The Distribution Function: at the Heart of managing Cultural-Product Industries

Abstract

Cultural industries (music, publishing, movies, television) faced similar trends in recent years : growing importance of distribution, raising costs in promotion, concentrating demand on fewer products, restructuring value added chain. Internet was considered, at a given time, as a lever to promote diversity and to support an expanding creation ; on a contrary, its development contributed to increase concentration and give more importance to prescription and distribution portals. Our communication aims at analyzing precisely the role of distributors in the chain value of cultural industries : aggregating demand, prescribing cultural goods to consumers, contractor for producers. We study distribution comparing more specifically three models of cultural industries : book publishing, movie theaters and television. These models provide with a conceptual framework considering distribution as a network structure. They help to report trends at stake in cultural industries : mass distribution and dematerialization, transforming business models...distribution