Wired consumers to keep media business afloat

Businesses working in media sectors including subscription television, interactive games and wired and mobile internet access, will experience strong growth in consumer consumption over the next five years.

PwC’s Australian Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2012-2016 forecasts revenue growth for most of the 11 core media sectors.

Australia’s total entertainment and media market, including the consumer and educational books, consumer magazines, filmed entertainment, free-to-air television, interactive games, internet, music, newspapers, out-of-home advertising, radio and subscription television, is now worth $32.4 billion.

The report says these 11 sectors will grow 18 per cent over the next five years and while it forecasts more revenue falls in the newspaper and magazine publishing sectors, this will be offset partly by new digital subscriptions.

Total entertainment and media industry revenue will grow 4.1 per cent each year from 2012 to reach $38.2 billion in 2016, the report says.

While consumer spending will rise 4.4 per cent a year from $19.9 billion this year to $24.1 billion in 2016, advertising spending is only expected to grow 2.8 per cent a year from $12.5 billion this year to $14.1 billion in 2016.

A big business opportunity will be in the subscription television service. PwC forecasts that by 2016, 27 per cent of Australians will have switched to an internet protocol television that will allow them to watch internet videos.

The report notes a trend away from traditional console-based games, towards online and mobile games. “That’s good news for Australia because we’re more likely to be able to fund the development on online and mobile games,” Brownlow says.This will allow smaller businesses to tap into a global audience without the need for a publisher, which is the case for traditional console games, which “can cost as much as a movie to make”, says report editor Megan Brownlow.

The report’s editor Megan Brownlow says IPTV will provide an alternative to the more expensive cable or satellite delivered subscription television service.

Brownlow, PwC’s executive director in entertainment and media, says research conducted by PwC in April this year found that 52 per cent of Australian homes already own a device that could enable IPTV, such as a connectable television, connectable games console or a set-top-box.

“The IPTV market could be as big as the subscription TV market,” she says. “But the key is content contracts – if you don’t have content people wont come to your service.”

“Melbourne have great games development communities, but a number of them aren’t focusing on these news areas,” she says.

To become m-commerce ready businesses also need to better optimise websites for mobile phones. “When we talk about m-commerce what we mean is ... advertising, loyalty cards and payments enabled via mobile phones,” she says. “This is exciting, and one of the implications is you probably need to get Wi-Fi into stores and recognise people are on their phones in your stores.”

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