In 2020, under the influence of the new crown pneumonia epidemic (hereinafter referred to as the “epidemic”) and economic downturn, the global media and entertainment industry has undergone continuous changes in digital technology and profound changes in consumer behavior, and structural changes have taken place. Looking at the current industrial structure, the global media and entertainment market as a whole shows a trend of synchronizing fluctuations with the world economy, and the development trends of sub-industries are different, and the strong “Matthew effect” has intensified. At the same time, new business formats that have emerged based on technologies such as artificial intelligence, extended reality, and big data have become increasingly mature, reflecting the inevitable trend of the media ecosystem’s continuous and in-depth development of digitalization and intelligence. The continuous restructuring of the industrial landscape, content payment, data services, and the acceleration of the industry’s digitalization process will bring new economic growth points, and the deep integration of media, culture and technology will continue to reshape the future of the global media and entertainment industry.
Overview of Global Entertainment and Media Industry Development
In 2020, the spread of the epidemic has had a huge impact on the global economy, and the global entertainment and media industry has suffered its first recession in 10 years. According to the forecast of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the output value of the global entertainment and media industry is expected to fall to US$2 trillion, and the overall market size is shrinking by 5.6% compared with 2019, with an absolute loss of US$120 billion, and the industry’s growth rate is declining and showing a negative growth trend. As the global economy gradually recovers from shock, the entertainment and media industries will resume their growth momentum. According to statistics released by the World Bank, the global economy will slowly recover after a 4.3% contraction in 2020. If the new crown pneumonia epidemic is effectively contained, global GDP will achieve a positive growth of 4% in 2021. At the same time, the global entertainment and media industry is expected to achieve a strong rebound in 2021, and the overall growth rate will reach 6.4%. The industry’s rebound is expected to exceed the expected growth of global GDP. From the perspective of compound growth rate, between 2019-2024, the compound annual growth rate of the global entertainment and media industry is expected to be 2.8%, which is 1.2 percentage points lower than the period from 2015 to 2019 (Figure 1).
The epidemic has changed consumers’ media consumption behavior and accelerated the transformation of the media industry. Looking at the overall trend, in the past year, the digitalization process of the media industry has accelerated, and the expansion of subscription services has become a significant feature of the digital transformation of the industry. The combination of digital platform and virtual reality technology has created a more personalized live broadcast experience for consumers, making it possible for concerts, exhibitions and sports events to be deployed online, and also for the development of new business models such as e-commerce and live broadcasts. Created the conditions. From the perspective of consumer spending, as consumers become more dependent on digital media business, the main sources of income in the global entertainment and media industry have changed; in the next five years, the growth rate of global media advertising revenue is expected to lag behind the growth of consumer revenue , Smart phone data consumption will exceed fixed broadband data consumption. Focusing on sub-sectors, the recovery of the global entertainment and media industry will show a “K-shaped” bifurcation trend. The scene change brought about by social distance and remote office has catalyzed the rapid growth of the OTT (Over-The-Top) video industry and the game industry, and will be at the top of the “K-shaped” curve in the next few years, while movies, newspapers, and consumer magazines And the advertising industry will recover slowly, at the lower end of the “K-shaped” curve.
Development status of various industries in the global entertainment and media industry
Newspaper, magazine and book publishing industry. In the past five years, the revenue of the global newspaper publishing industry has been declining at an average annual rate of 7.6%. Affected by the epidemic, the revenue of the newspaper publishing industry is expected to fall to US$85 billion in 2020, a decline of more than 13%. From the perspective of product and service composition, print newspaper revenue ranks first, accounting for 41% of total newspaper revenue in 2020, followed by advertising and digital newspaper sales, accounting for 36.5% and 22.4 of total newspaper revenue, respectively. %. In the next 5 years, with more and more consumers migrating to digital media, under the pressure of strong external competition, the threat of advertising revenue outflow will make the newspaper publishing industry face a more significant recession. It is expected that by 2025, newspapers Revenue will fall to US$65.5 billion by a 4% annual decline. The global magazine publishing industry shrank sharply in 2020, and total revenue fell by more than 14%, with consumer magazines the most serious. Consumer magazines are expected to usher in a turning point in 2023, and their global revenue from digital advertising will exceed that of print advertising.
