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Actor Al Pacino, from left, director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro pose for photographers ... [+] upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'The Irishman' as part of the London Film Festival, in central London, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)

Weve been hearing about the sad shrinking of our collective attention spans for decades. In the 1980s MTV remember when the M meant music? shaped a generation of media habits with rapid-fire music video cuts, which in turn formed the foundation of movie musicals such as Flashdance and Footloose. By the early 1990s we had a Comedy Central show called Short Attention Span Theater. Jeffrey Katzenberg raised over a billion dollars for Quibi (quick bites) with a pitch focused on short mobile video segments. Our entire social media infrastructure is based on the quick dopamine hit from the latest community acknowledgement of our shared GIFs and bon mots. And oh yeah, YouTube.

And yet. As we head into the end of the year holidays, with so many media options in front of us, it was a pleasure to luxuriate in a few recent offerings that highlight the powerful impact of work that takes it time. And maybe theres even a business case for it.

Do you know the most insightful, thoughtful, human interview that I have heard from an American political figure in the last year? Hillary Clintons sit down with Howard Stern. Yes, shes out shilling a book The Book of Gutsy Women that she wrote with Chelsea. But this was no superficial happy to be here Howard drive-by appearance. It unfolded not in a 7- minute segment surrounded by reports on Trumps latest tweet or a holiday cooking segment, but over the course of two hours and on the radio (OK, it was satellite radio, but still).

Stern may self-deprecatingly call himself a guy who tells penis jokes for a living but it is no surprise to faithful listeners to his show that he is an extraordinarily engaging, empathetic interviewer. The Clinton interview was the opposite of rushed either from the questioner or the interviewee. There was time for Stern to use pointed follow-up questions that arose from good old-fashioned listening to the prior answer. And in the process, a woman who all-too-often has come across in public life as pre-programmed and cautious to a fault displayed a gift for humor, warmth, intelligence and historical perspective that has rarely if ever been displayed through more conventional short-burst media outlets. Sometimes less isnt more its just less.

Although he probably wouldnt expect to be mentioned in the same breath as Howard Stern, Martin Scorseses latest film, The Irishman, is another shining example of the luxury of time in media, in this case in service of telling a big story.

There arent too many entertainment products that will even attempt never mind deserve 3 hours and 29 minutes of your time, but The Irishman does. Its scope encompasses American political history in the middle of the 20th century, the labor movement, the criminal justice system, the battle for acceptance by immigrants and the good, bad and ugly of a host of powerful human emotions. It provides space for extraordinary performances from some of our greatest actors from Robert DeNiro to Al Pacino to Joe Pesci. When DeNiros working stiff character asks Pescis wise guy character his name, and gets no response, the silence feels longer than anything I can recall outside of a play by Samuel Becket. It has a respect for its audience that is unmistakable.

Stern and Scorsese theres that magical combination again are of course joined by other recent superb examples of not only a longer time-frame for the work but a more luxurious pace. If youve watched the Golden Globe and Emmy winning series The Crown again thanks to Netflix - you see a series with extraordinary patience in telling its story and looking inside the psyches of its famous royal family and the historical figures that surround them. The public has also embraced Knives Out, which sprinkles its classic whodunit with joys such as the languorous speechifying of Daniel Craig, the detective whose job is to solve the mystery.

Are these examples of the exceptions that prove the short attention span rule? Is there actually a business in such lengthy work?

The digital media world is driven by what is sometimes called the attention economy for the value placed on keeping the consumer engaged on your platform. After the completion of the AT&T-Time Warner merger, the new Warner Media CEO John Stankey, noted that that in a Netflix-dominated streaming marketplace, the future for HBO depended upon measuring their growth in not hours a week, and its not hours a month. We need hours a day.

More hours per day when youre in traditional broadcast and cable media means more eyeballs watching and more advertising revenues. Of course neither Netflix or HBO Max are dependent (at least for now) on advertising. Nonetheless, the fight for quality time as well as quantity time with the consumer is if anything more important when youre depending upon the consumer ponying up their own money.

The streaming world whether you are talking audio or video, podcasting or live streaming is fighting an opportunity cost game, and its the cost of the consumers time and money. If the consumer isnt spending their time with me, theyre likely spending it with a competitor and over time my value may diminish for a consumer that is paying growing subscription fees out of their own pocket. So maybe content that demands greater rather than lesser attention, and more rather than less time, is worthy of the greatest investment in production, acquisition and marketing. Sounds pretty good to me. I bet the strange bedfellows Howard and Marty - not to mention Hillary - might even agree on that.

Go here to read the rest:
Howard Stern, Hillary Clinton And Martin Scorsese Highlight The Great Luxury Of Time - Forbes