The pandemic seemed like a golden age for media and entertainment companies, with would be customers stuck at home looking for something to do. When that golden age came crashing down and individuals broke free of pandemic constraints, those media/entertainment companies found themselves in a new economy, one in which they competed not only with one another but with more and more alternative activities for consumers. Bad news for media industry players included customer turnover, or “churn,” loss of revenue and even bankruptcy.
Customers trained by digital technology when entering the post pandemic world returned to their preference for things to be “free,” and that meant media had to turn to an old-school practice: advertising. Some channels are trying to unbundle themselves from corporate aggregations, such as cable, while others are trying to bundle news groupings, mostly aggregating channels under one brand’s umbrella. What is clear is that just grabbing consumers’ attention – say, with a hot video series – does not make money, if the customer binge-watches the series and then cancels the subscription. Media industry’s leaders are perplexed because they are being forced to put together a new business model that satisfies the consumers’ changed wants and needs while generating sufficient revenues to meet profit expectations – which means that just attracting consumers’ attention might not be sufficient to earn profits.