California Streamin’: New Hollywood’s Redefined Global Primacy in a Landscape Shaped by Streaming Platforms

This chapter defines “New Hollywood” as the center of production of the American media entertainment landscape. While stemming from the legacy media ecosystem originally located in Southern California revolving around the Hollywood major studios, the New Hollywood is embracing the opportunities provided by the digital streaming platforms. It now also includes entities, such as Netflix, Apple, and Amazon, whose headquarters are not located in Southern California, where they have established, however, their creative production offices. The New Hollywood remains geographically located in Southern California where the majority of greenlighting processes and production activities still take place, while financing decisions and some productions are now being conducted also outside of the region. These changes urge us to reevaluate the legacy competitive advantages of Hollywood in the new landscape. This chapter utilizes Porter’s Five Forces and National Diamond theoretical frameworks to assess the evolution in the last decade of the industry structure and competitive advantages at domestic and global level.