Natpe Budapest is a good opportunity to develop new 1st and 2nd tier ventures in Europe, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. What can we say about the media game? Free TV, Pay TV, OTTs, AVOD and so on?
The global content market is polarizing between free TV broadcasters, which want to handle own OTTs, and the OTT platforms, which launch AVOD and FAST systems which are a non-linear free TV, wishing free TV advertisement budgets. Now it is difficult to see Pay TV referents, who were the top buyers of content some years ago.
Nowadays, the Pay TV players are usually a second tier of free TV or digital platforms. The all-together evolution converges to AVOD, in one sense, but we’ll continue watching alive all current media. No media will disappear. In fact, this is a great moment of theatrical releases, with millionaire box offices that give them back priority in both producers and distributors.
The future is back? In many senses, yes, while the market continues moving forward. Jens Ritcher, CEO, Fremantle International (UK): ‘How has production/formats business changed after the pandemic? Now everything must be mainstream, to call the attention in big. The costs are upper and upper, you can’t reduce quality in any market segment. And now the content can be made for many different audiences: free TV, OTT, niches, young people, etc. As a brief, today anything can be made per inertia, but there are many things to do at every step, worldwide’.
Nicolás Smirnoff
