By Khalifa Hemed
Published September 26, 2016

Vicki Myburgh, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Southern Africa, Head, Entertainment and MediaThe Internet, video games, television, and filmed entertainment segments of sub-Saharan Africa’s entertainment and media industry are projected to continue to grow in the following years but the publishing industry is having to work very hard to make any headway.

That is the conclusion of Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2016 – 2020 Report, an annual analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) that looks at South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.

According to the report, Kenya’s total entertainment and media industry was worth US$2.2 billion in 2015 and is expected to be worth US$3.3 billion by 2020. Internet access again will be the main contributor, accounting for 43% of the total market in 2020.

Nigeria, which has one of the fastest-growing markets in the entertainment and media industry, saw 15.7% growth to reach US$3.8 billion in 2015, and with all segments forecast to rise over the forecast period, an 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is anticipated.

Internet advertising will see the fastest growth over the forecast period, and will come predominantly in formats designed for mobiles, in keeping with the prevailing method of Internet access in the country.

TV advertising is also benefiting from strong economic growth and an emerging middle class with a higher disposable income.

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Raiderz 3D Crew dancers of Nairobi in actionDespite a relative slower growth projection for the industry in South Africa, the Outlook forecasts that the entertainment and media industry of Africa’s most developed economy is expected to grow from ZAR125.7 billion in 2015 to ZAR173.3 billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 6.6%.

“In spite of widespread disruption in the entertainment and media industry, as well as intense competition for consumer attention, there are growth opportunities aplenty for companies to capitalise from in the new media landscape,” says Vicki Myburgh, Entertainment & Media Industry Leader for PwC Southern Africa.

Digital spend is expected to drive the overall growth. South Africa’s Internet access market will rise from ZAR39.4 billion in 2015 to ZAR68.5 billion in 2020, as broadband – both fixed and mobile – becomes an essential utility.

“Although the forecast CAGR of 11.7% is lower than previously predicted, this still makes Internet access by far the largest contributor to total E&M spend,” adds Myburgh.

Nyayo House, the home of Kenya's Ministry of Immigration & Registration of Persons. It's adjacent to and Telposta Tower, Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi.

The Outlook presents annual historical data for 2011 – 2015 and provides annual forecasts for 2016 –  2020 in 11 entertainment and media segments for black Africa’s leading economies–South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya: the Internet, television, filmed entertainment, video games, business-to-business publishing, recorded music, newspaper publishing, recorded music, magazine publishing, book publishing, out-of-home-advertising and radio.

Aside from the Internet, the Outlook predicts that growth will also be seen in the video game market, filmed entertainment and television segments.

“As Internet revenue continues to rise, the forecast for newspaper and magazine circulation is on the decline as consumers migrate from print copies to free online alternatives – and aren’t as yet moving to paid digital formats in great numbers,” says Myburgh.

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iroko tv offices in lagos, nigeriaSouth Africa has the largest TV market in Africa and continues to grow strongly, with pay-TV subscription revenues expected to expand by a 5.0% CAGR to reach ZAR25.2 billion in 2020. The video game market is also performing well and revenue is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.6% to reach ZAR3.7 billion in 2020, up from ZAR2.8 billion in 2015. Social/casual gaming revenue overtook traditional game revenue for the first time in 2015 and is expected to be the key growth area over the next five years, exceeding ZAR2 billion by 2020.

Alongside video providers, the B2B market will be a strong source of revenue for South Africa’s entertainment and media industry over the next five years. The amount of data that businesses are using for decision-making is increasing, and the tools used to access the information are increasingly cloud-based with more and more users gaining access via mobile handsets. The market is forecast to grow at a 4% CAGR to reach just under ZAR11.6 billion in 2020.

By contrast, the newspaper market in South Africa is expected to be ZAR1 billion smaller than in 2015. In 2015 total newspaper revenue was worth ZAR9.1 billion, but this figure will drop to ZAR8.1 billion in 2020. Circulation figures are also forecast to start declining, as price rises are unable to compensate for the declining numbers of copies sold.

