Globalizing media industry set to see new locations due to Covid-19: Savills

Los Angeles, New York, and London top Savills first ‘Media Cities’ ranking, examining the key cities around the world where films, television, and music are produced, edited and consumed. Atlanta, Beijing, Mumbai (the home of Bollywood), and Paris are just outside the top three, but new challenger locations are also quickly establishing themselves, says Savills, as audiences embrace content not produced in their native languages and the industry becomes increasingly globalized and democratized through the use of technology.

Lagos, Buenos Aires, and Dublin, currently ranked 20th, 17th, and 16th respectively, are some of the cities highlighted by Savills as likely to rise up the ranks in the coming years. Looking longer-term the international real estate advisor references Singapore; Cape Town; Albuquerque, US; Manchester, UK; and Changsha, Hengdian, and Xiangshan in China as locations not yet ranked, but which are likely to benefit from the expanding globalized landscape in the coming years.

With continuing Covid-19 restrictions making it hard to consume media and cultural content live, consumers have increasingly turned to streaming services, accelerating a trend long underway, says Savills. As a result, productions which used to be considered too regional or niche can now be viewed by increasingly global audiences who previously might not have been exposed to some of this content – so-called ‘K-Dramas’ being streamed on many non-Korean speaking versions of Netflix, for instance – which will diversify production to areas outside the traditional core media cities, according to Savills.

“Films and television programs are produced in Poland almost exclusively for the local market. As a result, Poland can hardly compete with the world’s film industry capitals. In addition to television broadcasters and producers of feature films, there are also many smaller studios that produce commercials, content for leading online talents, and increasingly popular professional webinars. As streaming platforms continue to grow, it is likely that they will be looking for places to locate global shared services centers – this is an area where Poland has been valued by tech companies for years,” Jarosław Pilch, Head of Tenant Representation, Office Agency, Savills Poland, said.

(WBJ)