Predicting the future is problematic. The process begins with the predictor's perspective on the past, includes their view of things as they are today, and ends with someone else going back to see how close they came 12 months later. The task is further complicated by the difference between what we thinkwill happen and what we wantto happen, both of which can have no relationship to what actuallyhappens. The challenge then, to paraphrase Peter Drucker, is not "predict the future, but to create it." Our predictions focus on technologies and changes we believe will contribute to a new future for the M&E industry in 2022.
The past 12 months have seen significant change and disruption in the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry. Due to the impacts of the persistent COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are now more accustomed to being entertained at home and on multiple devices. The growth of online subscriptions reached levels analysts had not predicted for another two or three years. For example, Disney+ achieved subscriber numbers that Netflix took seven years to reach. The amount of money spent to buy new content also increased, hitting $220B in 2021—the most ever by the industry.
Spherex announced the introduction of a newsfeed that aggregates stories from across the globe related to the globalization of TV and film content. Called World M+E News, the company is providing the newsfeed as a service to the entertainment industry as culture becomes more critical and TV and film content goes global.
We spend a lot of time examining how different industries approach culture. One industry that has lessons for media and entertainment is advertising. Like film, advertising tells stories, albeit 30-90 seconds versus 30-90 minutes. Still, advertising's long history of initially getting culture wrong, learning from those mistakes, making relevant changes, and winning market share are valuable lessons for content creators.
Pressure on content creators to ensure their productions are suitable for international markets is exponentially increasing. It began in earnest with the release of blockbuster films in the late 70s and 80s, where meeting global demand meant little more than subtitling or language dubs for three or four languages. Very few major films received the complete treatment of multiple language translations that movies and TV shows currently receive because the distribution chain wasn't what it is today, and costs were prohibitively expensive.
Leading a team of data scientists, AI engineers and product developers, Phillips and her team are making sense of the crowded content landscape worldwide so media and entertainment companies don’t get lost in translation. Collaborating with major studios, networks, streamers and content creators, they are transforming how media and entertainment enterprises create, adapt, and deliver film and television to audiences worldwide through AI and machine learning. By matching TV and film content with their local audiences worldwide, Spherex’s expertise and technology offers media and entertainment companies the ability to adapt all of their content for every market and culture around the world.