So now we’re watching content on our smartphones: plus ça change
Deloitte’s “2023 Digital Media Trends” concludes that video games and user-created content are now most people’s main form of entertainment, overtaking conventional television and series and movies on services such as Netflix and other video-on-demand services.
The trend is even stronger among younger demographics, and shows that we were wrong to think that families would continue to gather in front of the television as they have since the 1950s, but that they would switch to watching Netflix and other streaming services; instead, a new model has taken the lead, with most content viewed on a smartphone, ahead of consoles and screens. Most broadcasters are trying to adapt, because they know that otherwise they will soon be history.
Video on Demand once seen as the future, is seeing huge churn and canceling their subscriptions. A generation that initially warmed to this approach to watching content has become frustrated with the need to pay multiple subscriptions as the economy downturns, and only signing up again when there is a free offer or when a series they want to watch is released. The rest of the time, they mainly consume videos on YouTube, TikTok and other networks, which they say gives them a sense of connection with like-minded people, or they play video games, an increasingly important industry soon…
