After a year of cost-cutting and extended production shutdowns that left spending below expectations, content spending at major media and technology companies is expected to rebound in 2024.
You Probably Won't Survive 2024… Top 10 Technology Trends
“Rebound” is, of course, a relative term. According to a new forecast from Morgan Stanley, two of the legacy media studios — Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global — will fail to surpass their 2022 spending levels this year, while other companies will see spending grow much more slowly than pre-Great Streaming Correction rates.
For example, Disney is slowing spending growth and limiting the explosive spending seen after the launch of Disney+. The Mouse House has already announced plans to cut content spending to $25 billion for fiscal 2024 (from November 2023 to October 2024, which partly explains the discrepancy in Morgan Stanley’s calendar-year forecast), down from $27 billion in fiscal 2023 and about $30 billion in 2022.
More importantly, content cost dynamics are also undergoing dramatic changes that will only become truly visible next year.
