5 Trends for the Future of Media and Entertainment

While the media and entertainment industry was one of the first industries to address digital disruptions, their transformation is far from over.

This is the main finding from PwC's annual Media & Entertainment Outlook 2018, which estimates that industry revenue will reach $ 792.3 billion by 2022, up from $ 666.9 billion in 2017.
"The differences between print and digital, video games and sports, wireless and fixed Internet access, pay-TV and OTT, and social and traditional media are blurring," said Mark McCaffrey, technology, media and telecommunications leader of PwC in the US. "To be successful in the future, companies need to rethink every aspect of their work and approach. This means that the right technology and premium content can be inexpensively delivered to or accessed by an audience associated with the brand. "

In the following, let's take a look at five industry trends highlighted in the PwC report that are expected to continue to shape the M & E landscape.

Fastest growing revenue segments

Over the five-year period 2017-2022, PwC will see Virtual Reality (VR), Over-the-Top Video (OTT) and Internet Advertising as one of the fastest growing revenues for M & E companies in the US.

The VR market is rapidly turning into an entertainment and productivity platform. In fact, stores such as USA Today, Washington Post and The New York Times are aboard the VR journalism trends. The US is currently the world's leading VR market with sales of $ 1.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 250% over the previous year. By the year 2022, a total volume of $ 7.2 billion is expected.

In the United States, OTT video for media and entertainment (see HBO Go, Hulu, Netflix) generated $ 20.1 billion in revenue in 2017, an increase of 15.2% over the previous year. PwC predicts that growth rates will slow as they become more mature on the market. However, sales in this area are expected to reach $ 30.6 billion in 2022.

In addition, the US continues to lead the global Internet advertising market with total revenues of $ 88 billion in 2017. According to the report, the market will continue to grow over the forecast period, reaching an annualized annual growth rate of 7.7% between 2017 and 2022, reaching $ 127.4 billion.

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Convergence across the industry

Convergence will be a big M & E theme over the next five years, according to PwC.

For example, streaming services, TV companies and social networks are now competing for both conventional sports and electronic sports rights, the report said. In addition, television companies, telecommunications companies, technology companies, OTT operators and film studios compete for the delivery of TV content. Radio stations, podcast companies and streaming services are competing for radio and podcast content. Brands are also on the rise, creating content to appeal to the same audience as M & E companies.

"We see regions converge, convergence of access, and many M & A and transactions aimed at content consolidation and content base growth," McCaffrey said. "There is a lot of emphasis on usability and loyalty as companies try to establish a more direct relationship with content consumers."

5G to develop what content is

Switching to 5G mobile networks will affect telecom operators, but it also changes the possibilities that faster broadband can offer. Just think of T-Mobile's recent acquisition of the broadband video starter Layer3, which will allow the company to launch a 5G-equipped Internet television service in the US.

Sprint, for its part, has already made Hulu available in several packages, which will certainly boost consumption once 5G comes into play. In addition, 5G continues to advance its advances in artificial intelligence, the worldwide adoption of IoT devices, the evolution of virtual and augmented reality, and location-based services. From a content perspective, the opportunities for innovation over the next five years - and beyond - seem limitless.

M & A continues
A ton of mergers and acquisitions made headlines at M & E. Take the approved merger of AT & T and Time Warner worth $ 85.4 billion. And let's not forget Disney's intent to acquire most of 21st Century Fox's assets.

The bigger picture? These deals will set a precedent for future M & E consolidation.

"We expect to see more and more content consolidation in the US as traditional media companies compete for newcomers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Google for market share," said McCaffrey. "And I think the impact of these deals, regardless of the decision, may cause a cascade of events in the industry."

Data usage will continue to increase

PwC expects traffic to increase by 22.3% CAGR over the next five years, reaching 397.8 trillion megabytes by 2022.

PwC attributes the increase in data consumption to the growing consumer demand for video content, which in 2022 will account for 85.6% of total data usage. 5G will contribute to this increase as mentioned above.

