WeiserMazars LLP and Mazars Group, announced the release of their third annual Media Barometer Study. This year's analysis covered the 100 largest North American and European media companies in Advertising & Communications, Broadcasting and Press & Publishing. Revenue of the media industry as a whole continued to thrive, with an increase of 5% from the previous year. In spite of those encouraging results, the survey reveals a widening performance gap between the European and North American markets, even with a slight increase in profit margins across the board.
In the context of this new wave of digitalization and new business models, new risks are growing in prominence, including: breaches in technology security and privacy (cited by 64% of companies), dependence on third parties (cited by 80% of companies) and predicting customer demand and developing new products (cited by 81% of companies). Access to big data is also significantly impacting all sectors and increased digital exposure is causing new operational risks.
In this new digital revolution, the quest for mobility and improvement of media companies' capabilities to integrate multiple platforms will continue to present major issues for the next few years. The importance of mobility has grown with the emergence of "the Internet of things" --objects that have the ability to send and receive information through a computer. This new development will foster users' mobility and the volume of data collected, consequently imposing a needed adjustment within the media world-- to offer a format that is adaptable to all user devices. Furthermore, connected objects will result in an acceleration of the convergence among all players in the media world.
"Our study reveals that the profitability of the media industry in Europe continues to decline while North American companies continue to improve. The disparity could be caused by North American companies more effectively reducing costs, utilizing internet-based economic models and investing in developing countries and new technologies," said Richard S. Faltin, a Partner in WeiserMazars' Media Information and Entertainment Group. "Companies must keep pace with rapid worldwide economic and technological changes in order to remain competitive in the media industy."
For more information on the Media Barometer 2014 study click here: www.weisermazars.com/mediabarometer
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