The Day Before Tomorrow - how technology is disrupting entertainment and what role brands can play within it
The Drum's Day Before Tomorrow series of half-hour TV programmes exploring technological disruption continued last night with the screening of the fourth episode in London, looking at entertainment.
An audience including representatives of the TV, film, music, theatre and gaming industries gathered to watch the programme, written and presented by The Drum’s head of TV Dave Birss.
The screening was followed by a panel debate chaired by The Drum editor and founder Gordon Young and featuring Nigel Vaz of SapientNitro, Dave Birss and Doug Zanger of Advertising Week.
The film explored topics including how technology has slashed costs of production and distribution of entertainment content but has simultaneously impacted quality and how artists get rewarded.
It also tackled the convergence of different entertainment forms; the role of brands; and the effects of giving consumers power over the entertainment they want to consume.
“Most TV channels are like museums. They are curators. With YouTube, content creators can reach the mass niche - or the niche mass," said Nigel Vaz of SapientNitro.
"But the audience is in 115 countries!" Similarly, in the music industry, the dominance of the album, where a few great tracks would be bundled with many more not so good ones, is almost over - now, people can pick exactly what they want."
Looking to the future, Vaz pointed out that ultimately, data analytics will mean "entertainment can become so personalised it will be the equivalent of human genome-based drugs," tailored exactly to a single individual's needs.
View the Day Before Tomorrow's third part - on how technology is disrupting cities - below.