What Deloitte thinks the future of home entertainment looks like

Expect to see high-quality, professionally produced content in new formats – very highly tailored to the platform and packaged with new consumption models in mind (Example: Look for things like 15-minute offerings, rather than traditional 22 minute programs that a mobile audience can consume quickly).

- As the industry continues to ponder the home entertainment scenarios that might shake out, expect to see many alliances and many experiments. Not all of these activities are necessarily indicators of “the direction” of the industry. Many are simply hedges against an uncertain future.

- Possibilities on how to package content continues to be a challenge. Emerging solutions include developing even shorter formats and crosslinking home entertainment with social and sensory platforms

2015 was the first year that consumers under 25 watched more content on mobile devices than on TVs, and the shift toward mobile will continue to reshape how content is produced. For more on “Flashpoint: the future of home entertainment” we spoke with Kevin Westcott, Principal, Deloitte Consulting and National Media & Entertainment Lead:

Found Remote: Theatrical blockbusters - especially comics-based films - are thriving more than ever. Why do think that this will soon fade?

Westcott: Genres gain popularity and genres lose popularity (just think vampire movies of 2008-2011), but what we are seeing is a continued growth of demand for high quality content. Consumers have many more choices of platforms and devices to consume content and by Deloitte’s research, feature films are the content type that consumers are expecting to watch more in 2016. Given the large increase in the amount of feature film releases, I expect this market to remain robust.

FR: We have been hearing about the emergence of web series for a long time, but they are still not as successful as longer formats. When will high-quality, short-form content become the norm rather than the exception?

Westcott: We have been seeing a large shift of viewing moving towards more mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and phones), especially for the younger audiences. In addition, these mobile devices have larger screens than in the past and are connected to faster and faster networks, therefore more video is being consumed. These forces are starting to drive the move towards the development of new forms of content and I expect to see the emergence of high quality short form content in the near future which will be produced with the binge watcher in mind. These “series” will have a plot line that will play through the episodes and can be consumed either one-by-one or by the binge watcher in multiples.

FR: With more viewers shifting to mobile, what impact will this have on advertisers?

Westcott: The younger generations - under 30 - have already made the move to mobile viewing in a large way. This highly desirable demographic also expect to have their advertising tailored to their needs and expectations. I expect to see more highly targeted advertising being delivered to the mobile devices and these ads will be tailored to the new content styles (short form episodic). The advertising on mobile will have to adapt to the viewing habits of the mobile users and start to place bets on which of the multiple future scenarios for content distribution and consumption gain traction. Of note, it was discovered in our Digital Democracy Survey that 62 percent of the entire population would be willing to view advertisements with their streaming video programming if it significantly reduced the cost of the subscription. This figure rises with those under 30. Between those aged 14-25, the percentage of those willing to view advertising with video programming rises to 69 percent. Between those age 26-31, that figure is slightly higher than the overall average, at 66 percent.