The growing range of video streaming services available to viewers; demand for internet access and business spend on internet advertising will drive the UK’s entertainment and media sector to grow by £10bn over the next five years.
According to PwC’s latest Global Entertainment & Media (E&M) Outlook 2019-2023 the UK sector will be worth £80bn by 2023, up from the £70bn projected for this year.
Overall, the UK’s E&M sector will grow at a pace of 3.5% per annum and will only be second to Germany in total revenue (within Western Europe).
Mark Maitland, UK head of Entertainment and Media at PwC, said:
“The industry is underpinned by consumer demand for new, high quality content, that is accessible and highly personalisable. Innovation from key industry players (in terms of platforms, technology and business models) continues to stimulate demand. The UK remains a leading market in terms of talent, reputation and innovation, and has seen significant levels of financial investment as a result. All of these factors combined mean that we expect the UK entertainment and media market to continue to grow ahead of the wider economy, at 3.5% p.a. over the next five years.”
Internet advertising is forecast to account for a quarter of all E&M revenue by 2023, generating £20bn in revenue up from £15bn this year, growing at a 9% compound annual growth rate. Mobile will continue to drive this growth and by the end of 2023, revenue from mobile advertising will be more than double (£14bn) that of traditional internet advertising (£6.3bn) and account for nearly three quarters of all internet advertising.
Consumers in the UK are forecast to consume more internet data than any country in Western Europe over the next four years – over 130bn megabytes. It is no surprise then that spend on internet data access will rise from the £14.7bn forecast this year to £17.6bn by 2023. Mobile again dominates spend but fixed broadband is still holding up and is forecast to grow at 2% CAGR.
Virtual reality leads as the fastest growing sector for the third year running, with 20% CAGR forecast over the next four years. While VR gaming leads the way in revenue, VR video is the fastest growing sub-sector and will contribute to the industry as a whole being worth £294m by 2023.
Over-the-top (OTT) video is also forecast for double-digit growth (10.3%), with demand for video streaming services set to continue upwards. Leading this growth is subscription video on demand which is set to grow from over £900m this year to over £1.3bn in the next five years.
