PROFIT, MEET PROPHET

MY TOP TEN PREDICTIONS FOR 2025

Happy Monday Peaceniks! Ready for 2025? Doesn’t matter, it’s here already.

Below is my very first Media Universe Map of 2025, followed closely by my Top Ten Media Predictions for 2025.

CLICK TO EXPAND - HIGH RES VERSION HERE

---

This year, my yearly predictions come entirely paywall-free!

For that, you can thank our friends at Ateliere, who are bound and determined to help everyone improve their Media workflows through a groundbreaking suite of smart, scalable supply-chain solutions powered by AI, machine learning, and cloud-native tech.

---

Ranking predictions is so 2024. 2025 will be all about flow - workflow, cash flow, creative flow, Flo from Porogressive, finding your flow in the Media ecosystem. So, this year, rather than numbering my predictions, I decided to list them in the order they came to me - a flow of consciousness. Without further ado, here are my…

PREDICTION: FIGURE RECONFIGURATION

Paramount will soon be Skydance. Warner-Discovery is prepping to break up the Disco Bros. Comcast is kicking Kabletown to the curb. The IRL performance of Succession gave the “other Murdoch kids” the power (eventually) to change FOX into something else. Omnicom and IPG will soon be the world’s largest agency holdco. Activision is now fully ingested at Microsoft, VIZIO now has its own aisle at Walmart.

By this time next year, the Media Universe will look very different. But these moves are just the chalk marks for alterations being made to the fabric of Big Media. The Omnicom/IPG merger is the first to test the waters of the friendlier M&A regulatory environment, but in 2025 it most certainly will not be the last.

Given the revolving door at Mar-a-Lago these past few weeks and the Chancellor level purview occupied by the head Twit, I fully expect Big Tech to make bids on Big Media assets in 2025.

In the next few years, the bargains for legendary entertainment brands will be difficult, if not impossible to pass up.

With slowing iPhone sales and a deep-seeded need for Services growth, I can’t see Apple continuing to sit the sidelines in Media M&A. Do not sleep on Microsoft slipping into the platform business. With Activision officially swallowed, and their Netflix ad deal six feet under, I fully expect Microsoft’s quest for the living room to resume and expand. Walmart’s hoovering of CTV player VIZIO ups the ante big-time in the battle over eyeballs and remotes. Microsoft has been one of the smartest run companies over the last decade, and they know bargains when they see them. As good a year as Roku had, it’s hard out there for an OS pimp – especially when you’re enmeshed in a global brawl for supremacy with Amazon and Samsung.

Because they are now stranded from their streaming segments, the cable assets of Comcast and WBD are weekend garage sale opportunities for Big Tech and streamers. Imagine CNBC included with AppleTV+. Or the Final Four on Netflix.

Another huge hypothetical looming over the Media Universe is a potential consolidation of PSBs, particularly in the UK. Given the fragmentation of the global market, can the shifting economics of the UK television industry truly support four public broadcasters in the UK, when only one is truly supported by the public? These are whispers no one in polite UK television society will say aloud over tea. But that doesn’t mean they all don’t think them, daily. And mightn’t all UK Public Service Media (and the UK public itself for that matter) be better off if Media created to serve all Brits consolidated powers and economized their overhead to better compete with the Big Tech invasion?

If nothing happens beyond what we already expect – Skymount, Kabletown, Spin Bros, Omnicom+IPG – by this time next year, Media will be very different.

My prediction: MANY more Media M&As will be made in the next two years. These moves will accelerate the reconfiguration of Media over the rest of this decade into an ecosystem with Big Tech, not Hollywood IP, at its foundation.

PREDICTION: NEW NORMAL = LIVE RULES

The economics of television have swung wildly in the last half decade. In 2020, ad-free subscription was top dog. Since 2022, advertising on TV has taken the spotlight. Among streamers and advertisers, this has created an intense need for quality ad inventory that audiences won’t skip and will watch; more regular, repeated viewing; and reliable, effective and scalable audience reach. Hence the mad race to scoop up sports rights – Roku and X-Games, Amazon and the NBA, Disney and all the sports, Netflix with WWE, FIFA, and the NFL on Christmas.

