March 2023
MediaTech Radar is a monthly newsletter put together by IABM’s Head of Knowledge Lorenzo Zanni. It focuses on a spotlight topic in MediaTech and reflects on a series of past, present, and future business developments in the industry. In this edition, our spotlight topic is Content Distribution & Monetization.
Survey Alert: MediaTech Business Tracker & Disruption Poll
Share your views on MediaTech trends to gain market intelligence.
- I invite you to take part in the latest IABM MediaTech Business Tracker to share your views on the most relevant trends in the MediaTech industry, including technology revenue, investment, and adoption trends. The survey should take between 12 and 15 minutes. The information you provide will be treated with complete confidentiality by IABM analysts. Everyone who completes the survey will be able to have an exclusive first look at the results to gain an in-depth understanding of the market, from new product development to marketing campaigns and geographical expansion.
- I also invite you to take part in the Disruption Poll we have created to track three sources of current and potential disruption for MediaTech businesses. This should take 2-3 minutes.
- Thank you for your continuing support. Your contribution to our surveys is essential to enable IABM to continue provide independent business intelligence reporting on MediaTech, including this newsletter.
MediaTech Spotlight: Content Distribution & Monetization
A spotlight topic in MediaTech.
- IABM has just published a report analyzing content distribution and monetization trends. Below, I have included some of the main highlights of the research.
- Streaming maturity, convergence, and aggregation became the driving forces in content distribution and monetization in 2022. Investment in Publish and Monetize saw the largest year-on-year increase among content chain segments in 2022 according to IABM research, with the fastest-growing categories of spending being non-linear publishing and programmatic advertising.
- Streaming maturity: Competition in the OTT space is driving market fragmentation, forcing viewers to stack subscriptions to access content scattered around different streaming platforms. This, coupled with inflation, has slowed down subscriber growth at the largest SVOD platforms, forcing them to diversify revenue streams by launching ad-supported offerings. This push for diversification has made AVOD and free ad-supported streaming (FAST) channels the focus for media businesses.
- Convergence: Streaming maturity and the generational shift in media consumption have put gaming and consumer interactivity at the center of the media ecosystem. With the convergence of gaming, betting, and social media sectors, media businesses are investing more in general-purpose (not media-specific) technologies, aiming to augment/diversify revenues through better engagement.
- Aggregation: Broadcasters and Pay-TV operators are increasingly partnering to create bundled SVOD services. Aggregators can attract viewers with direct billing options to control payment terms, margins, and viewer data.
MediaTech Watchlist: Supply Chain, Layoffs, NAB Show 2023 and more…
A watchlist of selected past, present and future business developments in MediaTech.
- In earnings calls held in January and February respectively, MediaTech suppliers Haivision and Harmonic highlighted continued supply chain pressure despite improved conditions. For example, Haivision CFO Dan Rabinowitz said: “To address what we believe to be a fundamental change in supply chain, we have imposed a price increase effective October 1.” Both suppliers highlighted that increased stockpiling has been key to managing supply chain risk, consistent with past IABM research on this topic (and our new poll).
- This LA Times article contains a distressing roundup of layoffs at major media organizations. fyi is another good source to track this trend (use the “Industry” filter and select “Media”). At the time of the writing, Synamedia was the latest technology business to cut its workforce by 12%. At the start of March 2023, 436 technology companies had laid off 122,341 employees, which is already about 76% of all employees laid off in 2022.
- NAB Show 2023 is set to celebrate its 100th anniversary on 15 April, when it will open its doors to visitors and exhibitors. NAB’s EVP Chris Brown said in February that he (or it) expects the show’s total attendance number to jump to 70K from the nearly 55K reached last year.
- I’ll be at the show with my colleague Martin Redhead to talk to different businesses about MediaTech intelligence, including our upcoming research around MediaTech market sizing. If you are interested in this and you’d like to discuss it, please book a slot in our calendars.
- I expect the show to reflect the mixture of reality and buzz we usually witness at these industry events. Efficiency is set to be a major focus due to a darkening macro-outlook and streamers’ existential crisis (and consequent cost-cutting). I am pretty sure that there will be a lot of buzz around Generative AI, as well as some examples of how this technology can really support the industry’s never-ending drive towards efficiency. It will be interesting to see if this focus on efficiency sets back the development of next-gen immersive technology such as the Metaverse. Other trends on the spotlight at the show should include the usual suspects such as Cloud.
- We’ll talk about these trends and technology business models at IABM’s flagship State of the Industry session on Sunday 16 April. I hope to see you there!
Thank you for reading this newsletter. If there are topics you would like me to cover or have information/ideas you’d like to share, please get in touch with us.
Lorenzo Zanni
Head of Knowledge
IABM
