TL;DR
- Broadcasters and content producers expect the next 12 months to be economically uncertain, and this weighs on every decision.
- The DPP 2023 Predictions report contains eight business-focused projections.
- AI is being adopted, albeit cautiously, at scale for certain tasks. Sustainability is being taken seriously only when linked to financial ROI.
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READ MORE: The DPP 2023 Predictions (DPP)
Although executives will be focused on organizational effectiveness and responsiveness to market conditions, the turbulence of the market is set to be what we remember most from 2023, according to a new report from broadcasting trade association the Digital Production Partnership.
“The DPP 2023 Predictions” report contains eight business-focused projections.
After market disruption, the report showed that execs believe monetizing content, efficiency, and automation will shape the next year. They also see companies such as theirs diversifying their content monetization channels and that businesses will focus more on their core strengths. The latter was retained from 2022, a reflection, said the DPP, of this year’s discussions of transformation, cost savings and organizational change. Automation-augmented operations will also likely enable scale.
There was considerable caution about the speed of adoption of the latest AI technology such as ChatGPT. Existing regulatory frameworks, and concerns about accuracy, provenance, plagiarism and privacy would provide a brake — just as data regulations are already placing constraints on advanced advertising.
For most contributors to the report, the expectation was that it will be more mundane forms of automation that will have greater impact in the year ahead. This includes the use of AI in subtitling and automated promo generation as two main priorities for this year, especially where scale is needed.
Per the report, one of the outcomes of the current cost-of-living crisis and inflation is that the cost of employing staff will go up. As a result, the report expects a move towards automation systems that reduce the reliance on people, and that have a direct cost benefit.
“The prediction that ‘There will be market disruption and consolidation,’ which had only been fifth in the 2022 predictions, suddenly rose to the top this year,” said DPP CEO Mark Harrison. “In the impact ranking of DPP Predictions it is unusual for one prediction to emerge much more strongly than the others, so the huge impact assigned to market disruption and consolidation is highly significant.”
The issue of sustainability is also front of mind — when attached to cost saving benefits. The lesson here is, carbon reduction can be incentivized if solutions can be linked to financial gain.
As one anonymous respondent told the DPP, 2023 is the year where we’re finally going to have an adult conversation about how we deliver environmental sustainability in an economically sustainable way, “because to date we’ve paid lip service to it. We’ve been ticking the box of sustainability.”
The only way to move beyond that into actually delivering real change is by focusing on actions that have an economic impact, and the environmental impact will come along with that.
Another executive added, “We do a lot around sustainability but it always comes down to the economics. So there’s a TCO for sustainability that’s being weighed heavily in decisions. And that’s really just started in the last quarter or two, I’d say.”
