Who Wins When Hollywood Shuts Down?

Television and film productions have been halted to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, theaters have closed their doors. While many TV studios have various series completed and ready to air, a prolonged production suspension could create a dearth of new TV and films in the second half of the year. At the same time, Hollywood's top talent along with other top performers are stuck at home, and many may be itching for a creative outlet. Others may be looking to supplement their income while they're put out of work.

With productions shut down, both talent and consumers may turn to social media to consume more user-generated content. "More of the new content, if staying at home lasts months -- and I think it will -- will come from people and not studios over time," Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, told Dylan Byers in an interview on NBC. Byers suggests that an increase in user-generated material could benefit all players in social media, including Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) (Instagram's parent company), Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube, Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Twitch, and TikTok.

And with most sports also suspended -- one of the biggest sources of ad revenue for television networks -- it could be a perfect storm for accelerating the shift in ad spend to digital video, creating a big win for Facebook and YouTube.

Source Fool.com