PARQOR's Predictions for Media in 2023
My predictions for media in 2023 — "2023 Will Be Another Difficult Year for Traditional Media" — went live on The Information earlier today.
I made five predictions:
- Bearish on Disney, despite Iger's return, and Warner Bros. Discovery;
- As I wrote last month, Procter & Gamble changed the future of upfronts (and Paramount Global is already ditching Carnegie Hall in favor of “intimate gatherings” with advertisers in April;
- It is going to be a great year for YouTube creators, but questions remain how many are actually exciting to advertisers;
- I do not believe Starz will end up being acquired by or merged with another legacy media company; and,
- Digital advertising has a "black box" problem.
Read the essay here.
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!
2022 was as dynamic and exciting a year as they come. It ended on a much more bearish note for media than I had envisioned at the beginning of 2022. I think it is too bearish — as I wrote in the 2023 Predictions essay, all media companies have collected big databases of subscribers and credit cards, they have recurring revenues, and they are positioned to build out additional business models in direct-to-consumer (DTC).
And therein lies the inherent tension: DTC models increasingly seem to be the future of media distribution, but there is still a "magic" to Hollywood productions that theaters deliver, but next-generation platforms YouTube, TikTok and Netflix are still trying to capture. I think that this is the case that actor and producer Tom Cruise made in 2022 with megahit "Top Gun: Maverick" and with not one but two extraordinary stunt videos over the past 48 hours.
The unanswered question after almost two decades of streaming remains: How does the Hollywood "magic" fit into a conversion funnel? Does it belong there at all? Or, as gaming companies and YouTube have learned, maybe an engagement medium like the Internet requires a different "magic" altogether?
That tension and those questions have played out in fascinating ways in 2022.
Wishing you and your families a Happy Holidays and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Andrew