Her obsession with celebrities helps scammers to spread spam

Internet fraudsters do virtually anything to gain a foothold on their home computer or mobile device, whether it's a co-worker, creating fake websites for real products to steal credit card information, or issuing malware as a legitimate app. One of their most tried-and-true tricks, though not particularly sophisticated, is highly effective and includes promising nudes or free episodes of shows and films of today's top Hollywood talent.

According to a recent study by security firm McAfee, Alexis Bledel, the star of Gilmore Girls and Handmaid, was voted the most dangerous celebrity in 2019, as these famous characters searched for her on the Internet (and the news of a restart of Gilmore Girls) this year than any other celebrity.

"We rely on our web reputation tool WebAdvisor, which looks at 16 billion Web sites," said Gary Davis, McAfee consumer safety chief, to Engadget. This Windows browser plug-in prevents users from entering URLs incorrectly and blocks access to phishing and spam sites if the user accidentally clicks on a broken link and redirects to safer URLs.

McAfee examines different categories to identify the most dangerous celebrity. "We take the celebrity name with a popular search term that could expose it to a malicious site such as torrents, pirate streaming sites, etc.," Davis said. "'Free' has been a great success because when you look at the top 10 this year, many of these [celebrities] appear on paid services, and those results are then ranked based on the results of our web reputation tool."

In particular, McAfee used the search terms Torrent, Fix Gamble, Free mp3, Nudes, Pirated Download, Sledging and Streaming. Along with the name of the celebrity, the company searched the Internet for matches and searched for popular mobile, PC, and platform games using the Google API Console. McAfee's WebAdviser tool then generated a rating for each domain and URL based on the relative risk to visitors on a scale of -127 to 127, with higher ratings indicating a higher risk. The search for Bledel scored 10.6 points, more than any other celebrity polled.
Better Living Through Entertainment.
In fact, Bledel defeated Late Late Show presenter James Corden, Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner, Pitch Perfect lead actress Anna Kendrick and Lupita Nyong'o, who starred in Us and Little Monsters this year. All of these shows and movies are currently available on one or more streaming services, such as Hulu or HBO. But the people are cheap. Given the prospect of free premium content, the potential dangers of virus infections on the home computer or mobile device can be easily eliminated.

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Of course, not every website is equally dangerous. When you search YouTube for Gilmore Girls clips, you are generally aware. However, if you click on links in the comments sections of these videos that promise access to full episodes or nude images of featured stars, it can be difficult.
"Clicking on this link takes you to a different location, which takes you to the nastier sites," Davis said. "But for YouTube alone, your chances of finding something bad are not very high." The malware encountered on these sites ranges from traditional keyloggers, rootkits, and backdoors to less useful bot programs that are dormant in your system until they are remotely deployable for use with distributed denial-of-service attacks to be activated .

Fortunately, these types of scams are rarely targeted at large or small businesses. "Just because you're not naturally looking for nude pictures of celebrities from your workplace," Davis continued. The whole modern society sincerely hopes that you will not do that either.

While McAfee did not have a demographic breakdown of the types of people looking for this illegal material, Davis points out that children and adolescents are often covered by these programs. This is not necessarily because they are intentionally looking for racy images of famous people, but because they may not have access to the paid streaming service that the content originally came from, and feel that it is a stream ( at least, what they think is it) their only recourse. Davis recommends that parents, guardians, and caregivers get together with their young relatives and explain the need for proper "online hygiene."

But that's just a start. Users should also make sure that both their desktop and mobile operating systems are patched with the latest updates. Enable the built-in antivirus and firewall of your operating system. Windows Defender. If you think you need a more robust online security solution, you can sign up for a subscription-based service like Norton 360. Also have a copy of Malwarebytes ready. This on-demand malware removal tool can be invaluable if you ever slip and infect your system.

You should also use a VPN service to block your Internet traffic - never transmit over an open Wi-Fi connection - and select a password manager such as 1Password or LastPass so you do not reuse the same credentials on every Web site you visit Your entire online ecosystem compromises if this password is compromised. However, the simplest and most cost-effective anti-malware method you can use is a bit of common sense.

Two souls, one body: the rise of convergence entertainment

The interactive adventure game released by French developers Quantic Dream for Sony's Playstation 3 is a mix of both. The actors Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe play with sophisticated motion-capture technology against the background of seemingly endless storylines. It is the player who determines the direction of the narrative.

