Covering Entertainment in the Digital Age

June 5, 2005 Johanna Blakley, Ph.D.

Assistant Director USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center

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Entertainment Trends

What’s coming down the pike?

Digital Music

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Expect 20 million satellite radio subscriptions by 2010 (7.1 million now)

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Expect 34 million MP3 players and iPods by 2010 (10.9 million now)

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Podcasting: Hype factor’s high

Digital Music: Radio

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High Definition Radio: TiVo for radio

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Targeted ads: online radio steadily increases, with 18 million listeners in 2004 and 35.6 projected for 2010

Peer to Peer

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BitTorrent

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How do P2P networks really work?

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Peerflix: DVD swapping service thru mail

Television

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Reports of its death have been premature.

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Americans consumption increased last year to 4 hours 28 minutes – 86 minutes above the world average

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But Americans came in second . . .

Television Who watches the most TV?

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1. Japanese

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2. Americans

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3. Argentineans

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4. Greeks

Mobile Technology

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Mobile TV = radio with pictures

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Lots of experimentation to come

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Reverse Flows: US developers look overseas for new ideas

Gaming

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9.9 billion in sales last year, exceeding film. But is it really bigger than Hollywood?

Online Gaming

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More hype than real success in this domain

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Pay-to-play, free-to-play (with in-game sales), and in-game ads and sponsor-ship will help online achieve its potential

Kids & Online Gaming

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Disposable time – they’ve got it!

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In 2003, 31% of U.S. children age 3 and under were computer users

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Disney’s Toontown Online

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Educational possibilities of MMORPGs

Full Body Gaming

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Making mediated entertainment more physical

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Sony’s EyeToy

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Breakout for Two

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Touch TV

Game or Reality?

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The blurred line that remains interesting

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The Mafia & MMOGs: Lots of opportunities for investigative reporting

Global Hotspots South Korea

 Stunning broadband penetration rates  Lineage: most popular MMOG in the world  $ = Time

Global Hotspots China

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Piracy problem helps online gaming business

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50% of online game playing is in Internet cafes

Global Hotspots Las Vegas

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2004 was it’s best year ever, with 38 million visitors

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Gambling accounts for 40% of what’s spent

Live Events

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150 million attended carnivals and fairs in the US and Canada in 2003 30 million Americans went to a concert last year Since 1995

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Baseball attendance: up 47%

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Playing golf: up 64%

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Moviegoing: up 37%

Localization

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Upfront costs are worth it

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Cultural discount: U.S. fictional TV exports do not dominate as they once did

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What’s the most popular reality show around the world?

Localization

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NBC’s “The Apprentice” – which is carefully localized for each market

Advertising

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Increasingly targeted advertising opens up new frontiers for entertainment content development

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In-game advertising creates verisimilitude Ads will become more and more entertaining

Portable People Meter

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$60 billion TV ad market will be transformed

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PPM counts media in bars, airports, health clubs, hotel rooms, hospitals, vacation homes, offices

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RFID: Radio Frequency Identification, registers reader’s interactions with magazines and newspapers.

The Future of Ratings

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Expanding the sample: are 8,000 households enough for 100s of channels?

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The holy grail: Project Apollo and single source measurement

Intellectual Property

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Troubles will continue if we treat digital assets the same way we treat material objects

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Infinitely expanding copyright term lengths

The Big Picture Media Consolidation

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The big guys are getting better at locating and creating synergies

The Big Picture: Convergence

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It’s hard to see the big picture when we compartmentalize different types of media and entertainment Music for Games: Video games are the new radio Music for Game Platforms: Universal Media Disc Books meet Games: “Act of War” Games to Movies / Movies to Games : George Romero

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TV to Games

The Big Picture

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Companies will continue to try out new combinations of content online, trying to locate the balance between active & passive entertainment

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Web Channels: MTV Overdrive

The Big Picture

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Comparative analyses are revealing

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Blockbusters aren’t just movies anymore: Celine Dion’s “A New Day”

What hasn’t happened, but should

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More sophisticated efforts to figure out what people really like.

What’s Next?

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