From 2015 to 2020, the popularity of e-books has continued to squeeze the profit margins of the book publishing industry, and the total revenue of the global book publishing industry has fallen by an average annual rate of 1.6%. Faced with the pressure of negative growth in the industry, book publishers have successively formulated more efficient pricing and distribution models. Maintain income. Under the spread of the epidemic, the revenue of the global book publishing industry will fall by 3.3% in 2020, and the total revenue is expected to be US$111 billion. Technology will also further affect the development trend of the book publishing industry. The popularization of smart phones and smart speakers has continuously expanded the market for audio books, and will become an important track for industry competition in the future.
Television and video industry. In the past few years, changes in audience video viewing methods have led to a decline in the number of global cable and satellite TV users year by year, but this situation has improved during the epidemic. During the home isolation period, people’s time to watch TV has generally increased by 10% compared to the past, and the proportion of young people in the audience has increased. At the same time, streaming media platforms have driven OTT consumer market demand soaring during the epidemic due to convenient viewing and low cost, and more and more consumers are willing to pay for high-quality content.
In the next five years, global pay-TV revenue is expected to fall to US$152 billion. In 2020, the United States has the highest number of global pay-TV subscribers, with more than 79.24 million pay-TV subscribers, nearly 9 times that of China. However, TV viewing groups in the United States have been declining since 2015, and this change has been prominent in all age groups. By 2025, U.S. pay TV revenues will fall to 56 billion U.S. dollars. During the same period, the United Kingdom and Canada’s pay TV revenues will each lose nearly 1 billion U.S. dollars. In contrast to emerging markets, the pay TV market in India and China still has growth potential. India’s pay TV revenue will increase by US$800 million during this period. By then, China and India will have a total of half of the world’s pay TV users.
According to data released by Digital TV Research, in 2020, the global OTT industry revenue surged 26%, the absolute value of the increase reached 16 billion US dollars. In the next few years, Internet streaming media service revenue will continue to grow strongly, and it is expected to exceed $167 billion in 2025, doubling the market size in 2019. The SVOD (subscription video on demand) model in the OTT industry will become the mainstream choice for consumers. In the next 5 years, SVOD’s market share will remain at about 58%. By 2025, global SVOD revenue will exceed 100 billion U.S. dollars, and SVOD subscriptions will increase by 529 million, reaching 1.17 billion. Among the 138 countries surveyed by Digital TV Research, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France rank among the top five in the global SVOD market by revenue, and the total SVOD subscriptions of the five countries will cover 2/3 of the global market. From the perspective of industry competition, mainstream SVOD platform revenues will suddenly emerge in 2020 when all industries are sluggish. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Netflix has added 16 million new subscribers. The streaming service Disney+, launched at the end of 2019, performed like a shattered performance during the epidemic, and it gained 8 months after its launch. 60.5 million subscribers have become Netflix’s biggest competitor. It is predicted that in the next 5 years, Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video will jointly account for half of the global SVOD market subscriptions.
Webcast video has become a major consumption hotspot for social networks and video sites, but compared with other forms of video, the user growth potential remains to be tapped. A survey conducted by GlobalWebIndex in the third quarter of 2020 found that 32% of global YouTube users have watched live videos on the platform in the past month, while 58% of users have watched music videos and 38% of users have watched TV shows or video clips.
Broadcasting industry. Affected by the epidemic, the global broadcasting market revenue is expected to shrink by 4.3% in 2020 to 110 billion US dollars. According to a report released by Research and Markets, in the next few years, the global broadcasting industry will quickly recover from the impact of the epidemic on the global economy. Market revenue will grow to US$137.7 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 5%. From the perspective of different countries and regions, Western Europe occupies the highest share of the global broadcasting market, and its market share in 2020 is as high as 50%; North America ranks second, occupying 28% of the global market share. The epidemic has affected users’ radio listening habits. People’s listening scenes have moved from commuting to their homes. The frequency of use of smart audio devices has increased. Radio, news channels and podcasts related to topics such as physical and mental health and meditation have become popular.
