D2C 2020 Media, Tech and Communications Majors Go Head to Head

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The 20,000 Foot View: The current division between the new video        entrants of        has revealed a strategic split between those that are leveraging established distribution advantages versus those focused on monetising existing content assets. The current market distortions wrought by the ongoing        epidemic have placed power firmly in the hands of services able to leverage zeitgeisty originals combined with libraries of proven content and brand assets. Media majors and the subsidiaries of communications majors are currently best placed to capitalise in the streaming transition.

Key Insights

       lockdowns have created an additional        entertainment time for        of global consumers        of US consumers and        UK consumers watched more TV during March 2020
• Owning the upstream, without controlling the downstream has become an existential issue for the media majors
• In a recessionary market, known content equity is of heightened value for demonstrating value for money
• Media majors are uniquely able to leverage group dynamics to offset production and licensing costs
• Communications majors have acquired dominant access to TV audiences 
• Netflix and Amazon’s forcible reshaping of TV is product driven, rather than industry driven
• Fandom bases drives media major engagement while network bases drive engagement for tech and communications majors
• The tech majors are going up against equally well-equipped adversaries in the communications majors
• The tech majors and the communications majors can use their hegemonic positions to generate de facto taxes to fund        strategy
• Communications majors have the        edge over the media and the tech majors through ownership of subsidiary media majors 

NOTES: MIDiA defines majors as follows:

• Media majors: majority of revenues derived from media monetisation
• Communications majors: majority of revenues derived from communication monetisation
• Tech majors: majority of revenues derived from tech monetisation

Companies and Products Mentioned:        Century Fox, Alphabet, Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, AT&T Blue Bloods, Comcast, CBS All Access, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D, Criminal Minds, Disney, Disney +, Friends, HBO Now, HBO Max, Hotstar, Hulu, NBCUniversal, Netflix, NCIS, Game of Thrones, Peacock, Star, Stranger Things, , Time Warner, The Big Bang Theory, The Office, The Voice, The Walking Dead, The Witcher, ViacomCBS, Warner Media YouTube, YouTube Premium