Audiences have high expectations regarding content consumption. As a result, the entertainment and media industries face intense pressure to modernize. The streaming revolution is fueled by mobile and cloud technologies, which are reshaping how we consume entertainment. Businesses are competing for viewer attention and loyalty.
Staying relevant in this experience economy means more than producing the next big hit. It requires a complete digital transformation across customer experiences, personalization, internal operations, and the use of new technologies. This brings new opportunities but also presents a unique set of challenges.
In this article, we’ll explore how media companies are undergoing digital transformation projects, the challenges and pitfalls of this sector, and examples from the entertainment industry.
What Is Digital Transformation in Media and Entertainment?
Digital transformation in the media and entertainment sector involves adopting technologies to reimagine content creation and distribution. It’s about using data, automation, and innovations like AI to deliver personalized consumer experiences. All to deliver compelling experiences that keep the audience coming back.
Digital transformation breaks down silos and processes to unlock new capabilities. From production to post. Every part of the content lifecycle becomes more agile and aligned with audience needs.
Benefits of Digital Transformation in Media and Entertainment
Embracing digital transformation is no longer a nice-to-have for media and entertainment companies. It’s a must to compete. Those that successfully adapt have powerful advantages.
1. Reduce operational costs
From optimized cloud infrastructures to automated production workflows, digital tools drive cost savings across operations. For example, AI-powered editing can speed up processes, and Analytics can identify underperforming content to cut losses. Optimization like this is critical to helping your organization do more with less.
2. Increase efficiency of content delivery
Delivering high-quality content quickly is key to winning the streaming wars. Digital transformation empowers you to do exactly that. Collaborative cloud platforms enable dispersed teams to work together. Analytics guide smarter marketing based on behavior data.
3. Improve end-user experience
To get viewer loyalty, you need to deliver exceptional user experiences. Media businesses can achieve this with innovations like AI-personalized recommendations and extended reality (XR). Customer data and feedback loops provide the information you need to refine your approach over time.
In 2024, Deloitte predicts that enterprise spending on generative AI will grow by 30%. More media companies are expected to develop generative AI models to drive greater productivity and unlock innovations.
Challenges of Digital Transformation in Media and Entertainment
While the benefits of implementing digital transformation in the media and entertainment industry are clear. But it isn’t without its challenges. Here are the hurdles you should know before starting the process.
1. Integrating new technologies
As media companies look to modernize their operations, they must integrate new tools and platforms. Bringing these systems together is a challenging feat. Issues like data silos and incompatible legacy software can create problems. Understanding your current technology landscape and how you’ll add to it is important.
2. Keeping pace with customer demands
Consumer expectations are constantly rising in the entertainment and media space. Nearly 50 million Americans have completely cut the cord on cable. They want personalized experiences across an increasing number of digital channels and devices. Digital transformation is necessary to keep pace, and innovation gives you a competitive edge.
3. Cybersecurity
Protecting customer data and intellectual property is also a major cybersecurity concern. Media companies’ shifting to more digital, cloud-based infrastructures creates more risk. Security capabilities are essential to protecting data.
8 Examples of Digital Transformation in Media and Entertainment
From optimizing operations to delivering great audience experiences, digital transformation touches all aspects of media and entertainment. Here are some of the areas where organizations are using innovative technologies.
1. Subscription management software
As more entertainment companies pivot to subscription or membership models, they need solutions that streamline billing and customer lifecycle management. Advanced subscription platforms enable seamless signup flows, flexible payment models, and data-driven retention strategies.
For example, Recurly delivers enterprise-grade customer acquisition and retention capabilities including, subscriber management, automated dunning workflows, streamlined payment processing, lifecycle communications, and subscription analytics.
2. OTT platforms
The rise of over-the-top (OTT) media services like streaming apps and platforms enables companies to directly reach audiences on their preferred connected devices. OTT offerings expand content distribution capabilities. They also open up new revenue streams and customer engagement opportunities.
Roku’s creative formats include native placements in our OS, in-stream video ads, interactive ads, and more. This way, users can see relevant advertisements from the moment they power on their devices.
3. Enterprise content delivery network (eCDN)
Delivering high-quality video content at scale requires robust content delivery networks. An enterprise CDN allows media businesses to cache content closer to viewers through distributed servers for better Quality of Experience. Advanced eCDNs leverage intelligent routing, optimization, and analytics.
