The times, they are a changin'
Follow the money. Majority of sponsors historically don't have a lot of budget (minus a few companies). Traditionally, ski movies were a great way to dump a ton of budget to get high visibility for your brand during a key time of year because that's where skiers' eyes were. That's still the case but not as frequent...note the amount of power house studios putting out consistent annual big budget movies.
Today, budgets are spread out in even more places throughout the entire year/winter. This is to ensure consumers have constant brand awareness. Sure the amount of people skiing has grown, but so have other marketing needs - think paid digital advertising media, webisodes, athlete budgets for edits, website maintenance, email marketing, social media, designers, developers, etc.
Are ski movies dying out? Is the era of internet and free content driving them out of the picture?
I hope not but kinda. With budgets getting smaller for traditional ski movies, we'll see less and less of them and more straight to internet release. Production companies that remain will try to appeal to a larger general audience so brands are seen by as many people as possible. Also, if they're smart they'll work hard to promote their premiere tours so people can actually interact with the movie sponsors and athletes.
Can winter be here? I spent way too much time thinking about that.