Welcome to the age of convergence entertainment.

But what do we mean by "convergence entertainment"? It's about bringing two or more media forms, styles, systems, and platforms together to produce entertainment we can all enjoy - and that makes good business sense.
We see this convergence in most of our valued forms of media: television now surpasses cinema in its own game and offers the intellectual, emotional and even visceral experiences normally reserved for big-screen cinema. Can there be anything more "cinematic" than the last season of AMC's Breaking Bad?

Convergence is nothing new as a media logic. However, gambling opens up a courageous and potentially disturbing new world of aesthetic and economic convergences.
It's not hard to see the impact of games on the cinema. The entire production of such a popular filmmaker as Michael Bay lends itself generously to a game sensitivity with its heightened spectacles, formulaic stories and reassuringly familiar character sheets.

And is it so radical to assume that a film like Inception (2010) has a big part in its dramatic impact on the modest platform game? After all, we enter with Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) the virtual dream space, do a predetermined set of tasks (goals) and ascend to the next level.
As the publication of Beyond: Two Souls shows, the future of convergence entertainment promises even more complex integration of media genres and platforms.

Companies such as Sony and Disney are increasingly investing in the full range of entertainment media and investing resources in cinema, television, music, merchandising and the gaming industry.
These multi-faceted entertainment industries are no longer separated by streams of production. Rather, they need a bit here or there to successfully merge the revenue streams.


In the same year, Sony will be the owner of both Elysium (2013), Neill Blomkamp's successor to District 9 (2009), and PS4, which will hit the market next month. a sci-fi movie and a game console.
Rockstar's recently released Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) grossed more than $ 1 billion in the first three days, a timeframe roughly equivalent to the opening weekend of the Studio Tent Pole movie.
Tent Pole releases refer to films that protect a studio from the financial losses of smaller releases that are often available on niche markets. But not even the 20th Century Fox avatar (2009) or Disney's The Avengers (2012) approached GTA V's monetary performance last month.

With such strong economic performance in an increasingly globalized entertainment market, the film industry faces a hard truth: gambling has outpaced the revenue stream movie itself in its myriad of sales streams - movie theater, Blu-ray, DVD, and home entertainment - vendors.
The once modest console game has become a potentially more lucrative art form and commodity than any other in the history of entertainment media. And instead of being a pastime for teens and the inappropriate (a common perception of the ordinary player out there), gaming has the potential to reach the demographically largest audience and speak to a variety of personal and collective fantasies.

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Of course, game developers have strategically used a convergence media ethos to diversify their target markets. It only makes sense that an entertainment product converges with other entertainment products and addresses a range of interests. It helps a complex diversified company like Sony to get their movie buyers excited about the game interface, doubling sales of a Sony product.

Recently, I was on a panel with the visionary leader of Quantic Dream, David Cage, the man and the company behind Beyond: Two Souls. It's an exceptionally ambitious game that offers a dense narrative experience. The powerful stars Elaine Page and Willem Dafoe dominate the billboards. The promotional material looks like any other set of movie posters released by Hollywood studios.
When I talked extensively with Cage, I found that the uniqueness of his vision was essentially based on his search for and commitment to a complex, ingenious convergence of play and cinematic aesthetics. Cage welcomed the description of Beyond: Two Souls as "cinematic gaming".

In his description of the cinema and its long century of development, something was almost awesome; By comparison, gaming is an infant at an early stage of development. Cage is openly committed to games as a new media form without borders.

But as a film scholar, I have strong reservations about how far this convergence can go. I welcome media experiments, and the mass media have gone through exactly this transformation process.
My concern is that the potential of aesthetic convergence be limited by the economic realities of the global entertainment industry. GTA V is a billionaire affirmation of some sort of gaming experience. and an economic return of one billion dollars can rule out other types of experiences.

How many games are there that match the aesthetic and economic standard of GTA V (or any other mass product)?
I asked Cage: Do you think that Gaming Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) could produce a mass cultural experience? Cage's answer? Not for some time.
How can we imagine what will become of games or what will be a gaming experience over the next few decades? All contemporary mass media forms - even and especially games - are shaped by the markets in which they are produced.

