What will the post-pandemic media landscape look like?
Well, first of all let’s get one fact out there: This is not going away any time soon. The post-pandemic world looks to be some time around next spring or early summer at the earliest.
Secondly, we are going to have to get used to the way things are right now. People are going to be working from home for some time to come. The entertainment industry is going to be a fragment of what it was. Concerts are on hold.
The TV industry cannot survive a lack of original programming for 18 months, so it is going to find a way to overcome the problems, film in bubbles or via other solutions. Movies are going to be forced to embrace at-home releases in 2021 if they are going to weather the storm, fundamentally altering the future of the movie business.
Human nature is incredible in its ability to overcome obstacles and this is just another obstacle, albeit one that more difficult than any we have faced before.
Evolution of innovative ideas
The post-pandemic landscape involves the evolution of many of the innovative ideas we will be seeing these next few months. At the very least, masks are going to be part of the workplace across all media. Of course, video conferencing is here to stay.
‘Bubbles’ are probably the most interesting innovation in my eyes. The entire entertainment industry could do well if they embraced the bubble concept in the same way that the NBA and NHL have. Major League Baseball ignored the bubble concept and we are all seeing how that has turned out. One week into the COVID-shortened season, and games are already being cancelled.
If you can control the environment and you can limit the coming and going of participants, life can go on. I foresee Hollywood embracing the bubble for the upcoming fall, finding ways to shoot TV shows in a hyper-fast period of time, then move to cloud-based editing and completion in order to maintain fall schedules.
This doesn’t seem too difficult to me, an outsider, but depends on if the pre-production work can be done to schedule shoots, coordinate the actors and get in and out in a timely fashion. That protects the actors and the crew while also protecting the revenue for the networks.
Media is a flexible industry
The same can be done for online programming, magazines, etc. During the pandemic I am still getting my issues of Rolling Stone and my wife still gets Runners’ World. Publishing can be done remotely, so nobody skips a beat.
Media is probably one of the most flexible industries if you get down to it, and media is necessary for advertisers and marketers. I saw that the ad industry was down 31% in May and 17% in June, but that was mostly because there was no plan to deal with this situation.
It’s a lag effect from prior problems. Now we’re aware of what’s going on and how to deal with it. In fact, the post-pandemic world of media could end up being far more efficient and far more productive than it ever was before.
This story was first published by MediaPost.com and is republished here with the permission of the author.
Cory Treffiletti is chief marketing officer at Voicera. He has been a thought leader, executive and business driver in the digital media landscape since 1994. In addition to authoring a weekly column on digital media, advertising and marketing since 2000 for MediaPost‘s Online Spin, Treffiletti has been a successful executive, media expert and/or founding team member for a number of companies and published a book, Internet Ad Pioneers, in 2012.
