Few industries have been upended as quickly as media and entertainment. Audiences now dictate not just what they watch, but how, when and on what device. Mark Harrison has lived that transformation from the inside. A former award-winning director and BBC executive, he is now founder and leader of the DPP, a global network of more than 500 companies working at the intersection of content and technology. Harrison joins FEED to discuss M&E΄s shift from supply-driven to demand-driven and how survival depends on collaboration across the industry΄s fractured supply chain. In this conversation, he offers hard-won lessons from decades of change, and why the future of film, television and streaming will belong to those who adapt fastest.
Interview by Verity Butler
Images by Lars Huebner
FEED: How does the DPP differ from other media organisations? MARK HARRISON: The DPP is an international network for media and technology, and what that means in practice is that we bring companies from across the whole content supply chain. From broadcasters and content platforms, all the way through to their technology suppliers and into the production community; we bring them together in order to provide them with the insight and connections needed to do their business better. What I think is distinctive about the DPP is that we are not a trade body, meaning that we are not an organisation that is here to defend the interests of any particular group. Our strength is in the fact that we’re a neutral entity, and we are here to help all parts of the media supply chain understand where the industry is going and what the opportunities are within that. The DPP has to go with the change, whatever the change might happen to be, and if it happens to be bad for a particular part of the industry, so be it. We have to look at what that means for everybody else. And I think that gives us an energy and a vitality – and keeps us very contemporary and relevant. It’s about identifying challenges, understanding how we can overcome
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