Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

The Current State of the Industry and the Future Impact of AI

19/04/2024

The Current State of the Industry and the Future Impact of AI

Hillary Lewis April 18, 2024

0 Comments

The Entertainment Industry: How did we get here and what is the future impact of AI?

A pandemic followed by a recession and twin strikes, add the sudden rise of AI, the over-production of original content, changing viewing patterns, potential bundling of streaming platforms the list goes on and on. The entertainment industry is in a state of flux that has not been seen in decades. When the smoke clears, where does that leave us? What really is the future of the entertainment industry? How are networks and studios adopting AI, and what does that mean for the rest of us?

CreativeCOW's Contributing Writer, Hillary Lewis ventured to SXSW 2024 in Austin, TX, one of the country's largest conferences in tech and film, to get a pulse on these questions.

Some of the biggest industry leaders were in attendance, including SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland; CTO of Paramount Global, Phil Wiser; CEO and founder of Roku, Anthony Wood; VP Product of Adobe Express, Ian Wang; Vimeo SVP of Product, Zohar Dayan; and notable writers, directors, actors, media analysts, AI executives, and other leaders in the industry.

First up: What is the current state of the industry? The biggest question on everyone's mind is How did we get here? Why is our industry still in such a disarray? The Hollywood strikes ended six months ago, so why does content production remain at a standstill? Will the industry ever recover?

There were an overwhelming number of panels at SXSW covering this very topic. One specific panel, The Death of Peak TV A 2024 Post Mortem on Production Downturn' led by Tyler Aquilina, Media Analyst for Variety's Intelligence Platform, shed some light on just how we ended up here.

According to a mountain of data, Aquilina says the industry had been approaching a tipping point long before the Hollywood strikes began. So the first thing that we should really take note of here is that 2022 was the year that TV finally actually peaked. The term Peak TV' was coined well before TV output finally crested and then fell.

The Death of Peak TV' presentation shows the gradual shift from cable and broadcast to SVOD, i.e. streaming

The Death of Peak TV' presentation shows the original series output each year by category of content.

As shown above, in 2023 the industry as a whole saw a 20% drop in original series output across all platforms, plunging from more than 2,000 titles in 2022 to just over 1,600 last year. That came after two decades of almost continuous growth.

There were, of course, other years with small dips in content one for the writer's strike in 2007-08, and one for COVID. However, those dips were never more than 7% a sharp contrast to last year's 20% drop. We also saw a spike in production immediately proceeding both of these time periods another contrast to the stagnant production levels we've seen in 2023-24.

The year 2020 also happened to be when the streaming wars really got going. Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Discovery all of these new platforms started popping up beginning in late 2019. And they all decided to follow the model Netflix built, aiming to entice more and more viewers away from cable to streaming by producing massive amounts of original content. More content than anyone could ever dream to watch.

So in 2021 and 2022, we see an unprecedented influx in TV outputs with these new streaming companies throwing billions of dollars into production and racking up massive deficits in the process. The problem is most of these companies weren't turning a profit. Their main goal, and the only thing Wall Street cared about at the time, was increasing their subscribers.

That is, until something very important happens in 2022 Netflix loses subscribers in Q1 of that year, the first time they'd ever reported a drop in subscribers. This is what starts a chain reaction and triggers the beginning of the fall of Peak TV. Investors begin to pay a lot more attention to how much money these legacy media companies are spending AND how much they're losing.

So while there are many events in 2023, like the twin Hollywood strikes, that bare the brunt of the blame for the current state of the industry, the true death of Peak TV was happening before most of the industry was even aware.

How are networks and studios responding to these changes? So what happens now? Has corporate greed ultimately killed the industry? Or are other factors also at play? How will streaming change in the coming years? The guesses are endless but the consensus seems rather bleak for the entertainment industry for some time.

First, networks and streaming companies are taking a step back from over-producing in all areas, only prioritizing their most successful content. More careful considerations for IP-based blockbusters (think The Last of Us and the newly greenlit Monopoly film by LuckyChap and Lionsgate), prestigious awards-based titles (think Oppenheimer or Dune: Part 2), and a strong focus on bringing more sports to streaming (Disney is refocusing a big part of their budget on this).

The projected global spending in 2024 of Sports programming; Disney is set to invest the most in sports out of all other streaming companies

Aquilina also suggests streaming companies will favor unscripted content in general over scripted moving forward, and we'll see more reruns' returning to platforms.

