ANALYSIS: METAVERSE How the broadcast and media industry can innovate content with metaverse

Broadcasters can leverage the metaverse’s success to deepen engagement with their audience.

In a utopian future, billions of people inhabit immersive digital environments, spending most of their time working, socialising, and playing games inside virtual and augmented worlds. If you were thinking of an imagined world out of a fictional novel, think again. Instead, the above describes the metaverse vision of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, who declared in 2021, “Metaverse isn’t a thing a company builds. It’s the next chapter of the internet overall.”

Since that proclamation however, the story has made for grim reading for Zuckerberg, with Meta continuing to lose billions of dollars on metaverse investments. Yet, it may not be all doom and gloom for the metaverse, which could be a US$800 billion-dollar industry by 2024, research by Bloomberg in 2021 predicted.

Citing this figure in a new white paper, Access Partnership, a public policy firm dedicated to opening markets for technology, wrote, “The metaverse has the potential to facilitate accessibility from the comfort of people’s homes, breaking down boundaries and democratising access to key goods, services, knowledge, and experiences.”

Bondee, a new social networking app created by Singapore-based company Metadream Tech, for instance, is taking Asia by storm. In a metaverse setting, users can create 3D avatars to stimulate living and interacting in a digital community with friends.

Can the broadcast and media industry emulate the success of platforms like Bondee to introduce new content and strengthen relationships with their audience?

While the white paper by Access Partnership looked at the possible use cases the metaverse can offer — primarily from a virtual reality (VR) perspective — in the areas of healthcare, enterprise, and education, it is clear that the jury is still out on the metaverse from a broadcast and media perspective. While not dismissing the potential offered by metaverse offhand,

Dr Ahmad Zaki

Mohd Salleh, Director of Technical Operations, Media Prima, asked, “Can the metaverse improve my ROI?”

Examining the application of the metaverse through the lenses of augmented reality (AR) and VR, Dr Zaki told APB+, “From a cost perspective, AR and VR will reduce basic production costs for building sets and props. The turnaround time for studio usage will also improve because if studios are all based on green screens and virtual sets, back-to-back production can be carried out, improving studio utilisation and shortening production time.

“AR and VR will also bring new opportunities for sponsorships because sponsors can now advertise their products without facing the difficulty of actually bringing in the products. For example, car manufacturers can advertise their vehicles in virtual studios and property agents can conduct virtual tours of their real estate.” On the other end of the scale, Dr Zaki highlighted the cost of procuring the hardware and software required to produce AR and VR elements in studios, while reminding broadcasters that technology is only as good or bad as the people using it.

He continued, “Any implementation of new technology must come with new skills and understanding. It will not be advantageous for anyone to acquire new technologies without providing the skills training and development for producers and artists. “Investing in new technologies must be done with a clear and rational consideration and the ROI needs to be well understood.”

To fully harness the power of the metaverse, interactivity will be key as broadcasters take advantage of metaverse technologies to build relationships, particularly with younger viewers, said Stan Moote, CTO of IABM.

Speaking with Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+, he explained, “The potential for more viewership is strong and there are several revenue streams related to the metaverse. To better appreciate this, the key is to understand the drivers behind potential younger viewers.”

“It isn’t about the metaverse specifically. Instead, it’s about wanting to be in a group or community with their friends. Pandemic lockdowns were actually a stronger driver that took hanging out together online to a much higher level beyond gaming,” he added.

Operating in the metaverse will also require broadcasters to think of more interactive ways of telling stories, as Moote described, “Broadcasting is typically made for passive watching, so a new type of storytelling is needed in the 3D space.”

He was quick to distance this “3D space” from the brief sojourn 3DTV enjoyed in the consciousness of