Digitisation is taking over every aspect of life, with the rapid adoption of advanced technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The media and entertainment (M&E) industry has been among the first to embrace and leverage state-of-the-art technologies to enhance customer experience. Driven by the availability of creative and diverse content, deep penetration of mobile devices, improving geographical coverage of high-speed data and affordable internet access, the OTT industry is strengthening its roots globally and is predicted to generate a whopping $825 billion in revenues by 2023.
Image Source: https://www.reogma.com/industry-reports/media-entertainment-industry-in-india-to-exceed-us-39b-by-2023/
Here’s a look at where the industry is headed and what are the challenges in the coming year:
Growth Prospects
Better User Experience
The digital future is set to create new opportunities for on-demand entertainment. OTT originals and online gaming will significantly improve digital customer retention rates. As the industry generates revenues from different subscription options, rather than on advertisements, companies can focus on the production and distribution of content. 3D-enabled mobile gadgets will amplify how users experience entertainment in the coming year.
Analytics for Decision Making
Algorithmic decision-making will determine the content that is given space on OTT media. Monetisation will depend on which content is most watched. The M&E industry will increasingly leverage advanced analytics to predict consumer behaviour and provide relevant content. The next year will also add experience-based suggestions and cross-selling of products by analysing the kind of content that peers of a customer are interested in. Recognising and adjusting content suggestions, timing and diversity will be the primary goal of predictive analytics.
Flexible Pricing
Flexible pricing structures and personalised streaming schedules will drive business competition and customer acquisition campaigns. Although the radio and television segments are set to transform into more interactive and customisable versions, their growth may fail to catch up with the competitive mobile entertainment solutions.
Improving User Engagement and Retention
Eros provides around 11,000 titles annually in local languages across India. This is more than the combined global production of Amazon and Netflix! Similar niche players will appear on OTT platforms to offer personalised and localised content.
Crunchyroll's CEO claimed that OTT platforms can easily surpass traditional media platforms if they can “provide everything for someone, rather than something for everyone.” Using big data to determine user disengagement and providing relevant content to bring them back as active consumers will be a key driver of business growth among competing agencies.
Upcoming Challenges
The M&E industry has to rely on technology to improve cost implications. The target will be to identify vulnerabilities in public-facing systems and avoid cyber-attacks, phishing attempts, and ransomware. Protecting profit drainage and digital rights management will remain in focus.
Legislative Support
A major step towards digital rights protection is the legal support in terms of laws and infrastructure to preserve the content ownership of animators, video creators, game developers, and comics. This involves enhancing distribution channel monitoring and clearing the blurred boundaries in the access mechanism between legitimate and illegitimate content. The $51 million compensation that Nitro TV had to pay for the wilful infringement of the copyrights of ACE members’ content is a great example in the right direction.
Digital Rights Management
As many as 24% of US consumers pirate a movie while it is in theatres and 21% pirate TV shows. The OTT video platforms are the worst hit. One of the critical challenges of content distributed online is tracking its origin and maintaining ownership of the creator. Watermarking and content tracking are going to be embedded in the content creation process. Leveraging plug-and-play solutions based on advanced technologies will be commonplace in the audio-visual media sector to keep content control in the hands of the owners. The digital world will move towards a secure and cohesive system of content detection and protection. The goal will remain to retain the financial value of the material within the industry.
Strengthening the Anti-Piracy Mechanisms
A report suggests that piracy may rob the video industry of $67 billion in revenue in 2023.
Two major roadblocks in tackling piracy include the false notion among consumers that they have the right to free content regardless of what it costs the creators and the lack of awareness of what amounts to piracy. For instance, eBook piracy results in the loss of around $300 million worth of publisher income every year. However, most readers are not even aware whether the source of an eBook is authentic. Such a situation demands creating awareness and starting piracy protection procedures right at the point of content generation.
Stricter IP laws, speedy settlement of stolen media cases, and preventive measures will take the front seat in tackling piracy across the digital M&E industry. AI-based technologies will be leveraged to track content distribution channels to identify potential leaks and suction points of pirates. Curbing them right at the identification without delay will be paramount. Additionally, there will be a revolution to create mechanisms for the quick removal of illegally distributed content over the internet. However, this has a long way to go, as digitisation has made content stealing as convenient as distribution through legal channels.
2023 Presents Opportunities
Piracy at its core proves to be a distribution mechanism for content in regions where it is not affordable or unavailable. However, its presence discourages publishers from entering those markets as piracy cuts down profits or can even result in huge losses. Bigger creators, with a global footprint, can afford to avoid a few regions or have the resources to identify and block unauthorised access to their content. The small- and medium-budget local producers do not have sufficient technical expertise to tackle piracy. This is where anti-piracy acts and media content security solutions save the day, by offering ways to maintain content ownership and preserve creator revenues.
As the media and entertainment industry transitions into a fully digital platform, pirates are upgrading their efforts too. Content creators and producers need to stay ahead of them. To ensure complete content protection, it’s important to collaborate with industry leaders that are pioneering solutions designed to combat piracy.
At Mediastalker, we develop security solutions in-house to mark and track content. These are supplemented with web-screening and live reports to identify distribution patterns and anomalies. Our anti-piracy team identifies security loopholes in your system, digs out stolen content on the go and provides reports that help you realise the volume of revenues that was earlier being pilfered by piracy. Our proprietary anti-piracy software tracks Illegal access to content and streaming via illegitimate channels through mechanisms that work faster than the best pirates.
Let us know your concerns regarding content safety in 2023 and we’ll help you with relevant solutions.
