The Death of Boredom: How Companies Pour Billions into the Entertainment Industry

Welcome to the era of “peak TV”.

When did you last hear someone say they were bored? The entertainment industry moves at a rapid pace and with enormous investment. So much content is being created that a person will never be bored again — they will always find something to do. We take a closer look at what the industry looks like and how much money is involved. 

Why We Are No Longer Bored  

Television essentially works the same way it did 20 years ago, except that the quantity and quality of content have risen sharply. Hollywood celebrities such as Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman are moving to the small screen for prestigious shows. That is why the era we are living in now is often referred to as the era of “peak TV”.

Then there is Netflix: literally every Friday something new comes out there, whether it is an original series, a film, a documentary or an older show licensed by the company. 

If you are a news lover, there have been significant changes here too. Although traditional print and glossy media are in decline, the world is seeing a media boom. This boom can partly be explained by the growing need for journalism: the rise of Donald Trump, the #MeToo movement, hybrid warfare and more — all of this creates demand for media that will explain what is happening in the world, what needs to be done and what all this threatens. It is also linked to the development of technology that is driving the media sphere forward. 

This brief list does not even include films, or growing markets such as the video game industry with $43 billion in revenue, or podcasting. In almost every industry where content is the main product, there has been an explosion not only in quality but also in quantity. For consumers, this raises a question that may be defining for our time: “How do I assess, distinguish and choose among an ever-expanding sea of options?”  

This abundance of choice also gives us insight into another reality of our time. If in the recent past television networks competed with other television networks and film studios competed with other film studios, now there is only one large-scale competition for our eyes. Netflix, Facebook and the media are not alike, but in an era when we have no shortage of things to do, all these companies are after the same thing: user attention.

This war for attention also explains the flood of content. Companies need more than your attention — they also want to hold it over a long and consistent period of time. HBO does not just want you to tune in to watch “Game of Thrones” and then leave. It wants a long-term relationship with you. It wants to keep you excited, so it releases more content than you could ever watch. 

From Hours per Week to Hours per Day 

Last year, John Stankey became the new CEO of the WarnerMedia media conglomerate, which includes HBO. He immediately made two important points, the first of which was expanding broadcasting. HBO now has 40 million subscribers in the US and 142 million worldwide. Stankey is convinced that this is not enough. 

The second point is that companies should change their approach to the viewer. They need to shift from “hours per week” that a subscriber spends watching HBO shows to “hours per day”.

“We need hours per day. Not hours per week, not hours per month. Hours per day. You are competing with devices that fit in a person’s hand and grab their attention every 15 minutes,” says he to his subordinates.  

How Much Money Is Invested in Producing Video Content 

In the battle for user attention, companies are spending huge sums of money. Take the streaming platform Netflix, for example, which spent $12 billion on content production in 2018. Analysts expect investment in content creation to rise in 2019 to $15 billion, and by 2020 spending could exceed $17 billion. 

But that is not all, because in addition to creating content, it also needs to be promoted. In today’s world, when everyone is trying to capture people’s attention, you have to prove that your product deserves the most valuable thing — their time. Thus, Netflix’s marketing spending rose 65% in 2018, reaching $2.37 billion. According to analysts, growth will continue, although less significantly — by 22%, to $2.9 billion. In 2018 Netflix released more than 900 hours of original programming in the US.

Streaming — the Present and Future of the Music Business 

Streaming services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, Deezer and so on continue to gain popularity. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in 2018 streaming services accounted for 75% of the total revenue of the US music industry.

In terms of money, the total revenue of the US music industry in 2018 amounted to $9.8 billion. For comparison, in 2017 and 2016 it was $8.8 billion and $7.6 billion, respectively. Revenue from streaming services alone grew by 32% over the last year, to $7.4 billion.

Aleksei Simonchuk