The quest for scale and the lane-changes to sports are BIG reasons why greenlights of entertainment series and film for TV and Streaming are down 40% from 2022. In part this is due to the Peak TV bubble bursting – we made far too much content for consumers to ever consume. Since, much of Media’s money has moved from volume, prestige, and niche, to mass, franchise, and live. Those who work in scripted and unscripted TV should expect these trends to intensify in 2025. “Peak TV” is not coming back anytime soon.

Streaming may have glitched for the Paul/Tyson slap-fight, but viewership didn’t. And the Beyonce Bowl was a smash. This is why Netflix is quadrupling down on sports and live, and adding a live talk show with John Mulaney in 2025.

The entire Streaming Television Industrial Complex is similarly remixing. Amazon stole the basketball from Disco Bros, moved buckets of cash into the NBA and NFL, converted sports into a shopping experience, and even started playing in News. NBC and Peacock have all-but morphed into live sports channels - NBCU also blocked out WBD for the NBA, grabbed more exclusive NFL streams, went all-in and all-out for the Olympics, brought back the Golden Globes, tripled down on gobbling up Thanksgiving Day, and is kicking their non-sports assets to the curb. Disney tripled their fees for the NBA and WNBA, after tripling the fees for Monday Night Football, and then shoved Paramount off stage to grab the Grammys. In fact, the loss of the NBA was such a blow, Disco Bros is reshuffling all their deck network chairs in a post game panic.

YouTube saw its sports streams on TVs grow 30% in the last year. This comes on the heels of a massive investment in NFL Sunday Ticket. As they re-aim their focus on the living room, the television set, and long-form premium video, Google will make more blitzes into sports and live in the year ahead - steering Creators more into live content and forcing the rest of social video to do the same. In fact, with more creators going live daily and real-time commentary on streaming events now a reality, by volume, the Creator-sphere will threaten Corporate Media for the live crown in 2025. More on that in a following prediction…

A year ago, I predicted that sports would be the major battle of 2024, with Big Tech getting more of the ball, accelerating the death of the Pay TV ecosystem. A year later, Netflix has boxing, football, wrestling, and soccer, Amazon has Lebron James, and Comcast and Warner Bros Discover are splintering.

In the year ahead, I predict more of the same: More sports migrating to more streamers and a mad scramble towards all things live – talk, news, awards, events, competition shows, and more made up shit like Jake Paul abusing elders in shorts – also meaning the continuation of fewer-yet-bigger greenlights for scripted and entertainment programming.

To those awaiting the “new normal” in television production, this is it. Greenlights will be hard to come by and series budgets will be harder to profit from. On TV and in Socials, event programming is the new hot thing (again). So, in 2025 and beyond, creators and audiences of smaller, quirkier, niche-ier TV content will need to forge their own paths to each other and new models to finance the work itself. And the of us should expect Big Media to continue to look more and more the same.

PREDICTION: ADS IN GAMES

Did you know that the top five games have more than 2X the monthly average users of the top five FAST platforms? True story.

85% of the adult population game at least once a week. Nearly half of those gamers are women. Turns out, if you play Wordle, or Candy Crush, or any other mobile game, you are still a gamer.

Yet, despite a massive, diverse, growing user base, the Gaming industry has faced as many issues as the rest of Media in the last five years.

Like Hollywood, Gaming is driven by hits. Since COVID, Gaming hits have been neither big nor plentiful. Like Big Media, Big Gaming is in the middle of a sea-change in its models. A decade ago, Gaming revenues shifted from downloads and whole game sales to in-game revenues via virtual purchases/add-ons and with advertising. “Hardcore” gaming still sells consoles, but 76% of its revenues now come Live Service Gaming and in-game merchandising, hence Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, which generates 80% of its revenues from Live Service Gaming.

Gaming is Media’s largest segment, now generating more revenue than theatrical box office and video streaming combined.

Yet, there is huge untapped potential in Gaming’s vast real estate and tremendous unrealized value in its massive audiences.

More than half of all gaming revenue comes from mobile. More than half of mobile gaming revenue is advertising.

By comparison, console, cloud, and VR Gaming have very little advertising revenue – despite a bigly base of highly engaged users, who spend far more time per session on this form of entertainment than comparable audiences on other platforms.

