Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking?

Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive has helped propel Formula 1 back into the US sports consciousness. The push to make F1 more mainstream in the US is not a subtle one; in 2017, US media company Liberty Media purchased the championship and added two glamorous Grand Prixes to the race calendar in Miami and Las Vegas.

The cord-cutting movement is no longer just a fad, it’s a verifiable trend. A trend that will see streaming services overtake traditional services in the next four years. Leagues and teams want their content in front of growing, not shrinking audiences. And streamers need more unique and diverse content offerings to earn subscribers in an increasingly saturated space.

March Madness and Capital One ads are like peanut butter and jelly; every commercial break we see one that involves Charles Barkley, Samuel L. Jackson, and Spike Lee partaking in shenanigans. This year, basketball legend Sue Bird joined them in the fresh crop of commercials. A move that indicates that not only is the WNBA audience growing exponentially, but the league’s stars are also starting to get well-deserved partnership deals.

Daniel Craig’s long run as James Bond came to an end at the end of last year firing up the debates over who should play Bond next. The $7 billion franchise spanning 60 years has a passionate fanbase that is undoubtedly setting its sights on some big names to be the next Bond. In our last blog, we talked about how star-studded blockbuster franchises are currently dominating the screens, making it that much more important to find the best leading man to take the helm.

In just a few years, we’ve seen some significant changes in the movie industry. Shifts from mid-budget star-driven dramas to star-studded blockbuster franchises dominating the screens, and the rise of streaming opened up distribution channels for creators only to have COVID-19 halt new film productions. 

Throw in how nuanced viewership has become with all the content options on the table, and you have a very unpredictable landscape to navigate. So how can you predict the unpredictable? The answer lies in reliable insight into audience behavior and understanding how that behavior evolves over time.