A Success in HD, but at What Cost?
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/arts/music/mets-hd-broadcasts-success-but-at-what-cost.html?_r=0

This might seem like an unusual choice for a business oriented blog. The point I want to make is that the issues impacting growth are similar to ALL markets. In this case, the impact of introducing a new product— high definition reproduction of opera performed at the New York Met and shown globally in movie theaters—on the legacy businesses. The underlying dynamics and discussions on the stress in this situation are universal.

Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, now says that it was not the most fortunate choice of words when he recently attributed a decline in attendance at the house to the “cannibalization” of the audience by the company’s high-definition broadcasts....
...In many ways the project, which started in 2006, has been an indisputable success. The Feb. 16 broadcast of the Met’s wildly colorful new production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” updated to Las Vegas in the early 1960s, grossed $2.6 million in North American movie theaters alone, with an estimated audience of 113,000 in more than 800 outlets, according to the Met. An additional 125,000 saw the broadcast on 900 screens in 30 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Latin America...
....if opera fans in the greater New York area get used to the convenience and affordability of seeing performances in their local movie houses, will they eventually stop coming to the Met? And will live video performances, with close-up camerawork, vivid sound systems and intermission interviews, become more appealing to some than seeing an opera from a top balcony seat in a big house? ...
...Looked at in context, he said, “we have quadrupled our paying audience.” The decline of ticket-buyers at the house is just a couple of percentage points, he explained. The total “paying audience” is slightly over three million, which includes up to 800,000 attendees at the Met each season.
Who is going to the HD broadcasts, especially in the New York area? The Met has done some surveying, Mr. Gelb said. The results suggest that most attendees are already interested in opera. Whether the HD venture will convert new audiences into operagoers is another question....
...the HD broadcasts are like an alternative opera experience, with sophisticated camerawork, high-quality sound systems and the ambiance that comes from being part of an audience in a movie theater. The broadcasts are invaluable, of course, and the sophistication of the directing is beyond what would seem possible to accomplish live...
...Those young people who see their first operas in HD broadcasts might easily conclude that they get what opera is all about. It might be a hard sell to convince these newcomers that no matter what they thought about seeing “Parsifal” in a movie theater, opera is not opera unless you hear those amazing voices live in a house with splendid natural acoustics, like the Met.

.