The trends changing broadcasting and the future of television

There is no denying that the future is digital. Technology will continue to play an important role in redefining the business operations and broadcasters will also focus on delivering aggregated content and device experiences this year.

During the lockdown, the return of old mythological shows like Ramayan and Mahabharat from the 90s led to an exponential rise in viewership, and advertisers count on TV. These shows soon became the main source of entertainment among Hindi GECs as it contributed about 43 percent to overall viewership of the genre, revealed BARC. The re-telecast of Ramayan alone garnered the highest-ever rating for a Hindi GEC show since 2015 at 1.20 trillion minutes, and Doordarshan’s average daily viewers grew by 62 million.

As the lockdown was lifted gradually and the economy started limping back to normalcy in July, television continued to be the screen of the household and an important medium for advertisers to reach their consumers. After seeing a few lean months, IPL brought the much-needed cheer for the Indian advertising industry and consumers in September. Dream11 IPL 2020 set a viewership record with an overall consumption increase of 23 percent than 2019. IPL’s television viewership reached an outstanding 31.57 million, revealed Star India. It was the biggest IPL carnival the nation saw.

According to BARC, the return of original shows on TV along with the festive season and live sporting events boosted the ad volumes, taking the overall growth in ad volumes to 34 percent as compared to H1, 2020 and eventually minimizing the reduction in volumes to a marginal −3 percent for the overall year than 2019.

After facing unprecedented turbulence in the year 2020, broadcasters are now looking forward to seeing what 2021 has in store for them. Here is what they are expecting:

Future of broadcast media
The global broadcasting market is expected to grow from USD 217.05 billion in 2020 to USD 234.22 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.9 percent. The growth is mainly due to the companies rearranging their operations and recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges. The market is expected to reach USD 296.22 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 6 percent.

Asia-Pacific was the largest region in the global television broadcasting market, accounting for 29 percent of the market in 2020. North America was the second largest region accounting for 29 percent of the global market. Eastern Europe was the smallest region in the global television broadcasting market.

Many studios are increasing their budgets for TV shows to produce high-quality content. Since studios now have many platforms to generate revenues, studios are willing to invest on producing high-quality content. For example, Netflix invested about GBP 100million on the TV series The Crown. Thus, the demand for quality content and the availability of multiple on-demand platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, mobile applications, and web portals to generate revenues encouraged studios to produce TV shows with high budgets.

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The countries covered in the global television broadcasting market are Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, UK, USA, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

The regions covered in the global television broadcasting market are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, and Africa.

The major players covered in the global television broadcasting market are Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney, Viacom Inc., CBS Corporation, and NBC Universal Media LLC.