For example, Fastly’s CDN, with real-time observability, programmatic control, and baked-in security, helps deliver the user experience while reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
4. Media CRM for managing advertising
Drive subscriptions, engage your target audience, and supercharge business growth. A media CRM empowers you to plan and manage events, optimize ad revenue, and streamline operations.
Media CRM unifies sales, billing, production, and digital marketing data into one platform. Plus, the AI analytics shows the exact delivery of campaigns. This allows your team to identify the best mediums.
5. Personalized consumer experiences
Streaming platforms personalize show recommendations and ads based on viewer interests and behaviors. Media businesses should also use data to tailor all customer touchpoints. From content discovery to commerce experiences. This level of personalization boosts satisfaction and loyalty.
Personalization solutions build on the foundation of Amazon Personalize with customizations to satisfy media and entertainment-specific recommendation use cases. Using these solutions, personalized experiences that meet customer expectations can be created.
6. Audience analysis and engagement software
Understanding your audiences has never been more important. Data analytics tools allow media companies to gather in-depth consumption metrics and demographic intelligence. This allows you to optimize content strategies and identify new business opportunities.
Predictive Resonate Elements data shares what a customer is about to do. When, where, and even why they’ll do it. That means more effective targeting, offers, and messaging. All to support better campaign performance.
7. Back-end business operations transformation
Front-facing customer experiences are only one side of the digital transformation coin. Behind the scenes, media enterprises must modernize outdated processes through solutions like cloud-based financial management, procurement platforms, and communications tools.
For example, EY’s as-a-service business operations and transformation offering is designed from the ground up to help companies realize the full potential of subscriptions. The holistic solution combines methods, frameworks, normative models, pre-packed technology deployment templates, and managed services to improve operations.
8. HCM and people transformation
Media companies can only pursue sustainable transformation by empowering their talent pools. HCM technologies that power skills development and better employee experiences are a must-have for HR transformation efforts.
With an HCM system like SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, or Oracle HCM Cloud, departments can make better-informed decisions with increased flexibility. By clearly demonstrating new and agile working methods, you can also attract and retain more of the best new talent.
Entertainment and Media Technology & Software Clicks With Whatfix
Accelerate your entertainment digital transformation by enabling your employees and customers with contextual in-app guidance and constant real-time support with Whatfix’s digital adoption platform (DAP).
Whatfix empowers public sector IT teams with its no-code content editor to create in-app, moment-of-need support and contextual guidance – all inside your software applications and digital processes. This reduces time-to-proficiency and achieves new levels of productivity and proficiency through better technology adoption for all end-users.
It also provides abilities for self-service, personalization, and guided user experiences for any application end-user – enabling end-users to use entertainment technology, improving end-user productivity, and automating operations.
Whatfix empowers a data-driven approach by analyzing tech experiences with end-user behavioral analytics and event tracking. This identifies areas of friction in your public sector digital processes and tech experiences, allowing you to create optimal, contextual user journeys across various end-user segments.
With Whatfix, entertainment IT teams can identify areas of friction causing issues and launch new in-app guided Flows, Smart Tips, and Self Help elements to guide and assist them with localized content that guides them through processes, driving workflow adoption and achieving business outcomes.
How does it work? Whatfix empowers entertainment organizations to:
- Create in-app Flows and Task Lists that guide end-users step-by-step through digital processes and applications.
- Enable all end-users with Self Help, providing a searchable help wiki that connects to all your help and support documentation, FAQs, help desk articles, and more – that overlays on your applications’ digital UI.
- Notify end-users of process updates, compliance changes, team updates, deadlines, and more with Pop-Ups and Beacons.
- Provide contextual Smart Tips that give end-users timely information that nudges them to take the correct in-app action.
- Use Field Validation to ensure data is entered in full, in the correct format.
- Collect end-user feedback from end-users such as NPS, customer satisfaction surveys, staff training and onboarding feedback, and bug identification with In-App Surveys.
- Analyze end-user behavior with User Actions and Enterprise Insights by tracking custom in-app events to optimize user journeys, segment users into cohorts, identify areas of friction, and more.
With Whatfix, you can understand how technology is used at your media company and which tools and processes are under-adopted by your employees and audience. This makes it easier to adjust software onboarding, training, support, and overall end-user adoption strategies—all to provide a seamless experience for every end-user that enables them with the right context and support to utilize new technologies and systems fully.
