PwC Sees Boost in Entertainment, Media Deal Activity

NEW YORK: Continued demands by consumers to access content anywhere, anytime, will help drive further deal activity in the entertainment, media and communications sector in the U.S., PwC reveals in its latest report.

PwC’s 3rd Quarter U.S. Entertainment, Media & Communications (EMC) Deal Insights survey out today observes a 9-percent boost in deal volume in 2013 so far to 648, following declines in 2011 and 2012. Further, deal value is up 55 percent to $207.2 billion, largely driven by "megadeals" in the broadcasting, telecom and advertising and marketing spheres. Private equity remains active in the EMC space, backing 20 percent of deals this year.

International expansion is also still important, PwC says, but announced deals declined to 126 this year compared with 158 in 2012.

There have been 55 broadcasting deals in the year to date, valued at $25.3 billion. In the motion picture/audiovisual segment, PwC reports 37 deals, valued at $400 million. In cable, there were 13 deals, for a value of $5 billion.

Verizon Communications buying Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless tops the ranking of deals in 2013 thus far, followed by Comcast's purchase of GE's NBCUniversal holdings and Liberty Global's acquisition of Virgin Media. The top ten also includes Liberty's Charter investment and DISH's LightSquared deal.

Looking ahead, PwC notes: "Changes in the way consumers access content and the growth in smart devices propelling a mobile data ‘tsunami’ will continue to drive acquisitions by both corporates and PE. PwC expects this impact to be felt across most EMC subsectors from content creators and digital distributors, to advertisers and mobile network operators."

Operators, the report says, are in need of "innovative, flexible, reliable and cost-effective ways to alleviate their capacity and coverage issues."