2023 Summary of the Reviews:
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After two great years of production following the COVID-19 pandemic, Filmtracks returned to a lesser but more familiar level of coverage in 2023. A combination of factors elsewhere in life restricted the amount of time available to devote to this site's reviews. Staying current on all-new theatrical and streaming film score coverage was the fallback priority, and Filmtracks actually managed to exceed its annual goal for those types of reviews.
New reviews of older scores suffered the most in 2023, with only a dozen of those completed despite an annual goal of 30. That quantity of such reviews had been written in the prior two years on average, but 2023 simply didn't have time available to continue at that pace. Despite that slowdown, Filmtracks is still enjoying the steady coverage it has debuted since 2021, with no long break in new reviews since early 2020. The site has also kept reasonably current on re-releases, too.
While my day job remains remote, its workload increased significantly in 2023, draining much of the energy I have left over for Filmtracks. My forest restoration campaign and medical complications in the family are all combining with the heavier day job impact as well. The all-new reviews of older scores are purely discretionary, and those could be dropped in favor of remaining current on this year's new scores. Fifteen re-releases are scheduled to be covered already.
The site's goals for 2024 are more conservative than those for the prior year. Historically, Filmtracks has averaged 30 new reviews and 30 re-writes of older reviews per year for a total of 60 "touches" of reviews. In 2021 and 2022, the total "touches" skyrocketed to 146 and 143, respectively, but that number fell to 96 in 2023. In 2024, the goal calls for 90 "touches," with 55 of those representing all-new reviews and 35 of them re-writes. Only 15 new reviews of older scores is included in that sum.
By the numbers:
2023 Goals:
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New Reviews of New Albums: 40
New Reviews of Old Albums: 30
Re-Writes: 30
2023 Final Stats:
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New Reviews of New Albums: 45
New Reviews of Old Albums: 12
Re-Writes: 39
2024 Goals:
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New Reviews of New Albums: 40
New Reviews of Old Albums: 15
Re-Writes: 35
2023 Summary of the Overall Site:
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As with prior years, the non-review maintenance of Filmtracks in 2023 involved server-related work with no visible component for readers. Much of that effort was aimed at ensuring that the review templates have the capability to display more albums than they could previously. Some of them now show a dozen albums for one score, which wasn't originally contemplated in the back-end scripts that process the review templates and translate them into the browsable indices.
Minor bug fixes to the forums and comment areas were routine, while automated attacks on the site held steady. Significant changes to the server's handling of robot traffic for Google and other friendly indexers was necessary to ensure that traffic appropriate to either the desktop or mobile templates for the site are shunted to the proper dynamic display without any hiccups. (The balance between mobile and desktop traffic remains split evenly.) This work also involved optimizing the site's advertisement placements.
Traffic declined at Filmtracks in 2023, in part due to new Google indexing and ranking methodology on sites with adaptive/dynamic templates with separate desktop and mobile views that can be toggled by the viewer, eliminating some organic traffic over the summer. These issues have been rectified, however. Forum participation with the regular readership has remained steady. Interestingly, more regular readers are accessing new coverage directly rather than via announcement links from the RSS feed, Facebook, or elsewhere.
Once again, Filmtracks finished 2023 in worse financial condition compared to the prior year, the site experiencing another total net loss due to continued diminished income from donations, commissions, and ad revenue while costs increased by 5%. The commissions have long declined because payouts from that model are no longer structured to support targeted sites like this. The purchasing of La-La Land Records products for coverage persists as an annual issue with no easy solution. On the whole, Filmtracks still requires subsidization to survive.
Readers can expect no major changes to the site in 2024. Filmtracks still has no permanent physical home, as the build of its office remains delayed. An ongoing legal situation involving that property has caused the project's costs to increase beyond reasonable levels, likely killing it for now. Our forestation work there will continue regardless. At Filmtracks, readers should look for continued dedication to coverage of all-new scores and, of course, an occasionally rowdy Scoreboard. Enjoy!
Best wishes to all in 2024,
Christian