This is not to favor one game over another, but to glorify Cage's "Complex Emotional Experience" from Beyond: Two Souls on the visceral gameplay of GTA V. However, it is about projecting the concept of the game experience as open, as it has the ability to reflect the full range of intellectual, emotional, and visceral experiences.
In a sense, cinema has been trying for different results for more than a century.

The use of computers in the entertainment

Computers began as very simple machines for storing and transferring data. Most of these files were text-based reports that were used in a working environment. As technology advanced, computers became more versatile. With the creation of the Internet and faster processors, file sharing and entertainment have become a popular use for personal computers everywhere. Computers have endless uses in the entertainment industry by marketing products directly to users.

Modern computers offer countless entertainment options.

Music

Computers now have almost unlimited access to songs from each artist. Many website services allow users to buy individual tracks or albums directly from their computer. Most record companies use these services to compensate for loss of revenue through illegal downloads. Even if users do not want to buy music, they can stream music from many websites for free, but with advertising. Computers also give many amateur musicians in the music industry the opportunity to record their own music without a professional studio. Computers also allow musicians to create artificial instruments to record, called MIDI instruments.

TV and movies

With the advancement of graphics card and internet speed, movies and streaming television are now available at the click of a mouse. Many website services offer free-to-stream movies for the price of a monthly subscription fee. Some websites even offer free streaming episodes of certain television series with Internet advertising. Newer HD televisions and computers allow you to send your computer's video feed to a full-screen TV. In some cases, users may not even have to pay for cable service or television because all online video content is free.

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Art
Art is something that is available online at any time. Pictures, paintings, poems and more are just a click away. Popular browsers offer special image search options that allow you to quickly browse through art with a single search term. In addition to general usage, computer photo editing and animation programs are also the sources for most movies and professional photos.

Games

Computer games, like all other types of video games, are a fast growing market. However, computer games offer a variety of possibilities. Computers have access to many peripherals such as keyboards, mice, joysticks, controllers, and more. Computer games are also highly customizable because computers can manipulate game files. Examples include creating new layers, characters, or graphics files for specific games. In fact, computers are essential for programming new video games.

Social media entertainment could be the future of the screen industry. So let's not restrict the regulation

Until 2010, the road to success in the screen industry depended on convincing broadcasters and film producers to provide you with airtime or production resources. Nowadays you only need an internet connection and a laptop or a smartphone.

Over the past decade, a new creative industry has emerged called Social Media Entertainment. It's populated by young entertainers and activists you may never have heard of: Hank Green, Casey Neistadt, PewDiePie and Tyler Oakley.

These creators started out as amateurs, but have become media professionals who make money from content they publish on social media platforms. They are setting up their own media brands, building global fan bases and strengthening Australia's profile among young people around the world.

The Australian Government is currently conducting separate research into the future of film and television content in that country and the market effects of digital platforms. Any decisions we make in these areas can affect social media entertainment. Therefore, it is crucial that we understand the industry so that we do not inadvertently strangle it when it is just starting.

The Australian market is growing

Social Media Entertainment came into being shortly after Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2006 - around the same time Twitter and its colleagues in China, Youku and Weibo hit the market.

It can be a lucrative profession. More than three million YouTube creators worldwide earn money from the content they upload. Then there are, among others, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch. The bigger the audience, the more money has to be earned. In 2016, content creators in the US alone earned more than $ 5.9 billion on nine digital and social media platforms.

The majority of highest-paid creators are based in the US, but popular Australian creators are the Van Vuuren, Wengie and SketchShe groups. It is estimated that the number of content creators in Australia has more than doubled in the last 15 years. This increase is almost entirely attributable to 230,000 additional online video content creators entering the industry.

A new revenue model

Social media entertainment is certainly part of the gig economy. It is inherently unstable and has grown tremendously over a ten-year period. But the business models of social media entertainment have changed fundamentally during this time.

Developers have learned how to manage risk by diversifying their offerings in response to platform competition. For example, instead of making money from a single source, such as YouTube's advertising revenue, developers earn revenue from multiple sources, including merchandising, licensing, crowdfunding, and live performances.

