Reports: TikTok

Games, sports, music, video, audio, and social content all compete not only for consumers’ attention (and money), but also their fandom. However, the oversaturation of content is devaluing entertainment itself, by overly commodifying it. Entertainment businesses and content providers will need to rethink how to generate better value for audiences, especially if they want to make true fans of those audiences – especially in an environment of recession (both in the global economy and consumer attention).

The debate over a new streaming royalties regime is capturing attention, but economics will not fix the underlying paradigm shifts that are the true cause for streaming’s problems: there is not enough money to go around for the ballooning amount of music on streaming services, and passive consumption is the new norm.

Despite the hyper-saturated music landscape, music discovery is generally not a problem for most consumers. Gen Z and millennials have similar music discovery habits, but gen Z struggle slightly more with discovery and are more influenced by TikTok, while millennials are perhaps the last generation to see radio as a main source of music discovery.

The audiobook market is at an important stage of its evolution. Similar to podcasts, the niche format is trying to grow amid heightened competition for consumers’ time and attention, while the looming recession puts subscriptions growth and retention under pressure.

Audience engagement with subscription video on demand (SVOD) services is sliding, with multi-tasking on social media often relegating shows to background viewing. Social media is the threat, but also the catalyst for a radical recalibration of the SVOD viewing experience that will help these services claw back what is lost.

The history of social media has long been defined by continual evolution and iteration, but now shifts across the value chain are becoming more substantive, heralding a new era. Social platforms themselves are changing, and so too are the attitudes, expectations, and behaviours of their users, with audiences’ appetites for carefully curated, heavily edited posts turning sour, and their thirst for authentic, participatory content growing stronger.

In this report, MIDiA Research analysts present their predictions for what will be the big trends in digital media and tech across music, video, games, marketing, audio and cultural trends in 2023 and beyond. Themes for 2023: Cost-of-living crunch: Entertainment spending will weaken, but some formats will fare better than others Perceived value will be king: As economic conditions worsen, consumers will seek out better value for money, not just ways to reduce spend The end of disruption: Following two decades of disruption, consumer tech is entering a ‘holding’ phase, accentuated by the economic downturn Scarcity revival: The post-lockdown thirst for ‘in real life’ (IRL) experiences will combine with digital fatigue to place a new premium on scarce, IRL experiences in 2023 Community repurposed: The value of community will come to the fore in 2023, as entertainment increasingly becomes scene-led The rise of the moment: The immediacy of ‘now’ will find its fullest expression in social and music fusion in 2023 The forking of culture: Cultural intermediaries will provide access to subscenes for larger audiences The authenticity crisis: In an era of replication, authenticity will stand out The decoupling of global distribution: A changing geo-political landscape is turning back the clock on a vision for global markets in entertainment.

The rise of attention inflation means that consumers are maximising their limited time by multitasking between various formats, spurring a rise in background consumption. This creates a “new” space for platforms to compete for consumers’ time. Among entertainment formats, audio is best placed to conquer background listening, but music streaming is more easily relegated to the background than podcasts.

With streaming music now in its mature growth stage in most leading music markets, differentiation will be key to unlocking further growth pockets. While this will likely require innovation in both product and licensing, there are already clear signs that the streaming services are developing userbases with distinct and varied behaviours and characteristics.

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.

Audiences are changing the ways they interact with entertainment, as well as how they respond to advertising and marketing designed to promote it. Audiences are increasingly creative and engage in lean-through behaviours, are less tolerant of ads, and want more authenticity in their digital social lives.

Audiences are becoming ever-more creative and this proclivity will come into its own over the coming period of economic, social, and political turbulence. To reconnect with each other while conserving their financial resources, these audiences will increasingly employ their digital-savvy pandemic learnings in the way that they consume entertainment itself.

DSPs have long been able to grow their subscriber bases despite all offering essentially the same experience. Yet the freemium model is reaching a saturation point, putting slow but steady pressure on DSPs to find new ways to grow subscribers and revenue.

Investments from major audience platforms in audio infrastructure, such as hosting platforms and advertising, kickstarted the growth of the podcast market. With the basic infrastructure now in place, it is time for the major platforms to focus on growing the format by expanding listenership and user experience.

The Covid pandemic created a unique catalyst for the music creator economy. More time on hands and more cash in pockets gave novices and veterans alike the opportunity to spend both more time and money making music. Though the pandemic was a peak, it also marked the start of a new era for the music creator economy across every one of its aspects, from revenue to creation to remuneration.

Streaming claimed radio’s younger, music-focused audiences while podcasts are now beginning to do the same for older, spoken-word audiences. However, it is not yet determined that the impact needs to be as disruptive for radio companies. With radio audience declines slowing, and even experiencing a modest rebound, a window of opportunity exists for radio companies to become masters of their own destinies.

Entertainment consumption is increasingly shaped by context, as consumers are driven by attention saturation to overlap behaviours as well as choose between them. Different forms of entertainment are better suited to different contexts, with some lending themselves to more social behaviours than others.

Entertainment consumption and fandom are fragmenting in the internet era as a result of the steady erosion of linear audiences, the rise of asynchronous consumption, and the increased sophistication of personalisation algorithms. Consequently, identity and culture are fragmenting as well.

Audio platforms traditionally monetise through advertising and, to a lesser degree, listener subscriptions. However, with the rise of the creator economy and more creators entering the podcast space, platforms must bulk up their offerings for creator monetisation as well.

Streaming first democratised the means of consumption, then distribution, and now production. Though the promise of the long tail may not have materialised quite as expected, long-tail and mid-tail creators are now a central component of the digital-entertainment economy.