Reports: attention recession

Over roughly the past decade, each stage in the evolution of the attention economy accelerated the pace of fragmentation and oversaturation in music, unearthing new challenges for each micro-generation of artists. With all these generations now competing in the same playing field, artist strategy depends strongly on the era in which they rose to prominence.

With the attention recession in full swing following the lockdown boom, video isalready feeling the pinch as evidenced by Netflix’s declining subscriber count.The mainstreaming of subscription video on demand (SVOD) pulled TV into the digital entertainment sphere, placing it at risk of further disruption from the attentionrecession.

Weekly active user (WAU) penetration for the top streaming services is now slowing with quarter-on-quarter growth effectively flat for the leading subscription video on demand (SVOD) services. Peak attention is now clearly here for video. The looming attention recession, which is already impacting the wider digital entertainment landscape, will exacerbate the greater underlying disengagement trends such as cancelling subscriptions that are starting to impact on video.

Music streaming and the attention recession have turned music into a background activity. Artists en masse are struggling to cut through the noise, realising that streaming is neither a place to build deeper relationships with fans nor to generate meaningful income.

The global pandemic created a temporary boost to the attention economy, with all forms of entertainment benefiting. As life began to return to normal, this newfound time quickly started to erode, causing growing pains for many entertainment companies.

The US market is starting to see initial signs of fatigue as the D2C disruptors begin to reduce monthly user engagement among the three dominant incumbent subscription video on demand services. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu all saw modest dips in weekly active use in Q4 2020.