Competing for Attention in a Fragmented Media World
According to Deloitte’s “2025 Digital Media Trends Report,” while studios and streamers are competing for the increasingly fragmented consumer, social platforms are showing their strength. Social video platforms are hyperscale and hyper capitalized, Deloitte notes. “Social video platforms offer a seemingly endless variety of free content, algorithmically optimized for engagement and advertising. They wield advanced ad tech and AI to match advertisers with global audiences, now drawing over half of U.S. ad spending,” observes Deloitte.
Meanwhile, Deloitte notes that streaming on-demand video (SVOD) has fragmented pay TV audiences, imposed higher costs on studios, and produced thinner margins. Yet it’s not all bad news for streamers as they are often viewed as premium brands, offering quality content, storytelling and world building. Deloitte poses the question, “How can studios control costs, attract advertisers, and compete for attention? Are there stronger points of collaboration that can benefit both streamers looking to reach global audiences and social platforms that lack high-quality franchises?”
On the consumer side, younger generations in particular, there is a glut of content demanding attention, and the viewer is often just as fragmented in dividing their time. “Each user likely has a different mix of SVOD, UGC, social, gaming, music, podcasts, and potentially other forms of digital media that make up these entertainment hours.”
Deloitte notes, “This can further fragment the landscape of entertainment and make it more challenging for services and brands to reach audiences, and for providers to gather more people onto their services. With growing production and marketing costs, traditional studios and streamers are responding with more bundles and aggregations seeking to bring together disparate audiences, offer them lower prices for multiple services, and sell access to advertisers.”
Cable and satellite television remain significant players in media and entertainment, though subscriptions continue to decline. Deloitte says that it found that 49% of consumers surveyed currently have a cable or satellite TV subscription, down from 63% three years ago. Cost continues to be a factor for consumers. Live-streaming TV is one alternative, but Deloitte says that segment has been stagnant over the last few years.
Streaming video services are similarly pressured. Deloitte reports, “A similar tension seems to exist with streaming video services, which have subscription costs that may outweigh their perceived value. Fifty-three percent of consumers surveyed say their SVOD subscriptions are the paid media and entertainment services they use most frequently. However, 41% of consumers overall say the content available on SVOD isn’t worth the price, up five percentage points from our 2024 report.” This has led to a “cancel culture,” of sorts, as consumers search for the best deals and promotions but cancel more frequently when their needs are not met.
The Evolution of Media & Entertainment Content
During the Media Insights & Engagement Conference, Michael Nathanson, Senior Research Analyst, Media, Ad Agencies, and Internet at MoffettNathanson, will hold the keynote, “The Future of Content in the Post Pay TV World.”
As the traditional cable bundle declines, media companies are racing to adapt to a new content economy driven by streaming platforms and short-form video. This session will explore what the unraveling of pay TV means for legacy players — and how they can evolve to stay relevant. From shifting business models to changing viewer behaviors, we’ll examine how media brands are navigating consolidation, emerging platforms, and new audience expectations. What does it take to thrive when the old rules no longer apply?
The Rise of the Content Economy
Is the rise of the video and creator economy changing the media and entertainment world, and mindset, forever? If anything, media is becoming more hyper-scaled and personalized. There is still the same type of media pie, and perhaps it’s the same size, but it’s just getting sliced in myriad different ways. In the report, Deloitte suggests several ways that studios can strengthen their operations:
- Advertising technology and AI are moving to the center of content economics. Studios should invest in ad tech to deliver more affordable and effective impressions and conversions.
- Studios should gather larger audiences, potentially through mergers and acquisitions or clever aggregation, finding world-class ad tech partners to help them compete in the new ad landscape.
- Adopt technology quickly. Look to virtual production and AI to enable cheaper and faster production; generative AI for dubbing and translation to cross language barriers; and software and AI capabilities that can automate more operational functions, like contracts, script evaluation, and finding film locations.
- Social platforms are the nexus of discovery, awareness, and hype for film and TV: Marketing efforts should start and end on leading social platforms.
- The fear that short form doesn’t work for premium IP may be misleading. Get creative and publish to social platforms. Social video can help lift TV and movies.
- Social content creators can be the strongest advocates—or opponents—of studio creativity, talent, and storytelling. They can help you engage audiences and communicate with them with greater authenticity. And they may be keys to unlocking virality and shaping culture.
The changes in media content have been continuing for a few years if not a few decades now. Brands and studios may need to continue to revamp their operations for this new media reality.
Deloitte concludes, “Traditional studios and streamers still seem organized around the same concepts and business models of TV and film that shaped entertainment for many decades. But costs and risk have narrowed cinema to very expensive and safe franchises, and if studios asked kids and teenagers what they think about the future of TV, they might answer, ‘What’s TV?’”
Video: “The Downfall of Streaming TV | The Bubble has Burst,” courtesy of Digital Trends.
