A User’s Guide to the Near Future
Top execs, innovators and a Tiktok star talk 2024 trends at Variety’s CES summit
The future of media, tech and advertising — both their promise and peril — was the topic of the day at the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES 2024, held during the technology industry’s huge annual confab in Las Vegas.
Speakers at the all-day summit included Roku Media president Charlie Collier; Reddit CEO Steve Huffman; Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising; John Harrison, EY’S Americas leader for media and entertainment; and Tiktok star Leenda Dong.
Here are key takeaways from the Jan. 10 event.
STREAMERS TAKE BIGGER BITE OF AD PIE
Netflix advertising president Amy Reinhard revealed that the company has more than 23 million monthly active users globally on its ad tier (up from 15 million two months ago). “Scaling our business is absolutely our biggest priority right now,” she said. On a separate panel, Alexys Coronel, head of U.S. entertainment and telecommunications for Amazon Ads, discussed the Jan. 29 launch of ads in Prime Video that the tech giant says will reach 115 million unique viewers in the U.S. “It’s a huge step change for us,” Coronel said.
ROKU’S STREAMING TV AMBITIONS
Collier, the former Fox Entertainment and AMC Networks exec, who joined Roku in 2022, touted the narrative that TV viewing is inevitably migrating to internet distribution. “We’re going to be the lead-in to most of television, if not all of television,” he said.
LINEAR TV AD SPENDING IS DOWN
Variety co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton asked a panel of top ad execs from Disney, Nbcuniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix: “Where is the money?” To which Mark Marshall, NBCU’S chairman of global advertising and partnerships, quipped: “You sound like my boss.” Disney ad chief Ferro commented, “Where you are absolutely seeing compression of [ad] pricing and demand is linear TV.” But, she said, given Disney digital platforms including Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu, “at scale we are able to move dollars to the platforms that matter.” She added that within linear TV advertising “there are pockets where the money has flowed” — calling out sports in particular.
DISNEY STRAPS ON APPLE’S VISION PRO
The team led by Jason Wong, senior VP of product for Disney Entertainment and ESPN Technology, is getting ready for the Feb. 2 drop of the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset. Disney+ will be a launch partner, offering multiple 3D-immersive titles exclusively on the new Apple device. Alluding to Star Wars and Marvel titles that will be available, he said, “You’ll be watching a movie from the landspeeder on Tatooine or watching the movie within Marvel Avengers Tower. And it’s a way of bringing that immersion up and before the movie actually starts.”
AI: THREAT AND OPPORTUNITY
Artificial intelligence continues to be seen as a two-headed beast, promising creative tools and business optimizations — and an array of potential threats. The use of AI by studios was a hot-button issue for striking Hollywood unions, and the Biden administration recently announced plans to regulate the technology. On a panel of AI experts, Hanno Basse, chief technology officer of Digital Domain, predicted the advent of virtual humans — which can be interacted with as if with a real person — within a couple years. “And what that means for society is something I’m worried about,” Basse said. “It’s up to all of us to figure out how to use it responsibly.”
TV, MOVIES TAKE TIKTOK STARRING ROLE
In a trend that popped in 2023, Paramount, Netflix, Peacock and others released content on Tiktok chopped up into bite-size segments (in some cases uploading full movies or shows). Similarly, HBO released 25-second recaps of every episode of “The Sopranos” on Tiktok to celebrate the series’ 25th anniversary. “At one time, people thought Tiktok was a dance app. I don’t hear that anymore,” said Catherine Halaby, head of entertainment at the company.