How Streaming Pushes the Media Industry Forward
How and where is streaming media driving change and progress in the media and entertainment world? Renard T. Jenkins, Senior Vice President, Production Integration & Creative Technology Services, Warner Bros. Discovery, discusses these questions in this clip from his opening keynote at Streaming Media East 2023.
Jenkins emphasizes that linear broadcast programming is nowhere near dead yet, despite all of the premature eulogies that have been given for it in recent times. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “it's still one of the largest revenue providers to the companies that are actually providing the streaming solutions today. And I say that because when you look at the trajectory that is being estimated for broadcasting cable television just in the US…the compound annual revenue growth that is expected by 2028 is running at about 2.74% per year. That equates to $1.9 billion by 2028.”
A linear and CTV advertising hybrid model
Regarding ad revenue, Jenkins says that while there have been valid concerns over the shifting advertising landscape with the new ad-supported streaming tiers and how that impacts advertising portfolios, the best approach is to create hybrid linear and CTV advertising models. “It should not be seen as an either/or,” he says. “It should be seen as a compliment to making sure that we are focused on the democratization of distribution for content for the customers that we serve. And if you look at that as your model for building and your model for innovating the tool set, what you actually get to is a model that serves our customers, it serves our advertisers, and it actually serves those CFOs who are sitting in those offices trying to figure out how do we make this profitable.”
The bigger picture of streaming innovation
Jenkins also notes that a better overall focus should be on the bigger picture rather than pure profitability. “If you look at [streaming] from a purely financial situation, if you only look at it from a financial angle, it hasn't quite gotten there,” he says. “But if you take the moment to step back and [see], from a social impact, from an industry change disruption, from an innovative injection into what we do every day, streaming has moved our industry forward by leaps and bounds. It forces folks who have been stagnant sitting on a platform for years and years and years to begin to think differently, to have to think forward. Instead of thinking that it's good enough. I've had the opportunity to be at the front end of seeing a lot of those changes happen and in a lot of that. But I'll be honest with you, the first 4K HDR Next generation audio content that I viewed and that I saw was through streaming. It was not a transmission over broadcast. So that once again shows how this industry pushes things forward.”
Learn more about a wide range of streaming industry tech and business topics at Streaming Media Connect 2023.
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