Deloitte: Media and Entertainment Industry Outlook 2023

As we head into 2023, there are signs that changes in the media and entertainment business are likely to continue.

Studios and video streamers face their own market disruptions, trying to find profits in lower-margin businesses. They compete not only with each other for audience attention, time and spending, but also with social media, user-generated content and video games, which are growing faster and staying close to younger demographics.

While streaming video-on-demand services spend billions on content to attract fickle subscribers, social media services have the most free video content. In fact, the top social media services are leaning toward user-generated video content (UGC), emphasizing users’ interests rather than their relationships, and looking more like a new type of personalized TV. While the creator economy has supported social media and brought independent creators closer to their audiences, creator income remains meager and unreliable. Leading UGC services seem unsure how to better support their content creators and brand ambassadors while reducing their own costs. At the same time, more social activity may be shifting to messaging services that are more inclined toward utility than entertainment.

This year’s outlook doesn’t feature a separate chapter on video games. Instead, games are present throughout. In 2023, the story of games will impact every aspect of the media and entertainment industry. All entertainment strategies should consider video games, from simple mobile games to massively multiplayer services and rich hyper-realistic narrative game worlds. Games may also highlight tight-knit communities and fandoms that can help sustain and expand entertainment franchises. By 2023, video, social, messaging, and interactivity may all be part of the same engagement ecosystem.