the sales of DVDs, broadcast, theatrical release in cinemas, Video-on-Demand, Pay-per-View and other forms of developing digital media.

(I'm not overlooking the importance of what the Metropolitan Opera has accomplished as it delivers high-definition simulcasts of its operas to audiences at movie theaters - but this is limited to opera at this point and not dance.)

What the Royal Opera House is building is a vertically-integrated production and distribution system that enables them to leverage their content (opera, ballet and dance) and distribute this content in digital format through and to many distribution channels (simulcasts, HD DVDs, streaming and downloadable DVDs, wireless distribution, iTunes and portable video players). Plus, many different revenue models can be created and experimented with to support these distribution platforms.

In the end, a live stage performance is a critical platform for delivering content (ballet, dance and opera) to audiences, but it is now one of many platforms for reaching dance and opera fans.

Until today, I never spent time exploring the Royal Opera House website. If you browse the content sections, you'll quickly see that they are quite savvy about video, providing behind-the-scenes access to how dance performances are created and selling performances on DVD. So in retrospect, this acquisition of Opus Arte is the culmination of a process that the Royal Opera House has probably been contemplating for awhile.

A New Global Marketplace for Dance

Through its new vertically integrated distribution system, the Royal Opera House will be competing for dance audiences on a global basis as it reaches beyond its traditional live theater audiences and embraces alternative media and technology. This global branding initiative will force dance and ballet companies of all sizes to respond in kind. Take the loyal audiences of the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Can City Ballet and ABT really sit back as the Royal Opera House cranks-up its international marketing efforts? The simple answer is absolutely not.

This is why I predict that City Ballet, ABT and dance companies of all sizes will begin to get serious about building new and expanded distribution systems for their content.

A Scalable Solution for Dance Companies of All Sizes

The beauty of digital distribution systems is that they are highly scalable. In other words, a small dance company, for that matter a single dancer, can create their own integrated production and distribution system. And a large ballet or dance company can do the same thing. Take a look at this post I wrote a few weeks ago about a Brooklyn-based musician who has built his own audience and offers his music to his fans through live and digital channels. This same Internet-enabled business model is the exact same one that dancers can take to build an audience and create multiple revenue streams - although with some modifications based on the needs of dance.

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