The media and entertainment industry took a hit last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the virus spread, location-based entertainment venues like movie theatres, stadiums, live concerts, and so on had to be shut down to curb the risk of exposure. This led to a slump in the global media and entertainment industry with revenues falling 6% in 2020, as quoted in a
World Economic Forum article
.
Nonetheless, this shutdown of entertainment venues led to a shift to digital consumption of content as people had to resort to at-home entertainment. In any case, this phenomenon has been gaining steam over the past few years as digital streaming services offer consumers a plethora of content to choose from and watch at their convenience. However, the pandemic allowed this shift to accelerate.
Reflective of this shift, streaming giant Netflix, Inc.
NFLX
closed last year with a record number of subscriber additions. Notably, the company added 36.6 million customers last year, allowing it for the first time, to pass the 200 million-subscriber mark, as mentioned in a
Bloomberg article
. Markedly, this rising popularity of streaming services also arrived as a blessing in disguise for movies which were not released exclusively in theatres last year due to the pandemic. Notably, The Walt Disney Company
DIS
released their movie “Mulan” on both their streaming service Disney+ as well as in theatres in 2020.
However, the trend seems set to continue even as 2021 sees a pick up in the vaccination drive, especially in the United States, as studio executives seem reluctant to take the risk of releasing their movies in theatres exclusively.
Notably, AT&T Inc.’s
T
Warner Bros. announced last year that they were going to release their big-budget movie “Wonder Woman 1984” on both the streaming service HBO Max and in theatres, simultaneously. Moreover, the company decided to release their slate of 2021 movies in the same manner. While the move was met with apprehension at the time, this seems to have become the way forward, even for big-budget movies, until at least the situation normalizes completely.
Following in the footsteps of Warner Bros., Disney also released “Raya and the Last Dragon” on Mar 5, on both their streaming service Disney+ as well as in theatres. Moreover, the company announced that they will release their much-anticipated film “Black Widow,” which got delayed due to the pandemic, on both Disney+ as well as in theatres, along with another film titled “Cruella.” This goes on to show how beneficial streaming services have become in recent times, allowing even big-budget and highly-anticipated movies to be released on them. In fact, a
report
by Grand View Research stated that the global video streaming market is expected to witness a CAGR of 21% from 2021 to 2028.
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