Riding a wave of opportunity

In 2021, the media and entertainment industry saw continued changes from technological progress, evolving generational behaviors, and ongoing impacts from the global pandemic. Amid recurring COVID-19 surges, people sought more media and entertainment at home, while often avoiding larger in-person events. Digital media engagement even remained strong over the healthier summer, evidence that the pandemic has only accelerated preexisting trends toward the digital world.

On the cusp of 2022, the broader socioeconomic dynamics animating the modern age appear to be converging with technology and amplifying change. This is driving more innovation and competition but is also putting pressure on business models to keep up with changing behaviors. The media and entertainment industry, embedded in the business of imagination, is riding a wave of tremendous opportunity amid the turbulence that attends times of significant change like the one we’re in.

In this year’s media & entertainment outlook, we examine five areas we believe will touch the most people and grab the most attention:

• We will see the streaming video industry mature as metrics evolve beyond subscriber counts to lifetime customer value, and existing business models evolve to find greater profitability amid global competition.

• In-person entertainment—as well as the businesses and venues that rely on it—will face greater pressure to go beyond simply bringing people out of their pandemic cocoons by evolving and differentiating itself from the living room.

• Social media, the largest digital aggregator of humanity, will find itself at a turning point, moving to build out the next generation of retail shopping.

• The sudden rise of NFTs and their success in bringing scarcity and exclusivity to digital goods will drive new models of customer engagement and loyalty. They’ll also lead to more digital product innovation, greater empowerment for their creators, and a fuller realization of the grand ambitions for blockchain, cryptocurrency, and the decentralized web.

• Each of these trends is slowly marching humanity closer toward the metaverse (or metaverses), where people will spend more of their time in immersive, social, digital worlds, and the digital world will be drawn across the physical one.
  

Download the full report to learn more about the impacts of media and entertainment industry trends, key actions to take, and critical questions to ask.

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