One of the biggest changes has been the rise of the "influencer" who makes money with brand integration. For example, when an Instagram star is paid to publish pictures of themselves with a company's product.

Successful developers of social media entertainment operate a model of entrepreneurial action that devotes as much or even more attention to building and maintaining a community of subscribers than actually creating content. These fan communities are so passionate that they follow the creators through thick and thin. And the feedback is real-time, constant, full and often confronted. This includes negatives such as trolling.

Each type of revenue model in this practice depends on community support. Mainstream art, cultural and canvas industries with all their lectures to build up an audience have a lot to learn from the creators.

Of course that costs a lot of work. Creators often upload content several times a week, create and maintain their communities, address the vagaries of algorithms, and manage their authenticity with sophisticated brands and even more sophisticated communities. Nevertheless, they enter the industry by the thousands.

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A new kind of engagement

It's premiere to promote social media entertainment in the same category as traditional entertainment formats, such as film, television, print and radio - all of which are subject to Australian content regulation or receive public subsidy. Nevertheless, there's a lot for industry, policymakers and regulators to get their heads around.

One difficulty is to draw the line between amateur creators and professionals, which is not always clear. Taste and quality are always in the eye of the party when it comes to screen content. But to be useful for policy makers, debates about quality needs. It's not just about the quality of the content, but the quality and diversity of engagement.

The younger generation has largely switched off from linear television. But these young people, from eight to 22 years of age, make up a huge video market - around 20% of the Australian population.

Social media entertainment engages this demographic. It also provides production and career building opportunity for new voices. That includes young, culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse creators and audiences.

And there is a lot of social innovation practice going on. For example, Nerdfighters is a global community of young people that jump around a YouTube video series. Several thousand Australians are nerdfighters, who often get together in real life to support each other.

Greater than many mainstream screen work. So it's a mistake to perpetuate the "us professionals" versus "them amateurs" line, even if, for regulatory purposes, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Supporting content creators

There has been a great deal of movement around the globe, broadcasting and supporting arts media for social media entertainment. And support and enablement programs in this arena can afford to be more responsive and experimental due to much lower production costs.

In 2016, RackaRacka, run out of Adelaide by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, were beneficiaries of the Skip Ahead program. By then, their work making action packed videos full of choreographed fight scenes, comic violence, and pop culture. Their Marvel VS DC video alone boasted some 37 million views (it now has nearly 60 million).

Graeme Mason, the CEO of Screen Australia, has described RackaRacka as Australia's most successful content creators, and they were rated 5th on Australia's Cultural Power Index in 2017, ahead of screen icon, Nicole Kidman.

How social media regulation could hurt

The big digital platforms that have been created have a provocative influence in the Australian communications and cultural policy space, to say the least. We have now entered a new era of potential regulatory oversight of the platforms.

While it's clear that it might well be on social media entertainment.

Let's not forget the "adpocalypse" and its unintended, but very unfortunate, consequences. In 2017, the revenue streams of numerous creators were lost when Google and Facebook changed the rules. They were made in response to some of their major ads.

RackaRacka's content is caught in the adpocalypse. They are now in Los Angeles pursuing international opportunities.

Policymakers should tread carefully

The rapid response of the platforms, the seemingly minor policy decisions, the widespread detrimental effects on this nascent industry, and the people driving it.

In media policy, we need better demand-side In-screen support policy, we need more attention to business model innovation, some of which must be modeled on social media entertainment.

We must take these creators seriously. With better recognition and support, the new voices found in social media entertainment.

Let me entertain you - so you can convey a scientific message

Informing the public about science can be difficult. Climate change is the most notorious example, but public debates about vaccines and evolution have also revealed a lack of understanding of how the public deals with science.

The old way of science communication was called a "deficit model". It's the idea that the public has a lack of understanding, so experts just have to provide them with more facts.

If we look at the example of climate change, it is now clear that a closer understanding of the subject does not lead one to believe more in man-made climate change.

However, scientists still prefer to focus on facts and describe science more accurately than to other communication strategies, such as:

The concept of framing assumes that the facts unfortunately do not speak for themselves.

