Analysis of the Change in the Audiovisual Ecosystem: New Uses, Models, and Technologies

Introduction

The audiovisual sector lives on a continuous reconfiguration and integration. Television broadcasters must integrate new technologies in order to keep the leads when the emergence of new platforms over the Internet and the multi-platform services that allow to watch any content at any time have promoted the development of new innovative business models. These technological changes have altered the economical balance of this sector, strongly impacting the whole economy of the 21^st century and provoking relevant societal transformations. As important as the availability of infrastructures is to have something to convey by these new information highways, the market power of companies that merely transmit bits has decreased, by competition or regulatory interventions, as in the access technologies, and now market power is focused on content (Huigen & Cave 2008).

The tendency is evident: on the one hand, there is an increasing interdependence between the companies involved in the entertainment sector and the firms related to the delivery and processing of information (Fombrun & Astley, 1983) and, on the other hand, a move that translates the added value of communication services from basic services into the level of transport to services at the application level (Lewin, Williamson, & Cave, 2009). This is reflected in the decrease in voice telephony revenues and an increase in data, content and internet based services (Nelson, van den Dam, & Kline, 2008). Additionally, the audiovisuals products converged in terms of conception and characteristics towards web platforms, which Jenkins (2008) calls the “cultural convergence” of the media.

The Internet has constituted a process of disintermediation (Iordanova, 2012), and the media content business on the internet is led by new agents who link their activity with the distribution of contents. These actors work to the demands of the media convergent context, and propose new business models oriented towards user satisfaction (Izquierdo, 2014, 2015) due to the requirements of a more active and participative audience (Gubbins, 2012). In summary, in this complete reconfiguration for the 21st century, the audiovisual sector is in a critical moment in all aspects:

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  Technological Changes: From traditional platforms to new ways of broadcasting content, such as connected TVs, IPTV, Over the Top services, etc.

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  Integration and Consolidation Movement Among the Actors: Telecom operators, producers, and media.

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  Different Ways of Consuming Contents: The behavior of the consumer has evolved along with the industry.

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  Drastic Changes in the Regulatory Framework: In the assignment of a critical resource as it is the radio-electric spectrum.

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  The Proper Dynamism of the Sector: Allows testing new business models on financial formulas previously unknown.

Therefore, the main objectives of this chapter include:

• 1.

  Analyzing the current situation of the audiovisual sector in all its components.

• 2.

  Obtaining a holistic view of the whole ecosystem integrating all its parts.

• 3.

  Understanding its dynamics and its strategies for the future.

As the methodology used in this analysis the authors will use the framework of the strategic analysis for technological sectors developed by Gual and Ricart (2001), (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Framework of the strategic analysis for technological sectors