• by Alex Weprin , July 12, 2018

With the entertainment and media business in the midst of a dramatic shift toward streaming content and direct-to-consumer business models, companies playing in the space need to expand how they operate.

According to PwC’s Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2018-2022, the new media landscape presents incredible opportunities for some brands to truly break out.

In a section about developing new revenue streams, PwC suggests “monetising existing core brands, products and intellectual property through new channels and platforms, either owned and operated or accessed via partners.”

For example, CBS, which just 10 years ago was a U.S. broadcast network, is now on its way to becoming a global streaming service through CBS All Access. In. addition, CBS offers multiple tiers of service, with a less expensive ad-supported version and a ad-light version for a bigger fee.

Similarly, media companies can extend their brands into social media and digital video -- and into physical products, as BuzzFeed did with its Tasty brand, which now includes cookbooks and kitchenware.

Of course, media companies should embrace and experiment with advertising innovations to deliver more relevant and less cluttered ad environments.

Companies also need to prospect outside of their core competencies in search of new revenue. Video game publishers, for example, are increasingly investing on esports, betting that it will become a big business for them.

Then, of course, there is the embrace of globalization, following the example of Netflix, which has made a goal of being in just about every country, with locally produced content and local languages. Not every company can compete at that scale, but every company can make an effort to be more global.

“The reinvention has much further to run, and the industry-wide move to tap into and develop new streams may have only just begun,” the PwC report says. “Ongoing advances in technology will be one of the main forces that aid in that effort.”