About the Outlook
Understandably, the rebound from Covid restrictions slowed somewhat last year, but this didn’t prevent the Swiss entertainment and media (E&M) industry from posting its second-strongest year of growth in 2022. Revenues were up 3.6% to CHF 17.5 billion.
The next five years, however, will be challenging. Geopolitical tensions and cost of living concerns still dominate consumer-driven industries including E&M, meaning uneven conditions for providers to operate in going forward. But it will also be a time of opportunity. While TV and cinema remain a force in Switzerland and live events still exert an irresistible attraction, entirely new consumer experiences are being made possible by using technologies such as AR, VR and AI. It’s still not clear where this adventure will take us or at precisely what pace, but it will certainly change the entertainment and media landscape.
This year’s report will go into more detail about the outlook for the E&M market in Switzerland until 2027 broken down by 14 segments.
The Swiss Entertainment & Media Outlook in numbers
.5 bn. CHF
entertainment and media revenue
+.2%
growth in VR and AR revenue
- .3%
decline in newspaper and consumer magazine revenue
+.0%
increase in music and radio revenue
1. bn. CHF
video game revenue forecast for 2027
+.5%
increase in cinema revenue
Segment highlights
Generative artificial intelligence
With most companies actively promoting generative artificial intelligence (AI), the uptake of this technology is rapid, especially for writing texts and carrying out research. Segments especially quick to harness its potential include advertising and PR agencies.
Virtual and augmented reality
Last year was a good year for virtual reality and a seismic year for growth in augmented reality revenues. Core hardware issues are being addressed, but a lack of compelling content still places question marks over the establishment of a truly self-sustaining VR ecosystem.
Business-to-business
Notwithstanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trade show industry, Switzerland’s B2B market has been relatively stable. The largest segment, business information, saw growth accelerate to 11.2% in 2022, although this rate will revert to the mean.
Cinema
Cinema admissions are recovering from the pandemic. However, with linguistic fragmentation in Switzerland arguably preventing box office revenue from reaching its full potential, cinema revenues are not expected to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2025.
Consumer books
Printed book revenues continue their slow decline, and even healthy growth in e-book sales and audiobook subscriptions will not be sufficient to make up for this. The book fair business, however, is back after the pandemic and in good health.
Internet access
Switzerland still punches above its weight in the internet access market, making more revenues than some of its larger European neighbours. Unusually, fixed broadband access will remain the main source of internet access revenues in Switzerland throughout the forecast period.
Internet advertising
The internet is the biggest advertising medium in Switzerland, significantly larger than newspapers and consumer magazines. However, growth is beginning to slow as the internet advertising market reaches maturity. The fastest-growing part of the market is mobile video display.
Music and radio
Switzerland’s music and radio market grew 18% year-on-year in 2022. Live music is still a huge draw and continues to recover from its COVID-19 setback. At the same time, digital music streaming continues to draw new subscribers and has a few attractive new features up its sleeve.
Newspapers and magazines
This segment is in decline. A growing e-book and audiobook segment will not be enough to compensate for shrinking revenues from non-digital media. Given the Swiss public’s aversion to paying for news content, there is no improvement in sight, although magazine publishers seem to be more successful than newspapers at minimising their losses.
Out-of-home
Switzerland, the fourth-largest OOH market in Western Europe, has been making a slower comeback from the COVID-19 pandemic owing to its underweight digital out-of-home (DOOH) market. But significant strides were made in 2022.
Over-the-top video
Switzerland’s OTT market (Netflix & Co.) is competitive and nearly saturated, and growth slowed in 2022. Any further expansion is likely to come through households subscribing to multiple platforms or upgrading to premium tiers.
Traditional TV and radio
OTT will continue to put pressure on the pay-TV market, leading to a small decline in subscriptions over the next five years. Even so, pay-TV revenue will remain substantially ahead of OTT by 2027. Physical home video is effectively dead.
TV advertising
Even before the pandemic, Switzerland’s TV advertising market was in decline, as viewers have increasingly shifted to on-demand content and OTT. The decline in TV revenues will continue, despite a boost from major sporting events over the forecast period.
Video games
The rate of growth in revenue from video games is expected to remain steady over the next few years, although it will slow slightly towards the end of the forecast period. Social and casual gaming, the largest segment of Switzerland’s video games market, looks set to generate over double the revenue of traditional gaming by 2027.
“Generative AI is a powerful, hugely disruptive technology with far-reaching implications for the E&M industry. The challenges and risks need to be addressed proactively.”
Bogdan SutterDirector, Strategy and Digital Change Expert, PwC SwitzerlandIn interviews with industry experts
Bakel Walden, SRG
Bakel Walden is Director of Development and Offering at SRG. Together with his team, he focuses on SRG’s interregional activities, like digital transformation and research, in its core business. In the interview, he explains how generative AI can optimise work processes and the impact that this technology will have on how we work.
Timo Grossenbacher, Tamedia
Timo Grossenbacher is Head of Newsroom Automation and leads a team at Tamedia that is focused on automation in journalism. In this interview, he explains how generative AI will change the role of journalism within society and the tasks carried out by journalists.
Lars Holtschmit, Admeira
Lars Holtschmit is Director Marketing and Product Management SRG at Admeira, a partner of SRG and other private media companies in TV marketing. In the interview, he explains how generative AI could change the media industry, from creating optimised services to new marketing opportunities. He also discusses the challenges resulting from this technological transformation.
Executive summary
This overview summarises the most important findings across each of the 14 sectors explored in the Switzerland Entertainment & Media Outlook 2023 report.
Contact us
Bogdan Sutter
Director Advisory, Strategy and Digital Change Expert, Bern, PwC Switzerland
Tel: +41 58 792 77 51
