FEED Autumn 2021 Newsletter

FEED: How do you see broadcast unfolding in the future?

HOWARD HOMONOFF: The future of the business models – models, plural – is that we’re going to be in a stage of experimentation for a long time.That includes understanding how many subscriptions will actually be bought. Only a couple of years ago, the belief was that people would only subscribe to, on average, 2.8 services.That is plainly not true. Now, it feels like that’s something people talked about 30 years ago. If you have a casual conversation with someone, you find they have Netflix and AmazonVideo with their Amazon Prime account; then they have HBO Max and Disney. Never mind Peacock and Paramount Plus. These are just the major ones. A business model has to figure out how many services people will subscribe to, in order to survive as an independent and thriving streaming service. The advertising world has it’s share of challenges, too.What do you do when there are so many choices, and so many ways to not watch advertising? How does the advertising world – which is often

stuck with an old fashioned mindset – adapt to the future? How will e-commerce, loyalty programmes, and the things we associate with the shopping experience translate in future media? For the longest time, you put on aTV show, people watched it, and you sold advertising – that was it. That accounted for 60 years in the 20th century. Nothing lasts nearly that long any more. The future will be less about traditional advertising, based on how many people are viewing. It will, instead, focus on content leading viewers towards a purchase.Whether it’s healthcare, fashion or travel, taking commission will be a large part of advertising. For example, somebody books a trip on American Airlines because they got there from an article or show about some travel destination. American Airlines will share with the publisher, as opposed to paying for the single ad, and keeping everything else that is paid out down the road. You could say they’re sort of sharing risk, sharing reward. In a very complicated world, those are arrangements that may help people figure out an uncertain future.

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