Business
MarkLogic CTO: Media Sector’s ‘Under Pressure’ (MESA)
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The media sector is “under pressure” today on both the revenue and content fronts, according to Matt Turner, CTO of media and entertainment at MarkLogic. He also predicted that pressure is only “going to increase” for the near future. “This is probably the most dominant conversation” now in the media industry, he said during a July 27 webinar. “It’s not a new conversation. But we’re just starting to understand the impact on knowing your customer and the content, and mixing that together.” He went on to say: “It’s a double-edged sword now in media. The revenue side of the business is under pressure with lots of changes to how we can monetize the content we create and how people can buy it. And the content side is also under pressure with all kinds of new forms.”
On the revenue side, in the past year, the “buy what we have” sales model “has really drifted away” in the industry, he said. “Buyers are voicing their need for solution selling. This is much more about the value of the content and … being able to sell the value of the content versus the renewal of [a] subscription. And that’s causing a lot of issues,” he said. For one thing, it means that “the content itself has to keep up with what people are interested in,” he said. There is also a “diminishing return” being seen in ad sales, which have “become a race to the bottom” because as more companies are doing targeted marketing, “the value of impressions is just plummeting,” he said.
On the content and entertainment front, there’s also been a shift favoring new players, he said, giving as an example Amazon and Netflix becoming the top buyers of films at the last Sundance Film Festival.
