Accenture examines trends and strategies for media finance organizations as they adapt to a new way of doing business. https://bit.ly/2XrxSO8

1. The rise of a
new media
finance
organization
September 2021
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2. There are seismic shifts taking place in the media
industry that are redefining what it takes to deliver
results for film/tv content creators.
These changes are directly impacting the future
of media finance, driving finance organizations to
rethink the way they have done business for
decades and reimagine new strategies and
solutions to adapt and succeed for the long-term.

3. Five key trends impacting the media industry
3
01
The remaking
of monetization
02
The explosion
of title counts
03
Data-fueled
competition
04
The pivot to a
D2C- first business
05
Reconstructing
the organization
• Shifting patterns in
content consumption
• Declining theatrical and
home video
• Cord cutting
• The rise of direct-to-
consumer (D2C) models
• Fluid window
strategies
• Rise of mega-studios
from M&A activity
• Increased content
needs for D2C
channels
• Growing importance of
local content for
international markets
• Emergence of short-
form popularity
• Subscriber counts
drive share price
• Acquisition and
retention drive
income
• Creative destruction of
dependable revenue
models
• Growing subscription
fatigue among
consumers
• Future success hinges on
DTC performance
• Inherited business
architecture from
legacy operating
models
• Competitive landscape
demands peak
performance for continual,
rapid decisions
• Customers’
expectations for
curated content
• Fierce competition
for rights acquisition
• Rapid, fluid pricing
decisions for D2C
• Emergence of digital
native media
competitors

4. Impacts to media finance & accounting teams
4
01
The remaking
of monetization
02
The explosion
of title counts
03
Data-fueled
competition
04
The pivot to a
D2C- first business
05
Reconstructing
the organization
• Requires what-if and
scenario modeling
• Ultimates models must
be reimagined
• Closed-loop actuals
integration is no longer a
nice to have
• Experimentation at scale
needed to test new
revenue models
• Manual processes
cannot scale
• Tightly-coupled
systems choke
throughput
• Library acquisitions
require extraordinary
integration efforts
• Significant capex
expense for new
platform rollouts
• New KPIs: customer
lifetime value
• Acquisition costs
throttle pivot to
profitability
• Inflexible systems limit
bundling possibilities
• Revenue streams
trump operating
models
• Requires strategic
decisions to balance
revenue mix
• Decisions made today will
have lasting impacts
• Finance has a shortage of
next-gen skills
• Enhanced intelligence
plays a key role in rights
acquisition
• Finance wrangles
data with no time to
focus on insights
• Traditional media
companies one step
behind digital natives
Disruption
of dependable
revenue models
New models
to increase
revenues
Race to
create and
acquire
content
Scaling
operational
complexity
New entrants
and existing players
fight for content,
viewers, and data
Subscriber counts
drive share price;
companies focus
on retention and
lifetime value
New orgs, expected
to lead the future, sit
upon legacy business
architecture

5. A five-part foundation for the future
5
01
Flexible
technology
platforms
New technologies are
needed to ensure
finance teams can
adapt quickly in an
everchanging
landscape.
Relentless
automation
Reducing manual
processes is key for
future growth.
02 03 04 05
Real-time
insights
The right tools will
enable media finance
teams to advise senior
leaders on business-
changing issues.
Thinking
at scale
To support rapid
growth and
compete against
lean digital natives,
think big and re-
design your
operating model
for maximum
efficiency.
Future-proof
the workforce
Companies need to
upskill their finance
employees to assume
new, and more
strategic, roles and
responsibilities in the
organization.
We have identified five strategies that can help to deliver the most impact for this media finance transformation.
When these approaches are embraced, a whole new set of benefits may kick in for the finance organization:

6. For a deeper dive into this play visit | accenture.com/reset-reinvent-rebound
Benefits within finance & accounting teams
Increased strategic role/contribution of F&A, as team shifts from 70% transactional-focus, to 30% transaction focus
and 70% advisory/analysis/strategic focus.
FP&A treasury:
Ad sales, talent &
licensing finance:
From backward to
forward
Freed from the time-
consuming effort to
understand what costs have
occurred and what cash is
available, these teams can
shift their focus from
backward-looking
collecting to forward-
looking scenario planning.
From tracking to
optimizing
With a simplified process of
gathering & ingesting 3P
production cost updates,
these teams can dig into the
numbers to optimize
spending. This benefits
production teams directly
who can use this knowledge
to streamline their
operations.
From throughput to
accuracy
With automation handling the
tedious processing and revenue
recognition, the team can shift
away from worrying whether all
invoicing and payments can be
generated on time and spend
more time ensuring that the
numbers are accurate and free
of audit risk. Teams can now
also drive value through
optimizing ad inventory yield
and talent/licensing deal
analysis.
Production finance:
Accounting, audit &
tax:
From review to anticipate
These teams ensure
compliance, but, in a world of
disparate and difficult-to-find
data, these teams are often
left reviewing to determine if
past activity was compliant.
Instead, with controls in
place, they can anticipate
compliance risks before they
happen and help remediate
the risk.

7. Beyond finance: Increased impact of
creative teams
7
All-knowing
from rapid analytics to drive
high-ROI acquisition or
greenlighting
X-Ray vision
With simplified production
cost tracking and
benchmarking
See the future
with title profitability analysis to
determine options, say, in or
content licensing or service
pricing or bundling options
Speed
To securing sufficient capital
to market a new series then
tying investments to
viewership results
Development Production
Distribution Marketing

8. John Peters
—
Managing Director, Media &
Entertainment
john.s.peters@accenture.com
Contact
8
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Greg Jensen
—
Managing Director, Media &
Entertainment
gregory.m.jensen@accenture.com