A Week in the Media C-Suite
It’s Sunday, the 2nd of July, 2023.
The last seven days have seen a lot things burn: the streets of Paris, most sunbathers in the Northern hemisphere and the hearts of Media CFOs.
Luckily for some, the United States celebrates it’s Independence Day on the 4th creating an extended weekend to plan next steps.
No time to rest, though. The world never stops turning.
Just Catching Up?
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Here’s what you might have missed over the last week.
Hollywood’s Home Front
As the Media Majors each struggle to find an off-ramp in the global “Streaming Wars”, global film-makers are finding an ever widening avenue for foreign-language content leading directly into the heartland of the American audience. To extend the analogy, this was once a one-way street. Hollywood films and American television shows are typically exported with very little balance of trade. Media execs within the Media Majors always thought American audiences just didn’t like “foreign” content.
Someone might have asked the audience.
Suddenly, Americans are discovering that there really are more stories and story-tellers than Hollywood has led on.
Alternatives to endless Hollywood sequels, reboots and re-makes are gaining traction on streaming platforms from coast to coast. So much so that foreign-language films and television shows are fast becoming the most watched content on “tv”.
Once again, Netflix may deserve the credit, or blame (depending on who you ask).
With the “rest of the world” now making up the majority of content consumers, each putting money into the pockets of those media execs, one would think there is likely a lot more come. But the economics of the Media & Entertainment industry might just throw a spanner in the works.
Those foreign story-tellers are making money and winning Oscars. And now, very large investors are willing to back them. That might be great news for American audiences hungry for something new. What it means for the Media Majors is yet to be reported.
Gain some insight into what is changing in our article from last week:
The Global Appeal of Foreign Content
For well over a century, Hollywood has been exporting American-centric film and television content to the world. Now the tide seems to be turning as the world exercises its own creativity in telling its own stories.
Looking Ahead?
Smart!
What Media CFOs Worry About
One would think that Chief Financial Officers only worry about money.
At its most basic, that may be true. Of us all, perhaps. But the CFO is more than an accountant. The CFO is there to maximize the value of balance sheet assets, and to ensure that the CEO has enough capital to do what he or she is promising the board and the shareholders.
More often than not, it is the un-sung CFO that engineers corporate victory and mitigates the damages of failure.
The Media C-Suite is now several weeks into a survey of media CFOs that follows our recently concluded survey of Professional Investors. Our survey of media CEOs is expected to commence shortly. One thing we are seeing and hearing a lot of is anxiety about disruption.
For Professional Investors, that anxiety is about missing out on those companies that will do well from change, while not loosing too much from their existing investments in those companies that will not.
For CFOs, that anxiety is about where change is coming from.
The majority of CFOs surveyed so far are investing personally into emerging media companies that challenge traditional content distribution or delivery channels, including exhibition. A significant minority foresee leaving their current position to support the management team of a start-up media company during the next two years.
Seventy-one percent of CFOs surveyed to date chose “Lack of Strategic Vision” over “Lack of Capital” as one of several leading challenges faced by established media companies (those with more than 10 years of operating history), including the Media Majors.
To understand where Professional Investors are focused within Media & Entertainment (and why), check out our recent article:
Big Investors Eye Media Shakeup in Three Crucial Areas
The Media C-Suite’s survey of Professional Investors point to changes on the horizon for Media & Entertainment as the Media Majors lead global audiences to derivative content they don’t really want, at quality levels they don’t really want, leaving those paying subscription fees chaffing at the bit.
Visit our website for more articles providing insight into the nexus between media entrepreneurs and the Professional Investors in search of them.
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the Media C-Suite (mediacsuite.com)
Representing the entire team, posts from “The Publisher” offer deeper insights into the collective mind of the Media C-Suite. Our acting Publisher is Thomas Kingston, and you may recognise his voice and style in much of the work posted under the by-line of The Publisher.
