Everyone in the media business has a hot take on WarnerMedia’s decision to release all upcoming Warner Brothers movies on HBO Max the same day as in theaters. Whether you support or decry the move, however, misses the bigger point: Jason Kilar and John Stankey opted to dive head-first into the deep end of disruption, rather than slowly, begrudgingly accepting new realities on the horizon — and, in so doing, have hurtled the movie business toward that inevitable future.
My prediction for 2021 is that the traditional pay-TV business in the United States will experience a similar quantum jump.
Make no mistake: Traditional pay TV remains a big business. While ad revenue is expected to be down some 15 percent in the U.S., advertisers are still expected to spend $60 billion on TV spots this year. By year’s end, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are expected to generate nearly $210 billion in service revenue and reach over 60 percent of households worldwide.
The TV business has long, and successfully, worked to shield itself from disruption — indeed, networks continue to increase the monthly carriage fees they charge MVPDs for access to their content. But millions of consumers continue to cut the cord every year. Ultimately, the cracks in traditional pay TV’s foundation cannot withstand Covid-19’s economic earthquake.
What we see today is a gold rush. NBC is going all in on Peacock; CBS launched CBSN and All Access; Fox bought Tubi; ESPN and Discovery have tailored options for streaming. It is hard to miss the host of new channels (like Bloomberg Quicktake), new distribution platforms, and new consumer-focused options emerging across the over-the-top (OTT) landscape.
The “new TV” is here, and in 2021, I expect a seismic shift of advertising dollars to it. Advertisers will not only reallocate resources from traditional TV and digital into OTT, but also shift declining dollars from existing traditional media platforms.
The parable of the disrupted print media provides a continually valuable lesson in this arena. While many initially lamented the digital transition and branded the unwelcome shift as trading “dollars for dimes,” the fact is that audiences had already chosen digital as their platform. New digital upstarts, as well as traditional media players and brand partners that embraced the disruption, have found ways to convert those dimes into quarters, and some even into dollars. Those same entities foresaw — and shifted their focus to — mobile platforms once smartphones arrived, and are now moving swiftly (perhaps too swiftly) into streaming audio to take advantage of the eventual extinction of terrestrial radio. Those that didn’t and haven’t run fast enough into digital disruption are gone, acquired, or struggling.
The digital disruption of TV is now the fight that matters. It is the fight over the largest audience, the most captive hours, and the biggest economic pie. And in 2021, I expect media operators, publishers, platforms, and brands will take up this fight with heretofore unseen ardor.
The rise of digital is ceaseless and unyielding, but as the brilliant Mary Meeker has pointed out, history suggests a multi-year lag between rising audience engagement on new platforms and the media spend on such platforms. That “gap” between the time audiences spend and what media spend on OTT is the immense opportunity ahead for the industry. And next year, we’ll have a front-row seat to this paradigm shift.
M. Scott Havens is chief growth officer and global head of strategic partnerships for Bloomberg Media.
Everyone in the media business has a hot take on WarnerMedia’s decision to release all upcoming Warner Brothers movies on HBO Max the same day as in theaters. Whether you support or decry the move, however, misses the bigger point: Jason Kilar and John Stankey opted to dive head-first into the deep end of disruption, rather than slowly, begrudgingly accepting new realities on the horizon — and, in so doing, have hurtled the movie business toward that inevitable future.
My prediction for 2021 is that the traditional pay-TV business in the United States will experience a similar quantum jump.
Make no mistake: Traditional pay TV remains a big business. While ad revenue is expected to be down some 15 percent in the U.S., advertisers are still expected to spend $60 billion on TV spots this year. By year’s end, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) are expected to generate nearly $210 billion in service revenue and reach over 60 percent of households worldwide.
The TV business has long, and successfully, worked to shield itself from disruption — indeed, networks continue to increase the monthly carriage fees they charge MVPDs for access to their content. But millions of consumers continue to cut the cord every year. Ultimately, the cracks in traditional pay TV’s foundation cannot withstand Covid-19’s economic earthquake.
What we see today is a gold rush. NBC is going all in on Peacock; CBS launched CBSN and All Access; Fox bought Tubi; ESPN and Discovery have tailored options for streaming. It is hard to miss the host of new channels (like Bloomberg Quicktake), new distribution platforms, and new consumer-focused options emerging across the over-the-top (OTT) landscape.
The “new TV” is here, and in 2021, I expect a seismic shift of advertising dollars to it. Advertisers will not only reallocate resources from traditional TV and digital into OTT, but also shift declining dollars from existing traditional media platforms.
The parable of the disrupted print media provides a continually valuable lesson in this arena. While many initially lamented the digital transition and branded the unwelcome shift as trading “dollars for dimes,” the fact is that audiences had already chosen digital as their platform. New digital upstarts, as well as traditional media players and brand partners that embraced the disruption, have found ways to convert those dimes into quarters, and some even into dollars. Those same entities foresaw — and shifted their focus to — mobile platforms once smartphones arrived, and are now moving swiftly (perhaps too swiftly) into streaming audio to take advantage of the eventual extinction of terrestrial radio. Those that didn’t and haven’t run fast enough into digital disruption are gone, acquired, or struggling.
The digital disruption of TV is now the fight that matters. It is the fight over the largest audience, the most captive hours, and the biggest economic pie. And in 2021, I expect media operators, publishers, platforms, and brands will take up this fight with heretofore unseen ardor.
The rise of digital is ceaseless and unyielding, but as the brilliant Mary Meeker has pointed out, history suggests a multi-year lag between rising audience engagement on new platforms and the media spend on such platforms. That “gap” between the time audiences spend and what media spend on OTT is the immense opportunity ahead for the industry. And next year, we’ll have a front-row seat to this paradigm shift.
M. Scott Havens is chief growth officer and global head of strategic partnerships for Bloomberg Media.
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Delia Cai Subscriptions start working for the middle
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation