10 media execs, under the cloak of anonymity, predict 2022’s industry-shaking events

New yr prediction items are a journalism customary. But as a substitute of giving my very own projections, I requested 10 media executives, the promise of anonymity, to provide me their greatest guesses on what is going on to occur in 2022.

The guidelines have been easy: The prediction could possibly be something associated to the media and leisure enterprise, however it needed to be vital and could not be apparent.

Here’s what they instructed me.

I’ll revisit the predictions at the moment subsequent yr to see how they turned out, after which ballot 10 new executives for his or her 2023 predictions.

Roku has been beefing up its authentic content material in the Roku Channel, shopping for Quibi’s content library and “This Old House” in 2021. Founder and CEO Anthony Wood told CNBC in June he is devoting most of his time charting out a content material technique for the firm.

“This jogs my memory a lot of Netflix in its early days,” media analyst Michael Nathanson told CNBC earlier this year. “I used to interview [Netflix Co-CEO] Ted Sarandos at conferences 10 years in the past, and he’d say, ‘Oh, we’re proud of only one or two authentic exhibits.’ Meanwhile, they’d be laddering up into higher content material.”

Lionsgate has already signaled to the funding world it plans to either spin off or sell Starz, the premium streaming service and cable community it owns. That would depart the relaxation of the firm — Lionsgate’s movie and TV manufacturing studio — primed to discover a purchaser as effectively.

While conventional content material corporations comparable to Comcast‘s NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, Netflix and Disney are all wanting so as to add extra content material to their streaming companies, Roku is a wild-card purchaser that has the market valuation — practically $30 billion — to make a transfer.

Still, Roku shares have fallen by greater than 50% since reaching an all-time excessive in late July. Buying Lionsgate’s studio could get buyers to take its content material ambitions extra critically.

Iger, 70, repeatedly prolonged his contract after planning to retire in 2015, 2016 and 2018 earlier than abruptly stepping down in 2020. He’s nonetheless Disney’s government chairman till the finish of the yr.

It’s unclear if Iger needs to return. He’s already working on a second book, based on The Hollywood Reporter, after publishing one in 2019.

But Disney shares have stumbled this yr, down practically 20% yr so far. Iger owns a lot of those shares. The board and Iger could get stressed if Disney+ development stagnates and the firm continues to have turf tensions between executives.

Comcast has already held preliminary talks with Redstone, the controlling shareholder and nonexecutive chair of the firm, earlier this yr to debate a range of methods to work collectively. A merger of NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS would be messy from a regulatory standpoint, probably requiring a divestiture of both NBC or CBS and their related native associates.

Over the previous two years, Redstone has internally contemplated different alternate options, comparable to shopping for Lionsgate’s Starz and merging with Sony Pictures Entertainment, based on folks aware of the matter. A cope with Warner Bros. Discovery, if that merger closes, makes sense. But up to now, ViacomCBS’s messaging to Wall Street has been that it’s content to move forward as is.

It was back in 2015 when billionaire media mogul John Malone coined the time period “free radicals” to outline pure-play content material corporations that do not have the scale to compete for top-notch films and TV exhibits towards media behemoths comparable to Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Apple.

Some of these free radicals have already consolidated. Viacom and CBS have merged. WarnerMedia and Discovery (*10*) Amazon is awaiting regulatory approval to buy MGM Studios.

But others, comparable to Lionsgate, AMC Networks and Fox, live on. This government predicts none can be solo after 2022, both promoting to bigger opponents or merging with one another.

Vox’s option to merge with Group Nine units itself as the subsequent logical digital media candidate to go public after BuzzFeed. It simply so occurs that Group Nine has already established a SPAC that could possibly be utilized by the firm to go public, along with merging with one other digital media participant to realize extra scale.

If SPACs stay tainted from an funding perspective, this government mentioned Vox may additionally pursue a normal IPO. The timing could possibly be just like BuzzFeed’s this yr — an announcement of an IPO in late June and a public launch at the finish of 2022, the government mentioned.

Apple’s streaming video ambitions have been muted, given the company’s enormous size. “Ted Lasso” is a hit for Apple TV+, however the service has operated largely on the periphery of the streaming wars.

That’s more likely to change, mentioned this government, in 2022, and it will likely be pushed by the acquisition of a content material studio. A contemporary crew of individuals who can create hit exhibits will not simply make Apple a extra severe participant churning out authentic content material. It may also give Apple a library of TV and film exhibits it will probably provide to clients. That’s one thing Apple does not personal but, however it’s most likely important to severe long-term streaming ambitions.

Another pillar of the streaming wars that tends to get ignored is the world of free advertising-supported companies, highlighted by Fox’s Tubi, ViacomCBS’s Pluto TV, Amazon’s IMDb TV, and Sinclair Broadcast Group‘s STIRR. Smart TV working techniques additionally provide free streaming networks, comparable to Samsung TV Plus and the Roku Channel.

This government predicted free-streaming TV could have surging development in 2022 however may also consolidate. Too many of these companies are providing basically the similar factor — a bundled providing of free networks with rather a lot of previous films and TV exhibits and syndicated programming.

A rollup of a number of of these companies is probably going in 2022, based on Executive No. 10.

(Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the guardian firm of CNBC. Comcast and NBC Sports are buyers in FanDuel)

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