In the last decade streaming services have disrupted conventional broadcasting, recommendation algorithms have become tastemakers for a generation of music listeners, and YouTube has grown into a platform for a billion independent filmmakers. Cumulatively, technology-led changes have brought about a revolution in both the production and the consumption of entertainment.
Ten years ago, if you told someone you were going to tune in to your favourite millionaire vlogger’s 360-degree YouTube channel, to catch up on some behind-the-scenes updates from their latest performance on Twitch – the e-sports streaming service – they would have frowned, bewildered. If you then told them you were going to do so with a freshly released vinyl from your new favourite band playing in the background, their frown would shift to reflect genuine concern.
Each entertainment source – from film and television to music and radio – is currently facing unique challenges and evolutions, but a number of forces are reshaping the complexion of entertainment across the board. In this chapter, we’ll examine these changes, and look ahead to the innovations that point to a new model of media consumption: one in which the lines between producer and consumer are further blurred; content is ever more personal; and audiences are active participants in previously one-way entertainment.
Across the spectrum, three disruptive trends are apparent: conventional formats are being usurped by novel, tech-enabled alternatives; output is becoming highly personalized and increasingly co-created with the audience; and traditional ways of accessing entertainment are being upended.
With so much content now available on demand, producers are increasingly looking to push boundaries and offer innovative formats in an effort to stand out. For example, we’re seeing a number of innovators creating content specifically for a few snatched minutes during a commute – such as Pendelpoddar, a Swedish service that suggests podcasts tailored to a users’ journey time. Also of note would be the French publisher Short Édition, which prints short stories on demand – from one to five minutes’ reading time – to Grenoble commuters; or Australia’s Qantas airline, which commissioned fiction titles designed specifically to be read within long-haul flight times. With driverless cars soon to hit the marketplace, hands-free journeys of a set duration will become more common, meaning that time-based programming could well become more prevalent.
But while these innovations look to mould themselves around the user’s context, virtual reality (VR) devices are busy totally removing them from it. Smart phone-powered VR viewers have helped the technology hit the mainstream, so that everyone from ballet performers to DJs and even news broadcasters are now taking advantage by offering tailored immersive experiences for VR audiences.
But VR is not without its issues. Dedicated VR headsets are still costly, and sustained play can induce motion sickness. To truly break through, VR needs to incorporate social elements, enabling friends to communicate and see each other’s avatars in virtual space. One innovation demonstrating the potential for how that might look is LiveLike VR, a platform that lets sports fans watch televised events alongside friends from anywhere in the world.
We are accustomed to streaming services recommending albums, films and books based on our preferences, but now we are beginning to see personalization in the creation as well as the curation of content. Netflix is renowned for its use of audience data to inform the creative process, notably with hit show House of Cards, which was commissioned once Netflix was able to find a Venn diagram intersection which demonstrated that their audience would be receptive to the concept, casting and positioning. The show’s success attests to the enormous value of big data within entertainment programming, and we are seeing this reflected in the number of start-ups working in this fertile ground. MIT start-up TVision Insights, for example, tracks television viewers to establish who is watching what and how they are reacting, enabling broadcasters and producers to curate tailored content and attract larger audiences.
Content can also be personalized in real time: the BBC has trialled a project named Visual Perceptive Media, using an app to gather user data such as music preferences, gender and age, and adapting the narrative and characters in a film accordingly. A still more immersive approach comes from a German courtroom drama called Terror – Your Verdict, which invites viewers to act as the jury in the televised case. These interactive approaches to programming are evolving apace and – particularly as VR devices and emotion tracking are refined – we can expect audiences to become increasingly involved in the narrative of their own entertainment. The number of elements affecting the narrative are almost limitless, with factors such as the weather, the viewers’ mood and even their geography all possibilities. For example, there is a radio station accessible only to commuters on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge, and we’ve even seen an album released as an app by Swedish band John Moose that was listenable only in wooded areas.
In recent years the way we access entertainment has changed markedly, to the extent that consumer loyalties now lie as often with content curators and providers as with producers: we are more likely to stream a single than buy a physical album, or to scroll a newsfeed rather than pick up a newspaper.
Combined with huge quantities of free (or simply pirated) content, this has led to a number of innovations looking to offer easy access and payment options that match the flexibility desired by audiences. For instance, PayOrShare offers a platform for businesses to charge readers for their digital content, either with a small payment or by sharing what they’ve read on a social media platform of their choosing. Offering flexibility of another form, Blendle is a growing platform that lets readers make micropayments to access news articles behind paywalls without having to subscribe.
The ten innovations in this chapter illustrate these changes and give a flavour of what might come next.