For these and many more reasons, I predict that 2025 is the year all that will change.

Gaming needs growth, and for many in Gaming, that growth is literally staring them right in the face. There currently are trillions of unsold ad impressions on Gaming platforms, playing to users with a proven propensity and history of spending their money on these platforms. And it seems as if Gaming’s biggest competitors are finally ready to play.

Roblox just hired a head of ad tech from Roku. Their advertising revenues grew by 49% in 2024. They are going deep into programmatic ads and building out their ad solutions team. After years of resisting, EA now has in-house branded content and advertising team testing in-game ads in blockbuster titles. Microsoft generally has big plans for the ad space and given the size of the Activision/Blizzard acquisition, it’s safe to assume Gaming ads are part of the game-plan.

What’s more demand for in-game ads are rising faster than the kill count in Call of Duty. 86% of Media buyers say Gaming ads are important to their marketing mix. 85% say that Gaming ads provide transparent measurability. 40% say they plan to increase on-game ad spending in the year ahead.

A Sector thirsty for new growth; a media segment with unexploited inventory and diverse audiences; A highly engaged environment; a platform tailor-made for interactivity and transaction; an increasing demand for premium, quality impressions… All of these are reasons I predict that Ads In Games are Advertising’s next big thing.

PREDICTION: SVOD-FAST-AVOD-MVPD-OS MELD

Most of the major SVODs are, or will soon be, available through Pay TV providers. Nearly all the SVODs now have ad tiers. Led by DirecTV and Dish, many, and soon most, MVPDs have added or will add FAST/AVOD tiers to their platforms. Nearly all the FAST platforms are now emphasizing AVOD. Most AVODs now have linear products.

In addition to the reconfiguration of our industry (see previous prediction), this 👆 realignment of products will reshape the television landscape in 2025. Notably, for this specific prediction, in the coming year the distinction between various formats of distribution will blur to the point of merging. Pay TV will incorporate access to SVOD, SVOD with ads, AVOD and FAST. FAST and AVOD will continue meld. In the coming year, the television user experience will get more concentrated into one log-in screen, with more and more channel and service curation done at the CTV OS level.

This concentration will create an incredibly competitive competitive TV set – with Big Tech such as Amazon and Google, OEMs like Samsung and Roku, MVPDs like Comcast and DirecTV, publishers such as Paramount and Fox, and huge newcomers like The Trade Desk and Walmart, all vying for their share of television time and revenue. And, as mentioned, don’t sleep on a Big Tech Death Star like Microsoft (or NVIDIA) invading the CTV space.

To improve the user experience and better optimize CTV advertising, this convergence is urgently needed. Countervailing winds from Big Tech, AI, and Big Media M&A create a perfect storm to collide and collapse TV models and turn 2025 into a seminal year in the evolution of television.

PREDICTION: ADVANTAGE AI

AI is a marathon, not a hackathon. For those who understand that, 2025 will be a year of big advancements in AI tech across the Media Universe. That said, ultimately, the real value of GenAI in Media will be less sexy (or dangerous) than what conventional wisdom sells us.

So much conversation about AI in entertainment focuses too much on 'job replacement' and not enough on 'job enhancement.' In each era, every new tech is met by a combination of fear and excitement, hyperbole and dread. The truth usually lands somewhere between the two extremes.

Yes, some jobs will be lost to AI; and all our lives will be somewhat improved by it. The majority of changes made by AI in Media, however, will be far less draconian or miraculous than the current crazy climate indicates. Ultimately, AI’s greatest value top Media will be both entirely pervasive and enormously unsexy.

A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that professionals in the entertainment sector - both artists and executives - are far more likely to utilize AI than any other field except computer science. For this and many other reasons, AI will take a central role in In Media in 2025. Gen AI will enable Creators to gain more footing with “traditional” publishers and producers. In Big Media, AI will make a big difference in the big battle with Big Tech.

Can traditional Media like Paramount lean into the tech mindset of Skydance / Oracle? Can Hollywood players like Disney transform their models enough to make the new economics of content work? Can YouTube Creators really compete with corporate budgets?

