In an era when attention spans are shorter than ever, long-form content is making a comeback. Whether it’s in the theater, on the sofa, or at a desk, creators are asking audiences to stay in their seats…for several hours. Take the Broadway hit, “Angels in America” a 7-hour-and-30 minute performance broken up into two evenings. Or Denzel Washington’s “The Iceman Cometh,”another Great White Way smash coming in at 3 hours and 50 minutes, while “Potter,” about who else but Harry Potter, clocks in at 5 hours and 15 minutes spread over two performances with sell-out crowds.

Television, too, is slowly increasing the minutes of screen time for many of its cable shows. Vulture.com recently published an article entitled, “Overly Long Episodes are the Manspreading of TV.”  The article discussed how the first episode of this season’s Westworld clocks in at 69 minutes. And Season 2’s fourth episode was a whopping hour and 11 minutes. And in the digital world, some content creators are calling for longer, more in-depth engagement techniques, so word counts are now toppling the 4000 mark. Is longer better? What’s the reason behind these extensions? Are people paying attention?

Here with me to discuss the rise of long-form content is online marketer, Neil Patel and Broadway’s New York Stage Review critic, Elysa Gardner.

Comments

comments