Blog: Business Strategy - Page 29

Facebook has launched a new app, Facebook Gaming, currently available on Google Play. Though the company has been in games for years, this is a major development in its games-related strategy as well as the interactive entertainment landscape more broadly.

Unsurprisingly the UK government opted to extend lockdown for a further three weeks last week, and today will mark the first full month of lockdown for UK consumers. In the US 95% of the population is now under lockdown, and globally 25% of consumers remain officially home-bound.

Yesterday saw the soft launch of Peacock, the new direct-to-consumer (D2C) ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) and subscription video on demand (SVOD) hybrid app from NBCUniversal – the media subsidiary of communications major Comcast.

The digital entertainment boom as a result of the global COVID-19 lockdowns is but an optimistic wave in a stormy sea the market will have to weather over the coming months… and potentially even years.

When Quibi chose April 6thas its US and Canada launch date, it could not have envisaged just how rapidly the world would have reprioritised its finite attention. Quibi’s go-to-market strategy has focused on the seeming gap in mobile-native premium short-form video content – smartphone-native content up to 10 minutes in duration.

On Wednesday AT&T announced that Jason Kilar will become the new CEO of Warner Media on May 1st2020. The choice of Kilar speaks volumes about how the US communications major is approaching the forthcoming challenge at the heart of its Warner Media subsidiary – the May domestic launch of HBO Max, its forthcoming direct-to-consumer (D2C) service.

With a quarter of the world’s population now estimated be living in areas under lockdown, online engagement is spiking at an unprecedented rate. Much of this engagement is being driven by a significantly-increased demand for entertainment to distract from the current global pandemic.

The last two weeks have been dramatic for public companies in the wake of extreme investor reactions to the still unknown long-term economic impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic. However, media major Disney is in the fortunate position of launching its family-centric Disney+ streaming service in the UK on the first day of a UK national lockdown, with kids now being home-schooled and parents nervous about their financial futures particularly disposed towards the competitive pricing deals being offered for year-long subscription discounts.

As the abnormal becomes the new normal following the official confirmation that the world has entered into a global pandemic event, the looming potential recession and enforced home entertainment experiment provides a glimpse into how the future might look in a decade-plus when universal basic income (UBI) could well make entertainment the most valuable economic activity on the planet.

With the 9th of March dubbed by market analysts as “Black Monday” after S&P and Nasdaq suffered the worst share falls since the 2008 financial crisis (via BBC ), seeing trading briefly suspended before resuming with all three major stock markets down over 6%, the market is clearly in a volatile place.

Today the UK’s dominant pay-TV operator, Sky, announced a partnership with media major Disney+ to grow its UK subscriber base prior to its official UK launch on March 24th. Sky currently operates Now TV, its own subscription video on demand (SVOD) service, and is owned by Comcast – which is launching its own direct-to-consumer (D2C) service Peacock next month.

The NFL’s recently released viewing figures provided to CNBC highlighted a 5% increase in viewership as TV audiences grew on average to 16.5 million, up from 15.8 million in 2018. Not only this, but according to Quartz , throughout the season the NFL finished with 41 out of the top 50 broadcasts (of which only five were not sports).

In February 2020, Disney announced that Bob Iger will step down from the Disney CEO role and become the executive chairman through to December 31st2021, with immediate effect. Bob Chapek, who has served as the chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, will assume the role of CEO.