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Enders Analysis provides a subscription research service covering the media, entertainment, mobile and fixed telecommunications industries in Europe, with a special focus on new technologies and media.

Our research is independent and evidence-based, covering all sides of the market: consumers, leading companies, industry trends, forecasts and public policy & regulation. A complete list of our research can be found here.

 

Rigorous Fearless Independent

For the media and entertainment industry the dawn of the metaverse, and the word soup of acronyms that accompanies it, is the latest high-profile technology wave that threatens to simultaneously upend established distribution models and reinvent both the experience and relationship with the audience.

Many companies will feel they have been here before. The last 25 years have seen technologies move from linear to on-demand and physical to digital; and devices from fixed, heavy boxes, to always connected and mobile-first. Some companies never recovered from these changes.

The next 24 months is a particularly useful window to invest at small scale and with limited downside risk. With audiences small but influential, there is opportunity to start early, develop robust test cases and establish new community-building and storytelling formats.

FAST services that include digital linear channels (FAST channels) appear to be experiencing solid growth in the US. In the UK, this success has been used to highlight a potential mechanism to diversify away from broadcast linear and SVOD

However, the growth potential of these services on this side of the Atlantic contends with a very different video market than the US—the free output of the PSBs remains prolific and of high quality, while prominence legislation is likely to tougher

Furthermore, overall viewing of long-form video content is declining. Any new FAST services will be fighting for a declining amount of screen time with poor content slates and little name recognition—however, growing demand for US content is an advantage

Douglas said “The Mail is unique: it has the most successful print newspaper, and a hugely successful online service, yet the two circles in the venn diagram are surprisingly apart. Pushing them together is a huge organisational and cultural challenge, but necessary from an economic perspective alone. If the Mail has the biggest challenge of all the publishers, it also has one of the media industry’s biggest opportunities.”

DAZN has agreed to buy Eleven Sports, adding two untapped European markets and expanding further into South East Asia in its bid for greater scale

Team Whistle, Eleven’s short-form content production and distribution network, will provide new opportunities for marketing DAZN, especially to younger audiences

Meanwhile, DAZN Bet has soft-launched in the UK—a small first step as it seeks additional monetisation methods for expensive broadcasting rights

Joseph said “For more sophisticated games, we know brands are keen to experiment, as in-game is a chance to get in front of hard-to-reach audiences in an immersive context."

He added “[Y]ou either have custom branded integrations that involve huge investment and a high creative bar for one-off experiences, or you’re sticking virtual posters on in-game ad environments. That looks tacky and there’s none of the attribution you would get with web banners. The data brands get out of gaming platforms is pretty basic: number of visitors to the experience, and from which regions. If you build a custom app then you can measure in-game activity and get the usual analytics, but then you don’t have the built-in audience, and it’s an even bigger development challenge.”