The Case of The Met: Live in HD - Text 2
In 2006, the Metropolitan Opera inaugurated The Met: Live in HD, a series of opera transmissions captured by a high-definition multiple-camera set-up and disseminated simultaneously in movie theatres and then in pre-recorded form via various media and platforms. The initiative was an immediate success: after six transmissions were offered the first season, ten were included in the annual program in 2014-15, with twelve operas annually the following years.
After slight editing to minimize the unexpected things that arise in live filming, the capturing is marketed on several platforms and media: it is disseminated simultaneously in movie theatres initially (the Encores); then online on the Met Opera on Demand platform; on television, on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), which presents the series Great Performances at the Met, and on various networks around the world.[1]; as well as on DVD[2].
In 2019, the Met was seen in more than 2,200 movie theatres, only half of which were in the United States, and in seventy-three countries on six continents. One hundred and thirty Met operas have been transmitted live, generating the sale of nineteen million tickets and gross revenue of more than 400 million dollars. “Each season, the Met stages more than 200 opera performances in New York. More than 800,000 people attend the performances in the opera house during the season, and millions more experience the Met through new media distribution initiatives and state-of-the-art technology.”[3] A single live transmission in movie theatres attracts 240,000 to 250,000 viewers and generates revenue of two and a half million dollars. The work is then distributed in pre-recorded form in and on a variety of venues and media platforms (movie theatres, television, VOD, Encore). According to Peter Gelb, a single The Met: Live in HD transmission generates net revenue of seventeen to eighteen million dollars annually; Peter Gelb remarks that this is “not a cure-all but helps in addition to box office revenue and fund-raising.”[4]
