Entertainment Is Essential in Our Always-Streaming World
As advances in streaming video have made premium on-demand entertainment easier to come by, it's also made entertainment more vital. The Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity opens today, and that's a good time to highlight survey results from French advertising and PR company Havas Group and Cannes Lion on the changing role of entertainment.
After surveying over 17,000 people in 37 counties, Havas found that 83% say entertainment is a vital need. Among prosumers—defined here as leading-edge influencers and market drivers—that rises to 92%.
Entertainment is so prevalent nowadays that we can't tolerate boredom: 6 in 10 said they can't stand still without consuming some type of content, while 56% will sacrifice sleep to binge watch a show they really like. What's more, 37% say they can't live without Netflix.
All this entertainment, however, just leaves us wanting more. The more we consume, the more we crave, Havas says. Around 60% of those surveyed want our schools and jobs to be more entertaining, while over a third say hospitals and retirement homes should offer more entertainment.
It sounds like entertainment is like sugar in a diet, since it just leaves us as hungry as before, but the survey says it's not all empty calories: 93% of those surveyed say entertainment is more meaningful when it has a long-lasting impact, and 88% say entertainment needs to empower and educate. Additionally, 88% believe that entertainment can bring people from different cultures together.
So remember that as we celebrate the next great codec or encoding advancement: The streaming video industry isn't just delivering content in a more efficient way; it's also enriching lives and maybe even creating understanding between different countries. We're streaming for a better world.
With that said, don’t feel guilty about staying home to binge watch the next must-see series. But please, don't lose any sleep over it.
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