By: Ashish Bulchandani, Client Partner - Media & Entertainment

If you write “Content is” in Google search, the first auto search option suggested is “Content is king”, such has been the reputation of “Content” in the entertainment industry. But with the advent of new content streaming platforms – the battle of getting the eyeballs has moved from having the ‘right’ content, to making content available ‘rightly’.

There is a paradigm shift happening in the entertainment industry, which has not only replaced content – once termed as the undisputed king, with content availability – “anytime – anywhere – any format”, but also has blurred the industry boundaries to enable ingresses of new players, and forced the existing player to rethink the role of technology in the core business. This blog talks about a renewed role of content and streaming platforms, and what it means for entertainment companies and their technology partners.

Content is definitely a significant driving factor, which attracts viewers. However, with an explosion in content providers and streaming platforms, content owners have to fight much harder for the consumer’s attention. The winners are the ones with relevant content, better brand identity, and the ones who anticipate and adapt to fickle consumer demands quicker.

With plethora of options available, the companies seem to have the edge now, are not the ones with the best content, but they make the content available in “anytime-anywhere-any format”. Demand for the media is changing, hence are the rules. Relevance of the content, and its efficient and effective distribution, determines who wins this battle of the eyeballs.

You don’t see this happening frequently when the underlining rules of an industry change, such that they not only pose existential threat to the current players, but also blur the industry lines to enable entrance of new players to participate, or surprisingly lead the resurrection of the Industry as a whole. With the ingress of players like Amazon, Apple, Google, etc, the fight for catching the consumer’s attention has shifted from ‘right’ content to making the content available ‘rightly’.

This new reality is forcing entertainment giants to re-think their strategy and revisit their business model. Consumer streaming services have pushed board rooms to think consolidation as a last resort to tackle this challenge. In this quest of reaching to right audience, the corporation which will claim to have the better tools to reach maximum audience, will have better bargaining chips. This shift also challenges the ‘core business’ proponents of the industry. The boundaries of the core business have to be extended to include technology as one of the key components of the business strategy.

Conclusion
Content is not the key success factor anymore, but successfully streaming the content to relevant audience is. This will be empowered by technology, which no longer is a mere enabler to the core business, but part of the core business. This will be a painstaking move for the industry, which has always considered technology as a second fiddle. This changes the equation between the business team and their technology counterparts, and in-turn with technology partners. These are tectonic shifts for the industry, and how they impact the industry is to be seen, but one thing is absolutely certain that technology will be on the driving seat for the most part.