Whether creating efficiencies across merging cultures, tracking user behaviors to mitigate churn, personalizing user experiences, enhancing production values, accelerating media buying and advertising creative, or optimizing overall platform performance – 2025 will be a big year for the integration of AI into Media for Creators and Publishers.

Click here for my full ChatGPT-free breakdown on AI in Media in 2025.

PREDICTION: CREATORS ASCENDING

The last election was likely decided in the Creator-sphere. Podcasts seemingly swayed more votes than Broadcast, Cable and “Newspapers.” Two weeks later, a YouTuber slapped an old man for 90 minutes and broke Netflix. Perhaps my biggest prediction going into next years is that November of 2024 will be remembered as the moment that Creator Media surpassed Corporate Media in global relevance.

Over the last five years, Big Media has grown at an average of 3%. Yes, look around at the chaos… this is what 3% growth looks like. Now, compare that to Creator Media, which over the same time has grown at an average of 25%. Which seems like a more sound business?

Digital Advertising was 78% of all marketing spend in the US this year. Denstu projects that overall ad spending will increase 5.9% in 2025. Social ads will grow 8.7% and Digital will grow 9.2%. A huge share of these impressions and revenues are driven by Creators and the communities they speak to.

Most Big Tech and many Big Brands now rely heavily on the Creator-sphere for content, traffic, revenue, and relevance. By the end of this decade, 20% of all Media revenue will be generated directly by Creators.

Dumbfoundingly, most of Big Media still looks down their noses at Creators. Meanwhile the most powerful platforms in history are fueled by them.

Starting in 2025, the media capital of the world is no longer Hollywood or New York, but rather the Creator-sphere.

YouTubers and Insta Models are not just influencers, they’re moguls. A Twitter troll is now the most powerful advisor to the President. Netflix’s latest show and biggest ever hit are both YouTubers. The President Elect’s appearance on Joe Rogan generated more views on YouTube than the Vice President reached on Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert, and SNL, combined. Almost as many people watched pretend boxer Jake Paul fight a retired face tattoo as watched The Super Bowl.

The unwieldy matrix that is the Creator Economy produced $250 billion in revenue last year. It is likely to hit $600 billion per year by the end of this decade.

The biggest advertising platforms on earth, Meta and Google/YouTube, are creator driven. The great irony of the Creator Economy is that those who’ve traditionally had least power – artists and fans – now use the most powerful tech companies in history to control the Media they use. 2024 demonstrated this in droves. Next year, the growing alliance between audiences and advertisers will tilt the power even more towards the Creator-sphere.

When a consumer gives their money and/or their time to a media, instead of all the other choices, they see it as premium. It’s the same when an advertiser moves money from one format to another – as they continue to do with TV and social video. The dirty little secret in media buying circles is that the level of data and transparency – for artists and advertisers – on social media is at least a generation better than what they get from traditional Media. The relationship with fans and consumers is owned far more by talent and brands in the Creator-sphere than on Corporately run machines.

D2C formats like podcasting and newsletters are exploding – especially as more consumers flee mainstream media due to lack of trust and/or value. This is why Kylie Jenner is a billionaire, why Messi was able to change the game with his Apple deal, how The Sidemen got a series on Netflix, why Alex Cooper got $125 million for her podcast, why Amazon paid Mr. Beast $100 mil for a game show, why Hot Ones just sold for $83 million, and why Conan O’Brien is hosting the Oscars.

The generations who grew up entirely online are not going to suddenly develop a taste for mainstream or traditional media. But they don’t have to. More and more big brands and publishers are meeting them on social platforms and an increasing number of big name talent are setting up their own shops and going directly to their community.

The lesson here: If you are confounded by the Corporate Content meltdown, follow the crowds, follow the trends, and follow the money. Creators will drive the global conversation in 2025, and the Creator-sphere will gain even more influence and power.

Click here for my full corporate-free rundown on the Year of The Creator.

PREDICTION: ALWAYS BUY RETAIL

Do you shop on your phone? Do you shop on your phone while you’re watching TV?

One in every $5 spent on marketing worldwide is spent on Retail Media. The US Retail Media market generated $54 billion in 2024. Amazon took 75% of that. Retail marketing – on channel and off – is the fastest growing segment of advertising.

