If anyone gathered last week at the annual Hollywood Professional Association Tech Retreat expected Jeff Rosica to make what was likely his last speech as CEO of Avid a muted goodbye, they were sorely mistaken.
"I think we're at the edge of a disastrous time if we aren't careful," he warned a crowd of about 700 in a Feb. 22 address at the annual confab, held at the Westin Rancho Mirage outside Palm Springs. "As leaders and stakeholders, we've got to work together like we never have before to fix what I think is a growing industrywide mess."
Speaking with a blunt candor befitting a decades-long member of the HPA community with one foot out the door of one of its top jobs, Rosica offered a data-packed assessment of the industry punctuated with a counterintuitive conclusion: AI cannot be simply feared as a job stealer.
"I'm not afraid of it taking anybody's jobs away," Rosica said. "We have to take away work to get efficiencies so that people can do more."
The observations were stunning coming from the head of Avid, the postproduction tech developer behind leading tools such as the Media Composer editing system and Pro Tools audio software. Last fall, days after Avid was acquired for $1.4 billion by an affiliate of private equity firm STG, the veteran revealed plans to retire in the first half of 2024.
Rosica is in the process of winding down and working toward the transition as Avid chooses its new chief executive. He joined the company in 2013 and was elevated to president in 2016 and CEO in early 2018 after then CEO Louis Hernandez Jr. was terminated for what Avid described as "violations of company policies related to workplace conduct." Earlier, he had held various roles at broadcast equipment manufacturer Grass Valley and the digital video unit of Philips Electronics.
While the industry has navigated massive technology transitions in the past, such as analog to digital, Rosica believes the level of change that exists today is without precedent, citing a perfect storm of conditions ranging from technology (notably, artificial intelligence) and business models (the creation, distribution and monetization of content) to operating procedures (a shift from familiar workflows) and pressures on the overall ecosystem.
"I'm going to bet there are more technology shifts going on today than all of the other technology shifts that have happened in our industry in the last 50 years," he asserted.
With contract negotiations between IATSE and AMPTP set to begin the first week of March, Rosica also took a moment to express his hope that organizational leaders will find a way to avoid another strike.
"We've got to find a way to get there without work stoppage again," he warned. "That almost killed the ecosystem in our industry, and it's still teetering because of it. We have to be careful. It will damage this business, and it will take a decade to rebuild what we spent decades building."
Rosica was bullish on the video-stream business but noted that Hollywood should take lessons from the music industry, pointing to how its revenue started to slide with the introduction of services such as Napster and iTunes and models based on à la carte pricing.
Citing IFPI global music industry revenue data, he noted how streaming ultimately salvaged a business that once depended on physical media. "The good news is it recovered, but it took 22 years," Rosica said. "Let's not make those painful mistakes."
He shared another chart, created by Avid with data compiled from other sources, indicating the media industry's primary revenue streams. Looking ahead, Rosica forecasted that by 2028 global media revenue could climb to $599 billion, with nearly half of that coming from streaming, which would grow by 17.1%, while cinema would increase by 6.3% and TV advertising by 0.4%. He predicted the cable/pay TV and physical media businesses would continue to contract.
Shifting the subject to innovation in tech and workflows, Rosica asserted that the community needs to align and prioritize around efficiencies. "For an industry of this size, especially for the media tech suppliers, we're asking for far too much."
Moving to the cloud, virtualization and the use of AI can all contribute in terms of costs and efficiencies, he added.
VIP+ Explores Gen AI From All Angles — Pick a Story
On what he sees as an important role for AI, Rosica said, "We have to get more efficient. We don't have enough people to keep up with the content requirements that the world demands. We have to find new ways to get it done.
Our industry has proven one thing—when you give it new technology, it will find a way to use that technology to create better stories and better storytelling. I think we shouldn't fear it. I think we should embrace it — because we need it."
The exec encouraged the community to resist the appeal of bespoke workflows and embrace standardization, making the work of industry think tanks and standards bodies such as the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers all the more vital. "Preserving common workflows is crucial, or things get exponentially more difficult for us," he warned.
Still, Rosica concluded on a bright note, putting forth the belief that the community can "unbreak" the industry" and "build something better for our future."
Now dig into a data-fueled VIP+ subscriber report ...
No comments:
Post a Comment