‘’A World of Differences’: Special Report: Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2016-2020’. Price Waterhouse Cooper, Chris Lederer & Megan Brownlow.

This weeks reading and visual presentation of forecasts by PWC for the Entertainment and Media Industry created many new ways of thinking for me. The many facets of the industry disrupted and complicated by innovation and technological change clarified many future trends and revealed an array of opportunities for players prepared to: grasp new markets, welcome change, move with new delivery forms and platforms, and embrace innovative new thinking.

I also understood the advantage of the fragmentation of our studio topics as a way to cover as much range as possible in the Entertainment and Media industry. Some students will focus on documentary film, others on content formulation, another group on the emerging Chinese market. Our investigations will cover many aspects of our chosen field and inform other groups with the depth of our research and investigations when we share our findings and finally make our presentations.

While I was thinking about investigating the possibilities of distribution for documentary film, the PWC presentation completely altered my way of thinking with their presentation on SBS. I have always thought about the many territories available for long series documentary as my favoured field, having traded in cultural artifacts in Asia for many years. Participating in the international Science and Factual Producers Congress in Melbourne in 2009, introduced me to considering long form documentary as a means to build an audience and create a brand and identity in the marketplace.

The structural analysis of the growth in various economies in our region has taught me a methodology that enables me to qualify and quantify the results of economic and social expansion. This process has clarified and enhanced my thinking in relation to my own desired projects.

The presentation on SBS completely astounded me in the way they have gone about identifying new platforms and striving to anticipate technological change. SBS presents on 24 different platforms including: digital, mobile, connected TV, games, consoles etc and they were the first free to air network to partner with a subscription network. This strategy has grown their audience by 13% in 2015 and resulted in views of 15 million each month in a time of fragmentation and contraction in the broadcast industry. I find that truly astonishing. I couldn’t identify 24 platforms. SBS strategy is to attempt to anticipate the trends of consumers and understand “where” their audiences “live” in an effort to be on the right platforms and give audiences the opportunity to view content in the method that best suits them. They have developed a new audience that would not ordinarily have come to SBS One and Two and is in all likelihood a younger age range familiar and adept with new technology.

This idea of finding and engaging a younger audience creates considerable opportunities for filmmakers in expanding audience size, extending the range of content and creating a sustainable enterprise model in a time of rapid technological change.