There are myriad reasons why Digital outpaces Traditional Media in the ad game. Provable return on investment is perhaps the biggest. And return on marketing spend is precisely why so much money is pouring into Retail Media: $140 billion in retail ad spend in 2024, up 28%. Most of this (71%) is spent on lower-funnel click-through and search. Hands on cans, butts in trucks, outcomes over impressions. However, more than half of Retail Media buyers are now looking for upper funnel Retail Media impressions.

This is why, within Retail Ads, CTV Retail Media is the fastest growing sub-segment. This year, US off-site retail media ad spend grew 61.5%.

Rather than choosing between transactions or brand, marketers now find ways to get HEARTS and CARTS.

Amazon is the very model of a very modern Retail Marketer - they are the kings of e-commerce and own the second largest CTV platform in the US. This is why they take three quarters of all Retail Media in America. However, Walmart sold nearly $5 billion in advertising in 2024 and just swallowed VIZIO – a true challenger brand on CTV in the US. YouTube specializes in full-funnel, ROAS based marketing (and as I mention in another prediction) is now the biggest channel on television.

Last year, I early-dropped my full prediction that Retail Media will make major moves onto CTV in 2025. There, I predicted that Netflix would exhibit some Retail Media magic on their Christmas Day NFL Games, especially after Amazon’s interactive-football-ad-looza on Black Friday. Beyonce was indeed iconic, and the technical glitches from Mike Tyson’s dance party were totally absent. But Netflix brought zero innovation to their ad environment – in fact, there was more interactivity in NCM’s pre-movie show before I saw Baby Girl (eesh, btw).

Which is precisely why, in my sneak peek prediction, I also said: “Retail Media represents billions in new ad revenues for the TV economy, likely $10 billion per year in the US alone by the end of this decade.” If the TV players can adapt, Connected Television might increase its share of global ad revenue commensurate with its growing viewership.

The 2025 Upfront will indicate if traditional TV understands the upside of Retail Media and performance-based advertising on CTV.

Here’s the thing though: If they don’t, CTV Retail Media and ROAS TV buys will still grow, but mostly, or perhaps only, in favor of Amazon, Google, and Walmart.

PREDICTION: YOUTUBE RISING

Jake Paul, a YouTuber, broke Netflix. Days later Netflix bought a series, The Sidemen, directly off YouTube. Then YouTube dropped data on its 2024 usage on THE TV: One billion hours of YouTube is viewed on connected televisions – per day. 400 million hours of podcasts are watched each month on YouTube – on television.

With 60% of YouTube viewing in the US now on TVs, YouTube is now television’s most used app. And while this holiday season, Netflix has gotten all the buzz for their intergenerational slap fight and the NFL Beyonce Bowl, this past year, YouTube has grown much faster on CTV, and is distancing itself from Netflix more each passing day.

“From 2023 to 2024, YouTube’s increase in overall TV watch time was 15.6%, while Netflix’s viewership grew just 3%.”

- The Wrap

Oddly, after all my ranting, despite tons of data and heaps of headlines, many in our industry are still unaware how big YouTube is on TV. Yes, they have shorts, but YouTube’s long game is long-form content, on television.

YouTube is the perfect TV for the User-Centric Era: Combining corporate-made Media such as sports and entertainment with Creator-led content such as podcasts and how-to videos, crucially, allowing “premium” to be defined by the user, not the gatekeeper. This is why publishers as diverse as the CBC, Ms. Rachel, Joe Rogan, SNL, Michelle Khare, ITV, WWE, Ben Shapiro, The NFL, Alex Cooper, Cocomelon, Chanel 4, and Jake Paul can all benefit from distribution on the platform.

In a world where the TV screen is now a paradox of choice, YouTube is the closest thing television has to a central marketplace of ideas.

What’s more, for audiences of all ages, increasingly YouTube is television. If someone watches YouTube on their TV, no matter what they watch, to them, it’s premium.

If you are a television professional, you do not have to like that YouTube is now the most powerful TV platform in the world. But you do have to accept it. More importantly, in 2025, if you don’t make moves to incorporate YouTube into your overall television strategy, you will regret it. In 2025, YouTube will continue to step up their TV game, leaning even heavier into the long form art form, particularly live and sports, through partnerships with mainstream publishers and leagues, with the most influential creators, and (given the new regulatory environment) perhaps with a major acquisition.

