The changing face of entertainment continues.
For the first quarter, all outlets lost subscribers. Cord cutting is happening at a furious pace. This is something that is going to end up destroying a lot of companies.
Even YouTube, the perennial winner, lost 150K during the first quarter. This is likely due to the fact that many signed up for NFL season, which ended. The company could expect to see a repeat of business come the middle of the next quarter.
Television On The Decline
People's viewing habits are changing.
The idea of traditional television is dying. People are moving to an on-demand state. This is being reflected in the fact people are dropping their subscriptions.
Even on the free applications that offer both, they are finding an overwhelming majoring opt for on-demand programming. They select a film or television show that they can binge.
Cord Cutting is growing faster than ever but many cord cutters are moving away from live TV service. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, over 1.2 million people canceled Comcast, Spectrum, and DISH. now YouTube TV, one of the live TV streaming services that had seen subscriber growth, has reportedly lost 150,000 subscribers in the 1st quarter of 2024, according to a report from Craig Moffett.
The problem has been monetization. We know the streaming services, outside Netflix are losing a fortune. YouTube is the number one streaming service by hours viewed, although that includes the social video spectrum which they dominate.
Part of the success of the company was due to the service they provided. It is still viable in spite of the set back this quarter.
Fragmentation of Social media
One of the phases we are seeing is the fragmentation of social video.
This has become the dominant form of video content. YouTube is by far the leader. Other platforms are starting to integrate it in. We see the success of Rumble which proved to be a viable alternative to YouTube with over 50 million viewers.
TikTok proved to be the dominant force in shorts, something that many other platforms are implementing.
Then we have the future of Web 3.0. There will be platforms that are set up which integrate this also. Here is where the fragmentation of attention is going to cause a massive problem.
As we discussed in the past, there were only 5 or 6 channels that people had 40 or so years ago. When cable television was introduced, the number of channels exploded. This caused the viewership to drop a great deal.
This will go through another iteration as many individual content creators turn into media companies. Here is where we see hundreds move into thousands (or even tens of thousands) channels.
Attention Economy
We are dealing with the attention economy. Of course, this is nothing new. The world of media was aware of this decades ago.
How is attention going to be garnered now? With so much fragmentation, it is going to come down to tribalism. By this, it is going to be the network that is the most important variable as to where people spend their time.
Here is the key in a world that is abundant in networks. Platforms like X and Facebook are fossils in the sense of being social media sites.
The future is offering many services. Here is where Web 3.0 has a chance to shine. Since it has built in finance, the opportunity to expand into even more areas is logical.
Entertainment is an industry that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It is now all up for grabs. Naturally, some will still retain their value as they adapt. Others, however, will not.
With each passing quarter, things are moving around. It will be fun to watch how things change over the next couple years.