Streaming has typically been filled more by scripted than unscripted. But that is going to start changing. Streaming will look a lot more like cable, fewer scripted originals being produced. Unscripted is a lot cheaper. In tandem with that, I think streaming will start relying a lot more on reruns' which
LINK: https://creativecow.net/the-current-state-of-the-industry-and-the-futu...
See more stories from creativecow

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

23/06/2026

PBS Selects LTN to Power Nationwide IP Video Network

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

PBS selects LTN for nationwide IP video network

LTN, a global leader in IP-based video transport and network services, today announced that PBS has selected LTN as its IP video partner to modernize and future...

23/06/2026

The LiveU Q Era Arrives in ANZ with the LU900Q at ABE2026

LiveU will introduce its Q Era to Australia and New Zealand for the first time at ABE2026 on Stand No. 25, (July 30 31). Leading the showcase is the LU900Q, a n...

23/06/2026

Miri Technologies Ships V410 Live 4K Video Encoder-Decode...

Miri Technologies Inc. has begun shipping its highly anticipated V410 live 4K video encoder/decoder for streaming, IP-based production workflows and AV-over-IP ...

23/06/2026

DHD SX2 and TX2 Consoles Go On-Air at Radio Tzafon

DHD audio reports the completion of an upgrade to the audio production facilities at the Galilee headquarters of Radio Tzafon. The station broadcasts two progra...

23/06/2026

Nagravision Launches Nagra Venturi Security Offering

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

ITN Expands Programmatic Local TV Platform

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery Taps AWS for New AI-Powered Ad Tech

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Study: Younger Viewers More Distracted But More Receptive to Ads

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Chilevisin, ClaroVTR Tap Pixop for 4K FIFA World Cup Feed

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/06/2026

Imagine Communications Names Greg Garmon as Senior Vice P...

Multifaceted Growth Executive Brings 20+ Years of Experience Leading Organizations Across Tech and M&E Imagine Communications today announced the appointment ...

23/06/2026

Australians in Film and Screen Australia's talent development initiative UNTAPPED returns for 2026

Australians in Film and Screen Australia's talent development initiative UNT...

23/06/2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026

Visual Productions Unveils RdmRelay2 Four-channel Relay Control at InfoComm 2026 Brie Clayton June 22, 2026 0 Comments New Relay Solution Combines DMX, ...

23/06/2026

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Global Media Technology Community

SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible, Opening Standards Library to the Gl...

23/06/2026

RT AND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION IRELAND ANNOUNCE RT TOY SHOW APPEAL GRANT AWARDS 2026

The RT Toy Show Appeal has raised over 31 million since its inception in 2020 ...

23/06/2026

NVIDIA Powers Over 400 of the World's 500 Fastest Supercomputers

News Highlights: NVIDIA technology runs 81% of the TOP500 and 90% of the systems new to the list. 26 systems on the TOP500 adopted the NVIDIA Grace CPU, up ei...

23/06/2026

How Businesses Are Building Specialized AI They Can Trust

Companies are asking how to build specialized AI that fits with the way their workflows actually run. The first wave of enterprise AI was about access. Compan...

23/06/2026

June 22, 2026

Newly identified molecule strengthens the eye's response to damage in retinal disease Scripps Research discovery finds that restoring the naturally occurrin...

22/06/2026

Behind the Mic: SportsCenters Lisa Cohn to Retire This June From ESPN as Longest-Tenured Anchor

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...

22/06/2026

Cosm Appoints David Ho as Chief Legal Officer

Cosm has announced the appointment of David Ho as Chief Legal Officer, a newly created executive role reporting to President and CEO Jeb Terry. Ho will oversee ...

22/06/2026

Warner Bros. Discovery and AWS Announce AI-Powered Advertising Technology Platform

Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced the developm...

22/06/2026

Daktronics Completes Audio Control System Upgrade at Petco Park for San Diego Padres

Daktronics has completed an audio control system upgrade at Petco Park in San Di...

22/06/2026

Accelerate Media Names John Willi President, Launches Accelerate Sports Network

Accelerate Media has named John Willi as President and announced the launch of the Accelerate Sports Network (ASN), a prep sports media and streaming platform c...