The global podcast market has begun to take shape in 2019 and is poised to take off. In that year, the number of global monthly podcast listeners has reached 645 million. In 2020, the podcast market will continue to exert strength, and the number of global monthly listeners is expected to approach 900 million, attracting a rapid injection of capital. The global online music streaming media giant Spotify focuses on podcasting business. This strategy immediately introduced considerable traffic and high-growth subscriptions for it. National Broadcasting Corporation (NPR) will lead the nation’s podcast market in 2020. As of the end of 2020, it has 53 podcast programs and an average number of weekly users of 12.1 million. Many cases show that the podcast business model has been verified in some advanced economies. Focusing on the Chinese podcast market, 2020 can be regarded as its “out of the circle” year. As of May 2020, the number of Chinese podcasts has exceeded 10,000. The audience is sticky and willing to pay. Podcasts are gradually spreading in China. Out of niche areas, usher in new outlets. According to Deloitte’s forecast, the global podcast market will exceed the $1 billion mark for the first time in 2020; by 2025, the global podcast market is expected to reach $3.3 billion.
movie industry. The year 2020, shrouded by the epidemic, has brought an unprecedented winter to the global film industry. Before 2020, global movie box office revenue continued to grow, and the global box office revenue in 2019 exceeded US$42 billion. The sudden epidemic has led to the closure of movie theaters around the world, slow progress in film production, delays in film distribution, a sharp drop in revenue, and basically no recovery of losses. According to a report released by the American Motion Picture Association, global movie box office revenues fell to 12 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, a decline of more than 70% compared with 2019. According to PwC’s forecast, the recovery of the film industry in the next few years will continue to be hampered by the epidemic, and global film revenue in 2024 will be lower than the level of 2019.
The ecological environment of the global film industry is undergoing profound changes. The shutdown of offline theaters has led to changes in film distribution methods and the transfer of theater box office revenue to transactional video-on-demand platforms (TVOD). In the United States, due to the suspension of movie theaters, film companies are reaching users through the OTT platform model. The movie “Magic Wizard 2” has launched two viewing modes, offline theater and online digital version, while “Mulan” is in the North American market. It directly bypasses the offline screening window and only supports users to watch on the Disney+ platform. The epidemic has led to fewer and fewer films being shown in North America. Driven by strong demand, most film distribution and production companies have built their own streaming media platforms. In China, many copyright owners also transfer movies to OTT platforms for playback.
Despite the heavy losses, the film industry still shows a certain degree of resilience to cold. The recovery of offline cinemas in China has unlocked the consumer enthusiasm for movie watching after depression. In the past, low-frequency and mid-frequency movie viewers entered the theater, showing the positive expectations of movie fans returning to the theater. On the other hand, innovative technologies are accelerating the landing in the film industry. In June 2020, the trailer for the latest movie “Creed” directed by Christopher Nolan appeared on the virtual screen of the game “Fortnite”, a cross between the film industry and the game industry. The world has cooperated to create an immersive movie-watching experience, attracting a strong crowd of movie fans, and the new generation of young people still has unlimited potential for movie-watching consumption.
Advertising. Before 2020, the global advertising industry has achieved 10 consecutive years of growth, and advertising expenditures fluctuate in parallel with GDP. After the outbreak of the epidemic, global brands have reduced their advertising expenditure budgets, and most of them have switched to user subscription business models. Facing the dual pressure of industry trends and economic downturn, the global advertising market revenue will drop significantly in 2020. According to the data released by the World Advertising Research Center (WARC) in November 2020, the advertising market revenue will fall to 552.3 billion US dollars that year. The decline exceeded 10 percentage points. In absolute terms, the shrinkage of the advertising market in 2020 is even more serious than the economic recession in 2009. In 2021, although the advertising market in most countries and regions around the world will rebound, it will not be enough to make up for the huge losses in 2020, and it is far from a real recovery.
