The Canada Media Fund‘s CMF Trends has published its latest Trend Report: The Digital Puzzle: Piecing Back Together the Content Value Chain.

This 21 page PDF is packed with up-to-date statistics and asks germane questions such as:

“How has the new audiovisual value chain been reconfigured?
Which players are best positioned to make the most of it?
In an era of overabundance, what types of content stand out?”

One of the telling charts is Advertising Spending which shows that internet advertising is up 500% in the last 10 years versus TV advertising which remains flat — and that internet advertising surpassed TV advertising in 2013. Moreover, Google and Facebook are expected to command 73% of each additional digital ad dollar over the next three years.

Other strong trends:

• An online environment dominated by a handful of platforms controlled by big players seems to have evolved, resulting in what some call a ‘discovery oligopoly’ that controls each stage of the consumer journey: access, discovery and consumption.
• At the global level, consumer demand has crystallized around three categories of content: drama series, youth programming, and live content.
• Diversity is a winning business model. Focusing on cultural diversity and gender equality means reaching a wider audience, promoting the development of technologies for all, and, ultimately, generating greater profits.
• Silicon Valley and Hollywood are no longer the only ones
  calling the shots. New hubs are emerging elsewhere, especially in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), and China, in particular, which has become an increasingly important player in technological development, investment, and coproduction.

Two interesting quotes:

“As viewers gain more control of their programming grids, the owners of non-essential and non-live content are at significant [risk]. Either you are live and large… or dead. — MoffattNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, 2016″

“But one thing is certain: content will be at the center of where the industry goes from here. And those who own and control the content will help steer the direction. — The Boston Consulting Group, The Value of Content, 2016″

My take: definitley worth the read. In many ways, this is the mediascape I began wondering about a dozen years ago. Currently, my media consumptions looks like this, in no particular order: live TV news and events, live TV sports, a handful of ‘real time’ TV series on the East Coast feed (so three hours earlier on the West Coast), a Chromecast TV app for The Daily Show, iTunes Internet Radio, Netflix for movies, foreign TV series and Chelsea, Crackle for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Twitter, Flipboard, and Periscope apps, plus Paper.li, On Screen Manitoba News and other web sites for type content, quite often via Google. Oh, and The Weather Network! How about you?