However, there are some encouraging signs of a more skillful approach involving the public into science, which creates a sense of wonderment.

Festivals can help

The World Science Festival Brisbane this week is a great example of how science can make a difference that draws the public's attention.

The festival took place in the second year of 2016 and attracted around 120,000 people on five days in March. To put this into perspective, there were two major sporting events in Brisbane over the same period - a NRL game with the Broncos and an A-League game for the Roar - with a total of 51,122 participants.

The festival has obviously done something right to attract such a large audience.

How does it do it? The festival offers a solid portion of fine art and live theater as well as children's entertainment events. The goal is to connect to the already existing cultural identities of the people.

People want their identity to be confirmed and not questioned, and the festival offers them music, local culture, food events and the kind of activities they already like. This is partly achieved simply by hosting events that place entertainment first, science second.

Of course, the festival is not alone and there are many other examples of entertainment-oriented science communication. These range from better-performing science exhibits in museums to YouTube channels to webcomics.

If Hollywood does it right

The traditional media also play a role in understanding science better, though we are still waiting for ABC to replace Catalyst.

But film and television can help as long as they bring science to the point - or at least as close as it is known at the time of production.

This is something the science festival has tapped with screenings of several popular films, including the 2014 film Interstellar, which is certainly science fiction.

Interstellar director Christopher Nolan hired physicist Kip Thorne as scientific advisor. The scientific references of Thorne are impeccable. Among many other contributions to theoretical physics, he was one of the main scientists responsible for the project at LIGO, which discovered gravitational waves last year.

Thorne worked closely with Nolan to make sure that the science in the film was at least plausible according to current knowledge. He even wrote a book about the science of film.

Interstellar is a great example of how science communication can be packaged in a less direct way. It is scientifically sound and its action involves a catastrophic climate change that will take place on Earth in the near future.

The film has been seen by tens of millions of people, making it a potentially strong ally in efforts to raise public awareness of the risks of climate change.

Another film shown at the festival is the time travel directed by Terrence Malick. This is a wondrous exploration of nature, from the birth of the cosmos to the end of time.

The film, poetically narrated by Cate Blanchett, is partly documentary, partly spiritual meditation. It's obvious that it was not produced by old-school science communicators.

It is especially encouraging because it comes from a more socially conservative director. However, the film is still based on modern knowledge of cosmology and evolutionary theory.

It has the potential to appeal to new audiences at a level that traditional communication efforts can not.

Of course, science is not always right in Hollywood and there are many examples of how films are wrong.

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What science can learn from entertainment

If scientists want to entertain an audience, they may need to learn more from the world of entertainment.

The founder of the World Science Festival is Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist and popular author. Among popular science writers, Greene is recognized almost everywhere as a master of teaching very difficult ideas in accessible writings.

This may come as no surprise when one learns that he is from a variety of variety artists and clearly has a theatrical edge. His efforts to combine science communication with entertainment are just one step towards a more sophisticated way of reaching the public.

Greene has not evaded the most difficult issues of modern physics, such as the strangest results of quantum measurement and its confusing interpretations. But his books are still mainly aimed at people who are already receptive to science.

His move to the cultural scene with the annual science festivals in Brisbane and New York thus signals an awareness of the greater problem of developing scientific evidence among other populations.

In a world of entertainment around the clock, art, sports and politics are the poorest

In the past, entertainment was a vehicle for meaningful activity, such as a ritual or a ceremony. More recently, it has been associated with pleasure or distraction in accordance with the French concept of divertissement.

Earlier, the entertainment buzzed and caused the background noise of our lives. Nowadays it has come to the fore. We live in a "sensurround", surrounded by billions of information - audio, video, graphics, facts, fiction - distributed on algorithmically generated social media formats, played on devices of ever smaller size, via traditional platforms such as radio, television be laid and cinema.