Internet advertising. In the past few years, advertisers’ budgets have gradually tilted toward new media and social media, and digital advertising revenue has grown steadily. The arrival of the epidemic has accelerated this trend. In the next 5 years, the popularity of digital advertising will continue to rise, and the compound annual growth rate is expected to reach 4.8%. According to data released by the World Advertising Research Center (WARC), the online advertising market will contribute more than half of the global advertising market in 2020, with a total of 303.3 billion US dollars.
In the segment of Internet advertising, social media, search and video have become the three important engines driving online video advertising. In 2020, the market performance of online video advertising is the most eye-catching. CPM (cost per thousand) will increase by nearly 8% in 2020, and will continue to lead the growth of Internet advertising market revenue in 2021; paid search advertising will drop slightly in 2020. But it will usher in a rebound growth of 7% in 2021; social media advertising spending will grow to US$110.3 billion in 2021, accounting for 18.6% of all advertising spending.
TV advertisement. The global advertising forecast report released by MAGNA shows that in 2020, due to the continuous weakness of advertising demand in vertical segments such as the automotive industry, which the TV advertising market has long relied on, and the forced postponement of major sports events, the global TV advertising revenue will be 149 billion. The US dollar fell 13% from the previous year and only accounted for 30% of total global advertising expenditures. In 2021, with the return of major sports events such as the Summer Olympics and the European Football Championship, brand marketing budgets and advertising expenditures are expected to rebound. By 2022, global TV advertising revenue is expected to reach 159 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 26% of global advertising revenue, and maintaining its position as the second largest source of revenue in the global advertising industry.
Outdoor Advertising. Outdoor advertising is often located in densely populated areas, large in scale, and high consumer exposure. Before the outbreak of the epidemic, outdoor advertising was once one of the most influential linear media channels. In 2019, global outdoor advertising expenditures were close to 39.4 billion U.S. dollars. However, with the onset of the epidemic, social distance and telecommuting have greatly restricted the number of outdoor advertising audiences and sales performance. Commercial activities in various regions have been halted, and the demand for outdoor advertising has declined. Under this circumstance, the global outdoor advertising market has continued to be sluggish in recent years. By 2022, outdoor advertising expenditures are expected to fall to US$37.1 billion.
social media. After the outbreak, social media users became more sticky, and people increasingly rely on social media to maintain social relationships and obtain news and information. In 2020, global social media active users will reach 4.2 billion, accounting for 90% of all Internet users. Worldwide, users spend more than 2 hours and 40 minutes on social media every day. The spread of the epidemic has undoubtedly accelerated the increase in this number. 54% of Gen Z groups (10-24 years old) and 44% Millennials (25-39 years old) said that the epidemic has increased their frequency of using social media (Figure 2).
Looking at the competitive landscape of the social media market, Facebook has the largest number of registered accounts, with 2.74 billion active users, occupying a dominant market position, and YouTube ranked second. TikTok has received phenomenal huge traffic in 2020. From the perspective of the number of registered users, although TikTok has not yet squeezed into the top five in the global market, short videos have a low threshold for social media communication due to their visual and interactive nature. TikTok uses the dissemination characteristics of short videos to cultivate a large number of high-visit and loyal user groups. According to its official statistics, 90% of users frequently use TikTok every day, and the average daily time of using TikTok by young users exceeds 80 minutes.
As an important field of public opinion for the transmission of frontline epidemics and popular science and epidemic prevention knowledge, in the face of the “information hunger” generated by the public during the epidemic, the significance of social media in the spread of emergency public health events is being re-examined. The high-level information aggregation feature of social media has also brought about a double-edged sword effect. While the public, news media, and various organizations spread and obtain information about the epidemic through social media, rumors, false information, and hate speech are also spreading on social media. , The “information epidemic” has received unprecedented attention.
Emerging media industry. New business formats that have emerged based on technologies such as artificial intelligence, extended reality, and big data have become increasingly mature.