For my full squeeze on the Year of YouTube on TV, click here.

PREDICTION: GENERATION ZED

Generation Z is now the world’s biggest cohort. The oldest members of Gen Z are 26. The first generation raised online is now infiltrating the workplace, dictating the global conversation, and shifting the cultural landscape in unpredictable ways.

No cap, this generational transference pushes past the boundaries of lexicon and pronouns and winds deeply into the foundations of modern mass Media.

Gen Z’s celebs are now our celebrities. You may not have known who Jake Paul was before he entered the ring with Mike Tyson, but your kids did. Now you know too. Their priorities are now our priorities. The C-Suite push back into the office will meet an immovable generational force: 84% of Gen Z prioritizing work from home as part of their employment considerations.

Their channels are now our channels. YouTube has long been the top content platform for nearly everyone under 30. Now it is the top TV channel in the US. YouTube is bigger than all of Disney’s TV channels combined. As I point out elsewhere in this list, Netflix and Amazon are now stealing their stars. For good reason. Depending on how Mr. Beast and The Sidemen do, look for an uptick in Gen Z celebrity Creator shows for other Big Tech and Corporate Media gatekeepers.

If this item sounds a bit like some others, that’s because Gen Z’s size and influence – cultural and financial – are at the heart of most of my 2025 Predictions. Gen Z’s predilection to shop while they watch pushed Walmart onto TikTok. In 2024, Gen Z’s preference for YouTube on TV changed the shape of TV and their loyalty to Creators over publishers changed the world.

Like it or not, Gen Z is likely the core of your customer and employee community – now and for the next twenty years. That’s just math.

They do not look, think, or act like any generation before them. Their points of view are as complex and unpredictable as they are. Yet their influence over the rest of us is full-on.

But, as 2025 will continue to prove, Generation Z’s habits are now the culture’s habits. Your models will need to adjust, or they will fail in not doing so.

PREDICTION: WHERE THE JOBS ARE

Two of my predictions reflect reconfigurations to the Media ecosystem next year. Unfortunately, consolidation and connected mishigas will likely make 2025 an ugly repeat of 2024 in Big Media, leaving many entertainment professionals in the wind, competing for the same, few, available jobs.

"In 2024, nearly 15,000 jobs were eliminated across broadcast, TV, film, news, and streaming — extending a two-year run in which the news and entertainment businesses were dealt body blows. Combined, the number of jobs lost between 2023-24 more than quadrupled the amount lost between 2021-22.”

However, all my other Top Ten Predictions point to where the Media Universe is expanding in coming years. There are bold and italicized hints all over this list as to where I think the tide of Media opportunity will rise in 2025.

There is an increasing need for producers, creatives, project managers, product managers, lawyers, finance gurus, and execs of all kinds who can help Brands translate the Creator-sphere; can bring Retail Media to life on Social, Gaming and CTV; who can manage and integrate AI in a responsible and beneficial way; who conceive, produce and finance live, event programming; who are able to orchestrate new forms of multi-window co-production deals; who help creators find audiences and build foundational economics; and who will transform Media companies into digital platforms and digital platforms into Media companies.

In 2025, the key to finding the next generation of Media jobs is redefining what Media means. The new normal has arrived. 2025 is what it looks like.

CLICK TO EXPAND - HIGH RES VERSION HERE

That’s my whole Top Ten for ‘25!

If you want to hear me discuss a different Top Ten Predictions List and compare my prognostics with Marion Ranchet’s very European 2025 predictions, please tune into our podcast The Media Odyssey - this Thursday. It’ll drop right here Thursday morning and it’ll be available wherever you like to watch or listen to your podcast content.

2024 was a crazy year in the Media Universe. 2025 appears to portend more mishegas and mayhem.

The key to keeping our heads above the roiling waters is waking up stupid everyday, and striving to learn something new about something new. And it’s important to know that you are not traveling alone.

I’m truly grateful to be on this journey with you and this community. If you’ll be at CES this week, I’ll see you there! Otherwise…

Enjoy the week! ☮️

ESHAP