22/06/2026

AWSN to Air 3XBA Womens Basketball Tournament Live June 26-27

All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) and 3XBA (3 3 Basketball Association) have announced live television coverage of the annual 3XBA tournament on Friday, Jun...

22/06/2026

OWL AI Appoints Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer

OWL AI has announced the appointment of Jay Prasad as Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors. Prasad succeeds Josh Gwyther, who has served...

22/06/2026

CP Communications Provides RF Support for Inside the NBA at 2026 NBA Finals

CP Communications delivered RF video and audio support for TNT's Inside the NBA at the 2026 NBA Finals, providing main show coverage in San Antonio and ea...

22/06/2026

Polymarket and GRID Partner to Integrate Esports Data and Streaming into Trading Platform

Polymarket has announced a partnership with GRID, an official esports data platf...

22/06/2026

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Metinteractive's Rachel Mele, Ken Cyr on Building Technology Backbones for Sports Venues

As sports venues continue to evolve into more video-centric, fan-engagement-driv...

22/06/2026

SVG All-Stars: Corbin Perkins, Chief Engineer, Victory+

As the regional sports production scene shifts toward streaming, this Texan helps lead the engineering behind Victory+'s growing live platform...

22/06/2026

Meet the 2026 Sundance Institute Documentary Edit Intensive Fellows

By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs the memories of your elders [are] a scaffolding for you to build your identity on - and t...

22/06/2026

Blade joins CEDAR Audio Icons line-up

New hyper-resolution analyser EQ revealed CEDAR Audio's all-new Icons plug-in series has just gained its newest member, Blade. Described by the compan...

22/06/2026

Sampleson release Aeronaut

Turn any live input into a cinematic soundscape Designed for use in the studio and on stage, Sampleson's latest creation is capable of taking any audio ...

22/06/2026

ADDAC System's new Four Strings Series

Adds guitar strings to Eurorack rigs ADDAC System are renowned for their weird and wonderful synth designs, and their line-up includes plenty of gear that&#...

22/06/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026 fever grows, as more than one third of Australians tune in to SBS coverage

FIFA World Cup 2026 fever grows, as more than one third of Australians tune in ...

22/06/2026

NAGRA Venturi - Turning Piracy Intelligence into Measurable Business Impact

In our latest blog, Tim Pearson explores NAGRA Venturi, the new streaming security solution for the AI era from NAGRAVISION. Designed to aggregate and analyze ...

22/06/2026

Xumo Expands Contextual Targeting Capabilities Through Gracenote and IRIS.TV Integrations

Expanded integrations give advertisers access to distinct contextual signals acr...

22/06/2026

Greg Garmon Joins Imagine as Senior VP, Americas Video Sales

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Kaleidescape Breaks the 8K and 4:4:4 Barriers

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/06/2026

Xilica introduces Dynamic Voice Lift in new Designer

Xilica today announced the release of Dynamic Voice Lift, a new feature in Xilica Designer v4.12 that brings adaptive speech reinforcement to large meeting spac...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Brings Trusted, 24/7 AI Agents to Telecom Operations

Telecom operators have seen remarkable returns from using generative AI to automate network management, customer care and back-office operations. Most of that i...

22/06/2026

Official trailer released for Katie Price: Nothing to Hide, coming to Sky and NOW on 8 July

Monday 22 June 2026 Official trailer released for Katie Price: Nothing to Hide,...

22/06/2026

Eco Wave Power Turns Waves Into Watts With NVIDIA AI Infrastructure and Digital Twins

The next era of AI will not be defined by compute alone. Its growth will be dete...

22/06/2026

NVIDIA Vera CPU Opens the Way for Agentic Scientific AI at Los Alamos National Laboratory

Mission, Vision and Veritas - new Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) supercom...

22/06/2026

From Materials Simulation to Experimental Astronomy, New NVIDIA AI Software Unlocks Scientific Discoveries

At the ISC conference running in Hamburg this week, NVIDIA is introducing new so...

22/06/2026

NAIRR Science Program Reshapes Scientific Research, Powered by NVIDIA AI Infrastructure

For the past two years, the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Arti...

22/06/2026

At ISC, JUPITER Shows What Exascale Science Looks Like

JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer at Germany's Forschungszentrum J lich, runs on NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchips and NVIDIA Quantum-X800 Inf...