Expand reality. The outbreak of the epidemic has ushered in an important turning point in the global expansion of the reality industry. In 2020, users’ demand for “contactless” services, online office, and personalized entertainment will surge. The value of virtualization and immersive service experience is being redefined. On the foundation built by 5G communication technology, the application scenarios of extended reality have expanded from exhibitions and performances, marketing and retail industries to online education, corporate training, and industrial production. International Data Corporation (IDC) data shows that in 2020, the global augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) market spending will reach 12 billion U.S. dollars; of which, China has more than half of the market share and will maintain the world’s largest scale in 2021. Market position. At the same time, the global augmented reality and virtual reality market will significantly strengthen in the next few years. The overall market expenditure is expected to exceed 72.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 54%.
Electronic games. In 2020, the global game market will grow against the trend driven by the “home economy”, and vertical user groups such as women and the second yuan will be fully activated. According to a report released by Newzoo, a game market data research and analysis company, the global game market revenue reached 159.3 billion US dollars in 2020, and the overall market size increased by 9.3% over the previous year. Among them, the Asia-Pacific market contributed nearly half of the revenue. According to forecasts, the development opportunities for the video game industry under this special situation will continue in the short term; in 2021, global game players are expected to exceed 2.8 billion, contributing more than US$189.3 billion in revenue to the game market.
Voice social. With the increasing maturity of communication forms such as audio, video and live broadcast, the social attributes and communication advantages of voice in terms of parallel accompaniment, real-time interaction and emotional connection are gradually revealed, and the scenes, platforms and business models on the “ear economy” track are undergoing changes. . Taking the consumption habits of Chinese social media users as an example, in 2020, text chat will account for 63% of users’ usage share, and the combined use of space such as voice matching and live broadcast rooms will account for 32%. Clubhouse, the voice social application that swept the world in early 2021, confirmed the development potential of voice as a media carrier in the social media market. Compared with text and video, the voice output is more efficient, and the feedback is more timely. At the same time, it can hide the user’s image and environmental information, and has a certain controllability in the presentation effect.
The characteristics and trends of global entertainment and media industry development
The immersive economy is heating up, and the integration of cultural and entertainment technologies is accelerating. Under the superimposed effects of 5G infrastructure construction and the epidemic, individual consumers and business users have rapidly increased their awareness of the “experiential economy”. During the epidemic, the immersive online experience filled the gaps caused by the offline closure of cultural and entertainment venues. The integration of technology and culture accelerated the development of immersive tourism, virtual idol holographic performances and other categories. The immersive production creation on the supply side was at the exhibition. , Games, cultural tourism, and e-commerce scenes bloom everywhere, and gradually extend to medical, education, manufacturing and other fields, developing into a new form of digital cultural industry, and is expected to trigger a new wave of digital cultural consumption upgrades.
As media consumption migrates online, the “cloud” model has injected new momentum into the digital economy. The spread of the epidemic around the world has overturned people’s access to office, study, leisure and entertainment, and the operation of many industries has moved online. Online media consumption is moving towards a period of dividend development, and models such as remote office, online education, and online consultation have been rolled out. Vocabulary such as “cloud” video and home entertainment frequently appear in search hot words in 2020. In the early days of the outbreak, the migration of office scenes sounded the clarion call for online media consumption. Online video conferencing applications and collaborative office tools ushered in a bright moment, and the user traffic of instant messaging and office assistant software such as Zoom, Tencent Meetings, and DingTalk surged. . Statistics show that the global video conferencing market will reach US$12.58 billion in 2020 and is expected to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.6% in the next five years. The market size is expected to exceed US$19 billion in 2025.
Under the “cloud” management and the upgrade of 5G technology, the “home economy” operation mode stimulated by the epidemic will become normal in the next period of time. The “cloud” mode will also become an inevitable trend in the future. Online media consumption will not only Continue to reach the user groups in the vertical segmentation field in the vertical direction, and will also extend to all walks of life in the horizontal development, breaking the restrictions of the original consumption scene.