This transformation has been driven by a rapid monetization of human activity: entertainment makes money. But the process has meant that human activity has been freed of much of its non-financial importance. In sports, art, and politics, we see the physical absence of community, human expressions without real emotion, and the rise of fake news about the truth.e

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Sports

Take cricket, for example. I used to like cricket. But now I can not follow that at all. God knows how the players keep up. Fairfax journalist Greg Baum recently wrote an article introducing an imaginary emerging Australian cricketer to how the game is being played. It was surreal. Pink balls, less pink balls, white balls, red balls. Follow the bouncing balls through a variety of formats. Big bash. Twenty twenty. One day. Test games.

Cricket suffers from an identity crisis because it has forgotten that the biggest attraction is the game itself. A batsman offensively or defensively negotiates the efforts of a bowler with various inclinations - spin, off and leg - and speeds - fast, medium and slow. It is a very simple contest between strength, skill and hand-to-eye coordination.

However, in the past decade, all sorts of gimmicks and novelties have been introduced to take advantage of income streams across multiple platforms. Cricket is no longer a live game you can enjoy, but a mediated conversation played in virtually empty arenas around the world. The crack of the leather in the pasture hardly resonates in the absence of a real community.

Cricket is not the only sport that loses itself.

Australia's national football game AFL has declared 2015 the Year of the Fans, to counteract the decline in attendance and dizzying interest. The previous administration had tried almost everything to increase its profit margins - from the hint of gambling in the angles and angles of the viewer's experience to the obsession of changing the rules of the game and tinkering with the fixture to make it "fan friendly" , ,

This government clearly had an eye on the culture of wealth creation in the NFL, American football, which seems to be a game for the uninitiated, invented as a pretext for the promotional sponsorship complex that characterizes the US corporate sector. Only in a highlight package can a viewer read the dramaturgy of the NFL. His operating system - the Playbook - is completely obscured by the associated entertainment utensils.

In sport, the elements that give meaning, the actual game, the way it is performed, and the relationships and interactions with the viewers and the wider community. Sport shares this performative dynamic with art.

The arts

In 2010, when the Dutch art sector was decimated by funding cuts of nearly 20%, some Western European critics were not surprised. They claimed that a move away from art towards instrumentalization and entertainment led to such decisions. The argument is that art gives ground to the needs of entertainment, and in the end, one has fast-food culture. McCulture. The desire to be "relevant", "economically sustainable", "viable", "agile" and "innovative" results in lamb mutton dressing up.

The absolute buy-in of the art in the market carries the danger that the meaning of the art is destroyed. Works of art are "cultural products", "cultural goods", which are presented in "blockbusters" and "spectacles". The art lies in the packaging, the hype, the excitation factor. Content is peripheral. There is only frosting, no cake.

A culture that sees art as elite and entertainment as populism drives that attitude. But it defies the real differences that the arts have - they celebrate the ability of the human mind to transform everyday life into a profound common meaning, to overcome adversity, to conceive and create new futures - along with our soul.

It's enough to feel good. It is even better if you do not feel anything. Art is like the game reduced to spectacle.

Politics

In politics, however, the consequences of entertainment are the most dangerous. As the progressive commentary tries to disband after the election of Donald Trump, there is a wild irony in his inability to understand the broader context in which his "politics" takes place.

Trump's victory has as much to do with his populist appeal in a political context as with his understanding of the US presidential campaign as "entertainment." Since the Nixon-Kennedy debate of 1960, the presidential campaign has slowly developed from the key to the country's democratic process into four-year long-term entertainment.

By the time the US Election 2016 reality TV show started, the difference between the democratic process and "entertainment" had become indivisible for many in the US electorate. The democratic process was the entertainment.

An American presidential campaign is no longer about picking the best candidate, but about creating a narrative that voters can join - in Trump's case, a heroic outsider who overcomes the overwhelming odds.

A successful product and producer in the entertainment industry - not least a reality TV star - has always been able to convince US voters to vote for an actual politician.

It was an all too subtle distinction for the makers of the campaign "show" - the mainstream complex of American political media. They have lost control of the narrative and launched a new long-form entertainment in which American democracy maintains the very real possibility of posing as a "perpetrator and victim" in its own snuff film.

Well, that's entertainment.

The entertainment is no longer a spectacle that can only be enjoyed on a grand scale. It is an integral part of our daily lives. It is one way to live. More than that, it's a way of seeing the world. The question is: is this the world we want to see?