Some broad themes on the Media & Entertainment outlook for 2022
By Vivek Menon and Nitin Menon, Co-founders of NV Capital
Content will continue to play a bigger role whether it is long-form or short-form content. Regional content will continue its strong growth trajectory and OTT platforms will continue to focus on building and acquiring regional content in the years to come. Regional content especially south India will continue to produce content for PAN India audience rather than restricting content for their set of audiences. This can be seen with regional hits like Pushpa and the upcoming RRR as well as dozens of movies from Telugu & Tamil which will try to create pan India appeal the recent merger between zee and Sony has set the consolidation phase for the broadcasting space. whether the smaller fringe players will merge into the other bigger players is a wait & watch game but consolidation would be something that would be more visible in the broadcasting space with the four majors Disney, zee- Sony, Viacom18, and Sun group angling for a larger pie of the subscription & advertising revenues as well as looking at potential acquisitions.
Digital either in the form of advertising or subscribers will be the dominant theme in 2022 and considerable investment will continue in this space. With the entry of International players like HBO max, Lionsgate and Universal”s Hayu, the competition would get more fierce for eyeballs and survival would depend on multiple factors like deep pockets, content diversity, etc. Even in the case of various new media like podcasts & numerous entertainment tech platforms which have already found flavour with investors and gathered steam, this trend will aggressively continue.
Last but not the least gaming would be the sector to watch out for whether it is RMG, casual, or E-sports. With active gamers in excess of 300 mn, gaming would continue its double-digit growth in the foreseeable future
As long as covid does not continue to play spoilsport in 2022, the outlook for the above sectors looks promising & optimistic.
