Lindsay Dykstra and Jesse Tepperman recently authored the article “Advertising Dollars and Content Wars.” This article has now been published in the ABA’s Entertainment and Sports Lawyer, the publication of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment & Sports Industries.
Write Lindsay and Jesse: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on North America’s entertainment industry, which was already facing significant pressure to adapt to the digital age. This is particularly true for television. As the novel coronavirus has swept the globe, productions have been shut down, put on hold and, in some cases, cancelled altogether, and the traditional broadcast television calendar has been heavily disrupted. As filming resumes, the production of television is anticipated to progress at a much slower pace given the need to adhere to stricter health and safety requirements and the backlog of productions that will be competing for limited resources. On the other side of the screen, social distancing measures have had a huge impact on consumers, who, as a result of social distancing, are spending far more time indoors. As such, there has been a significant increase in the consumption of media, and in particular, a rise in television viewership on both traditional and non-traditional platforms…”
The article goes on to look at both revenue generation and content creation.
From the article: “Television as we know it is likely to look very different in a post-COVID-19 world. During the pandemic, those networks and OTT platforms that think innovatively about producing new content, repurpose resources to ride out programming gaps, and diversify their revenue streams are likely to gain an advantage. Success during this time may, in turn, lead networks and OTT platforms to adopt similar measures over the longer term, including developing content throughout the year (rather than following the traditional broadcast calendar), introducing alternative revenue platforms, providing advertisers with more buying flexibility, and acquiring and capitalizing on non-traditional content. While the industry’s future is unclear, one thing is certain: we will have our eyes glued to our televisions, watching with anticipation what happens next.”
Read the full article here. (Article starts on page 9.)