By the same note, South Africa’s consumers magazine market is also forecast to see a decline in later years. A growing number of South Africans are accessing magazine content and websites via their smart devices, but the boom in smartphone and tablet ownership will be the biggest driver for digital magazine revenue growth over the forecast period.

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Omoobia Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon's backyard in his private museum in Lagos

Although physical music continues on its downward trajectory, it is streaming revenue that will be responsible for keeping recorded music revenue from large falls. Digital music streaming revenue is forecast to rise from ZAR74 million in 2015 to ZAR437 million in 2020.

The report shows that South Africa’s total entertainment and media advertising revenue is expected to rise from ZAR43.4 billion in 2015 to ZAR53 billion in 2020, a CAGR of 4.1%, with only newspaper advertising revenue forecast to take a downward turn. TV advertising continues to dominate the market, but Internet advertising is combining scale with a great pace of expansion, and will become the second-largest contributor to revenue by 2020.

Myburgh says: “Entertainment and media companies are facing an ever more challenging and complex environment. Companies need a more detailed understanding than ever before of the various forces at play at a local level. Armed with such insights, both established and emerging players are well-positioned to capitalise on the industry shifts and lead the next phase of growth.”

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South-Africa-President-Jacob-Zuma-South-Africa-Trade-Unions-General-Secretary-Zwelizima-Vavi-and-ITUC-General-Secretary-Sharan-Burrow-discuss-development-and-employment-before-a-summit-in-South-AfricaSo what emerges amid the continuing disruption?

Key shifts are occurring in each of five dimensions of the entertainment and media landscape: demography, competition, consumption, geography, and business models. Simultaneous and interrelated, these shifts influence and play off one another. They should serve as a serious call to action for both industry incumbents and new entrants to seek out growth opportunities in markets worldwide.

Shift 1. Demography: Youth will be served
Analysis of national entertainment and media markets globally reveals an almost perfect correlation between the relative size of the under-35 population and growth in entertainment and media spending—confirming that younger consumers are now the primary drivers of global growth. Analysis of total entertainment and media revenue growth in the world’s 10 youngest and 10 oldest markets in demographic terms reveals that, on average, entertainment and media spending in the 10 youngest markets is growing three times as rapidly as in the 10 oldest markets.

Shift 2. Competition: Content is still king
In a world where Netflix can launch in 130 new countries in a single day, it’s easy to assume that content is becoming more globally homogeneous. But the reality is that content is being redefined by forces of globalisation and localisation simultaneously—and that while much of the industry is growing more global, content tastes and cultures remain steadfastly local.

Also present in Nigeria were South African performers and technical crewShift 3. Consumption: The joy of bundles
The ability for consumers to design and curate their own media diet has been one of the most powerful trends to emerge in the industry. But the bundle is far from dead, with video and cable incumbents–which were initially slow off the mark–now fighting back by offering their content on an integrated omnichannel basis, on TV, laptop, tablet, and smartphone. As take-up of these new-style bundles grows, we believe the bulk of digital OTT mass-market services will gradually be reabsorbed into aggregated offerings that will echo the traditional analogue-style bundle, but that will be more flexibly priced and available on a full range of devices. When this happens, the competitive battle may move up a notch, as cable, technology, and telecom players fight over gaining access to distribution.

Shift 4. Geography: Growth Markets
Generally, entertainment and media companies had one set of expectations about developed markets (slow growth, low regulation, easier to access) and another about developing markets (rapid growth, high regulation, harder to access). But the dynamics are shifting rapidly as disruption pushes markets to develop in different ways, meaning “opportunity” economies–even within the same region–can display significantly varied growth patterns.

Inspiring New Ways, Brand South AfricaShift 5. Business models: Transforming with trust
Today’s entertainment and media market includes technology companies racing to become hybrid content companies, and traditional publishers evolving the other way to emerge as hybrid technology companies. This underlines how the growth of technology and digitisation is acting as a centrifugal force, breaking up existing relationships; pushing large, generalist entities to give way to smaller specialists; and allowing smaller, nimble competitors to beat out incumbents. For incumbent advertising agencies, this opens up an opportunity to reorient themselves to become invaluable to markets, by bringing together programmatic capabilities, analytics, data aggregation, and native content to create the new “super” agency.