The Fourth Industrial Revolution has swept over not only manufacturing, industry, and digital media but literally every field of our lives.
This year’s digitalization of business was accelerated because of COVID-19 lockdowns. For example, 34% of media and entertainment organizations will not be able to compete without the support of a digital transformation agency.
If you surf the web, you will find outstanding robotics applications in all business sectors, AI-based algorithms working with Big Data, and the ubiquitous blockchain.
Notable but less well-known aspects of the media and entertainment digital shift are discussed below.
Digital Media Subscription Models
Coronavirus Impact Tracker shows a considerable reduction in demand for legacy products such as perpetual licenses in 2020.
People don’t want to spend $100 on a TV package and just watch two stations. In this new era of consumer demands, consumers prefer the pay-per-use approach. This shift affects significant industry players in media and entertainment. Again, why pay for the full set if only a dozen are useful?
Enter the enterprise subscription model. Here, the digitization strategy is driven by the company’s needs, not the market’s offer.
Niche OTT
The epidemic increased demand for catch-up services, SVOD, and even normal TV. To keep viewers, all media firms will have to keep up with digital transformation innovation concepts.
While some companies, like Amazon, Netflix, or Apple just load up on content, others focus on their particular audience and use entertainment to bring people together.
For example, Alchemiya Media, founded by Navid Akhtar, aims to counter the unfavorable media portrayal of Muslims by focusing on the 99.9% of Muslims who live peaceful, useful, productive lives as global citizens.
Other examples include:
- BritBox, an OTT platform for BBC and ITV programming;
- Barça TV+, the Spanish La Liga champions’ SVOD;
- Crunchyroll, an East Asian anime provider; and
- Passionflix, a collection of romantic films ranked by their ‘love’ quotient.
Digital Media Streaming
82.5 percent of CTV streaming hours are on the four major streaming providers. The pandemic forced people to learn, train, play, and do everything from home. This turned computers, smartphones, and TVs into windows to the world.
Today, streaming is used for online classes, lectures, workshops, theatrical productions, sporting events, and fan participation. Nearly every live event was streamed in 2020.
This is certainly not a new technology. However, the demand for digital agency services has increased immensely. As a result, every organization needs to know how to stream.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Digital Media
It was predicted in 2017 that VR content income would reach $5 billion by 2020. Despite the limited number of applications, it is reasonable to state that AR and VR are the hottest trends in the media and entertainment sector.
Here are some AR/VR technology trends:
- Theater: 66% of current viewers prefer immersive to traditional.
- Museums: After the lockdown, many museums have offered free virtual reality tours to continue sharing art.
- Additionally, musicians had to be creative to organize performances under the stringent distance limits of governments.
- To survive, several amusement parks, like Ensenasoft, converted their rides into VR. In addition, they offered shared access via a dedicated platform.
- The increased need for digital transformation advice has impacted the sports and gambling industries as well.
Digital Media IoT
Omnipresent products display has been around for a while, but omnichannel delivery is here now. IoT aims to turn items into networked gadgets. It’s also already here.
For example, a user watching YouTube on their phone can continue watching the same video on a TV controlled by their phone. An IoT-based customized network of offers will undoubtedly win over Millennials and Gen-Z’ers. They are always willing to spend extra for personalization.
These changes have already impacted the retail world. However, the media and entertainment industries are already stepping up to do more.
New Digital Media Management Software
This is a must-have for a digitization plan because all brand dialogues, conflicts, and accolades now happen online and on social media. It might be The New Yorker or the Edinburgh Evening News. Whatever it is, today’s media outlets must convert their material into easily digestible social media updates.
The entertainment industry relies heavily on media and social media for promotion. Therefore, flawless multi-tasking is a must. There are various digital technology services that can handle several jobs. Some of these services include media monitoring, post publishing, filtering, analytics, and audience targeting.
Accessible Video Chat
Streaming services are one application of this technology. However, video calls are a unique innovation. Video chats were vital throughout the pandemic and are likely to stay so.
As part of the digitalization of business across many industries, video calls were introduced or upgraded. Big winners included:
- Zoom from Home, the undisputed leader in video conferencing.
- Facebook, the social media leader, now provides video calls.
- Salesforce Anywhere also offers video calls.
Given that 81% of recent survey respondents prefer to work remotely, this digital transformation innovation will continue to grow. In the future, every service will likely offer its own video conferencing solution or use an existing one.
Conclusions
The world is changing by leaps and bounds. An innovation today becomes a need tomorrow. This is true especially in the media and entertainment industry. They must constantly thrill and surprise their clients.
AI, VR, OTT, IoT, and many more acronyms of digital transformation technologies have long been part of the IT industry. Nevertheless, they will increasingly find new uses across industries, including manufacturing.
To keep their audience and survive the competition, procedures must change and evolve. Regardless of the company’s size or skill, digital media can and will maintain its competitive and lucrative edge.
