The New York Times drips sympathy for Freemantle Media Enterprises, the company that owns the rights to “Britain’s Got Talent”, the show on which Susan Boyle appeared. Seems that Freemantle has been unable to leverage Ms. Boyle into a windfall profit:
The case reflects the inability of big media companies to maximize profit from supersize Internet audiences that seem to come from nowhere.
We are not told precisely why Freemantle is entitled to make gobs of money off of Ms. Boyle, in addition to that it routinely makes off the show. Nor, for that matter, does anyone in the article address the broader issue of precisely why anyone has a god given right to make money off of spontaneous internet phenomena. It is just taken as given that any corporation with any connection to such an event is deprived if it doesn’t realize a huge profit.
Nor does the Times spare a word for Ms. Boyle’s pecuniary interest. Whether or not she profits from her own talent is apparently a matter not worth considering.
Apparently, Freemantle has been successful at one thing. The newest performance is only available through Freemantle’s web channel, and cannot be embedded.
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