The Meeting of Californian Discourses at Private Equity-Backed ‘Indie TV Studios.’

Society of Cinema & Media Studies Conference, March 2024

Abstract: Studies of contemporary media industries have placed an increasing emphasis on the financialization of Hollywood (deWaard 2020) and the infiltration of Silicon Valley into entertainment (Cunningham and Craig 2019). Researchers have focused on the structural and industry-wide consequences of these convergences, but have not yet considered their discursive and organizational-level effects. My paper addresses the consequences of these tech-media convergences at the level of managerial ideology and strategy, while paying particular attention to the financialized dimension underlying these developments. Specifically, I detail the political economic conditions that facilitated the emergence of a new type of production company in Hollywood: so-called “roll-up” television studios backed by private equity firms. Utilizing the case study methodology, I examine the studio Candle Media, which is backed by the private equity firm Blackstone. I argue Candle’s “flywheel” strategy — a more discursive than material strategy that largely replicated legacy media’s age old transmedia practices — was disrupted by the material realities and demands of private equity. This project relies on methods common in media industry studies, including discourse analysis of industry trades, interviews, and fieldwork. Ultimately, this case study shows how — with both the entrance of tech culture and financial capital into Hollywood — all of these managerial discourses from distinct industry cultures got blended together.