In Summary

A new report, TV 2025, conducted by researchers at Swinburne University of Technology, has revealed what the Australian television industry may look like in the future.

By posing a set of 20 questions to 25 senior people from the television industry, program production, telecommunications, IT, online and social media, advertising and other sectors, the researchers were able to see how the television industry may change by 2025.

Interviewees included:

  • the director of television at the ABC, Richard Finlayson;
  • the co-creator and head writer of Offspring, Debra Oswald;
  • Twitter Australia’s head of TV partnerships, Tony Broderick;
  • the CEO of Seven West Media, Tim Worner;
  • a research scientist in Intel’s Experience Group, Tawny Schlieski;
  • the managing director of Telstra’s television division, Ian Davis;
  • Nine Network programming production executive, Courtney Gibson;
  • Screen Australia’s deputy chair Deanne Weir; and
  • Head of AOL Platforms’ Australian team, Mitch Waters.

TV 2025 is an edited narrative of their answers. It reveals their views on the technology trends, organisations and people who will have most influence on television and video in the next few years.

The report also looks at the recent trends in television and video that have most surprised them, as well as how the media choices of ‘millennials’ might change as they age.

Lead researcher, Swinburne Professor Jock Given, said that the report had highlighted a number of trends that may transform the future of the television industry.

“TV is both durable and vulnerable. Some of the questions in the report looked at whether the interviewees’ organisations will still exist in 2025 and what worries them most; and whether the United States will remain the world’s dominant screen culture,” Professor Given said.

The report is published at a critical point for television in Australia, a business that is being transformed by the recent launch of streaming video services Netflix, Stan and Presto into a market already served by other subscription video services, as well as video sharing sites like YouTube.

TV 2025 is the third in a series of reports by Swinburne researchers, that provide diverse intelligence about the future development of the audio-visual industry.

Read an overview of the report.

View and downlaod the full report.