According to PwC’s annual report, Perspectives from the Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, today’s entertainment and media companies must be “fan-centric.” And to remain competitive, they must use technology and data to attract, retain, and engage consumers. Content and distribution remain important factors in monetization and healthy survival rests on a positive user experience. Businesses built on occasional and noncommittal visitors are not likely to succeed.

PwC’s guide to a fan-centric approach:

• Know your fans
  Understand what drives fan loyalty for your brand. Analyze and know the value of different audience or user segments.

• Increase your business agility and flexibility
  Ensure business flexibility to respond faster to new user preferences, new business models, and new technologies

• Monetize your fan relationship
  Build brand extensions to create new revenue opportunities among your passionate fan base.

• Adopt a user-/fan-centric focus
  Super-serve fans and compete in the direct-to-consumer marketplace. Build an end-to-end user experience that includes customer acquisition and retention, personalization, customer service and billing.

PwC also reports that most of the traditional entertainment and media industry, TV advertising, B2B content, and cinema, will decline as a share of the global economy in the next five years. And while digital video and advertising show growth opportunity, it’s at a decelerating rate. In addition, several new content and entertainment businesses — music streaming, e-sports and virtual reality — are just ramping up of which the latter two are not yet mainstream. Therefore, consumer consumption and spending on media and entertainment will not outpace the GDP.

Today’s marketplace presents numerous challenges for media and entertainment businesses. They must manage their current delivery platforms and experiment with new distribution platforms and revenue streams all while remaining consumer-focused across all platforms.