Digital transformation is accelerating, and media organizations are exploring diversified business models. The epidemic has changed the mode of interaction between news media organizations and users. On the one hand, changes in user flow and consumer behavior have accelerated the digital transformation of news media, and the printing business of most news organizations has even been suspended. In 2020, the number of digital users of the “New York Times” in the United States exceeded 1 million, and digital revenue surpassed that of paper media. At the same time, News Corporation Australia stopped the production of 112 newspaper products in May 2020. The digital transformation of news media not only means moving from print to the Internet, and deep cultivation in the field of website and mobile applications, but also means shifting to diversified news distribution channels; in the future, more news media organizations will settle in podcasts and streaming media, from Multiple touchpoints establish direct contact with the audience.
On the other hand, the importance of the news media on the paid subscription model has increased significantly, and news organizations in many countries have promoted content charging items during the epidemic. Statistics show that in the period from March to May 2020, the number of news media’s digital subscribers has increased by 110% compared to the previous year. Taking the New York Times as an example, its paid subscribers have exceeded 5.59 million, and the revenue from paid subscriptions is in the overall figure. The proportion of revenue continues to grow. At the same time, during the epidemic, in response to the increasing uncertainty of digital advertising revenue, news media are more actively exploring sustainable sources of mixed revenue. In addition to introducing multiple payment plans to users, more and more organizations are also video And e-commerce business and other fields.
The blue ocean of data services has emerged, and competition in the financial media market has intensified. Compared with 2019, the global data production scale will increase by 25% in 2020, and user demand for data analysis, transaction and application services will continue to increase. Professional financial media organizations have long played a key supplier role in the data supply chain in the information age, and are committed to quickly mining, analyzing data and delivering relevant news for trading entities in the financial market. In the context of accelerating the digitalization process of various industries around the world, data is constantly penetrating in the financial, Internet, and government fields. Business users are looking for one-stop data solution providers, especially in the financial market dominated by transaction algorithms, using smart The value of tools for data acquisition and analysis has become increasingly prominent; accordingly, financial giants have deployed data service businesses one after another, and there has been a wave of acquisitions in the capital market.
In 2020, S&P Global announced the acquisition of HIS Markit, a financial analysis company, to transform and expand the acquisition and management of data information; London Stock Exchange is also actively building a large-scale data business through acquisitions. Refinitiv Holdings Ltd. expands its integration capabilities in the financial data industry. These acquisitions will intensify competition in the market data and analysis service industry, and challenge the leading position of financial information and data service providers such as Bloomberg and Reuters. The superior resources of financial media organizations in tracking high-quality market reference data, providing description tools, and publishing media reports will be seized. How to optimize the data supply chain will become one of the important propositions that the industry needs to think about.
The “information epidemic” has exacerbated the platform supervision crisis, and global cooperation has purified the network environment. In 2020, when the epidemic is raging around the world, false and misinformation on social media will also prevail, and hatred and misleading rumors will spread rapidly in the online environment. The credibility and content supervision of social media are facing huge challenges in the context of public health crisis. It has become a global consensus that various authoritative organizations cooperate with platform-based media to formulate comprehensive management countermeasures. In the information production link, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok cooperate with institutions such as the World Health Organization to introduce authoritative sources to ensure that the public can receive true and reliable first-hand information from the massive amount of information. In the information dissemination link, professionals from news agencies and independent fact-checking agencies have established close contact with the platform, dedicated to identifying, verifying and exposing false information. At the same time, in terms of technical response, digital platforms and search engine service providers are actively cooperating to improve search engine retrieval quality by adjusting algorithms and improving information recommendation mechanisms, and using artificial intelligence and other means to mark, review and delete harmfulness on the platform. content.
The spread of the “information epidemic” on social media is not only a test of the public’s media literacy, but also an opportunity to urge all parties to rethink how to use digital technology innovation to regulate the content of media platforms. In the spreading crisis brought about by the epidemic, the government, media and professional journalists have worked together to explore, work hand in hand, and jointly promote the purification of the network environment. This has important and milestone significance for the future development of the global media industry.
