TikTok has been dealt a devastating blow as a US bill has been signed into law forcing owner ByteDance to sell within a year or face its removal from app stores.
The stakes are higher than in 2020—China's opposition to a divestment will make an optimal sale harder to conclude, so all sides must be prepared for a ban.
The TikTok bill introduces extraordinary new powers in the context of the US and China's broad systemic rivalry, though online consumer benefits will be limited.
Football leagues must think innovatively about maintaining broad exposure, but relying on advertising revenues from free-to-air TV makes no economic sense.
Creating league-operated direct-to-consumer platforms would undermine the very competition between broadcasters that has propelled rights.
The only realistic option for sustainable growth is deeper, longer-term partnerships with broadcasters.
IFPI reports trade revenues from streaming rose 10% in 2023 to reach $19.3 billion, and we estimate Spotify contributed about $7 billion. Spotify also rewarded music publishers with about $2 billion in royalties.
Spotify’s Loud & Clear data on royalties paid to the 225,000 professional and aspiring artists served to its 600 million users reveals a bulge in the middle part of the distribution in favour of Spanish language artists as the service expands in Latin America.
The top 1,000 earners are mainly artists at the top of the charts in the US and UK markets, which together contribute half of Spotify’s revenues and thus royalties. Top earner and top all-time streamed artist Taylor Swift earned over $100 million in 2023.
As we noted previously—despite the explosion in volume and access to content—long-form viewing is narrowing around fewer programmes
At the same time, younger viewers are watching a greater proportion of video alone, resulting in a growing schism between what is watched by young and older viewers
The upshot is a two-pronged escalation of pressure on content providers—trying to create a hit when long-form viewing is both declining and concentrating, while, by age at least, adult audience demand becomes increasingly binary
As viewing moves online, broadcasters’ on-demand players make up a growing proportion of viewing, becoming central to their future strategies.
However, even though SVOD viewing might have begun to plateau, BVOD growth cannot yet balance the decline of linear broadcast.
Of this shrinking pie, 2023 saw most of the major broadcast players increase their viewing shares.
Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.
New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.
YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.
Public service broadcasters are in a position to plan for the long term with commercial licences renewed for ten years, an updated prominence regime via the Media Bill and a government broadly supportive of the BBC.
With the Premier League and EFL rights secure to the end of the decade, Sky can plan for the future from a position of strength.
Relationships between Sky and the PSBs have improved markedly recently, and as all can now plan for the long-term, this should provide further opportunities to cement relationships for the benefit of the broadcasting ecosystem and viewers.
Dramas from the public service broadcasters based on books consistently bring in bigger audiences than those that are not, a trend driven by certain genres, especially detective mysteries and thrillers.
A greater volume of newer book IP is being developed into programming, but this preference is not necessarily reflected in audience figures.
Younger demographics are less enamoured with dramas based on books than older viewers. There are however notable exceptions, while attracting younger audiences may have more to do with the age, genre, and fame of the IP.
Magazine publishers are at different stages of a transformation cycle, but a variety of external and industry factors are massively accelerating change.
Often described as the transition from page to screen, in reality transformation is a deeper redefinition of each brand’s community and purpose, and the use-case benefits it delivers.
Online advertising is evolving into a space where trusted consumer media can exploit their advantages of community engagement and premium context, rather than indiscriminate traffic.
The BBC announced that it should be active in planning for broadcast switch-off, but that the UK should be fully connected with universal affordable access to content.
World Radiocommunications Congress (WRC-23) takes place next year and the long-term future of DTT across EMEA will be debated. If WRC agrees coprimary access to existing DTT spectrum for mobile, this likely spells the end for DTT in the early 2030s.
By 2034, at the current migration rate, nearly 20 billion hours of TV will be viewed in DTT homes—just 20% less than today—with over 80% of that being to adults over 55.