2.Content mobility. As the cost of videos screens falls, the demand for content mobility will rise exponentially. With a smartphone serving as the nerve center for the screen world, content will be able to follow a consumer from device to device, location to location. Although content mobility creates a number of back-end headaches, it also creates new opportunities for ad impressions, provided they are properly targeted and calibrated for a multiscreen lifestyle.
3.Event-based viewing. The future of content creation will soon hinge on building a social experience around a program that enables viewers to be a part of a broader event experience that reaches well beyond the television and living room. The key will be to create event windows to drive relationships with content franchises that are DVR proof.
4.Content delivery optimization. The remote and channel guide experience has stayed relatively the same for more than half a century. That’s about to change. Just as the a learning thermostat learns a user’s habits and adjusts a home’s temperature accordingly, smartphones may soon be equipped to learn a viewer’s habits and deliver customized programming that match the viewer’s preferences. And at the same time, to make this level of customization real, M&E companies will need to cut through the content clutter using some form of content delivery optimization, similar to search engine optimization.
5.Binge watching. Blu-ray box sets, DVRs, digital media libraries and players and on-demand internet streaming media providers, among others, enable viewers to sit down and watch an entire series in a single day or weekend. This growing form of content consumption may make content delivery optimization more difficult. Yet, with the right content strategy, M&E companies can take advantage of the different behavior patterns to create more customized experiences.
6.More participants, more creative risks. Original programming experiments by internet streaming video providers offers a taste of the different kinds of relationships that talent will have with distribution partners. New relationship models will allow more industry players to take greater creative risks. On the other hand, it will also place a heavier burden on the systems that track and calculate rights, profits and participations.
These six trends may reveal the story arc of television’s future. Yet, to play a leading role, M&E companies must start preparing for that future today. The alternative is to settle for a bit part that may leave them on the cutting room floor.
Jeff Stier works in the Advisory team at Ernst & Young. Chris Gianutsos, Executive Director, Advisory Performance Improvement practice, at Ernst & Young, co-authored the post. Views are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ernst & Young.