The new decade has already got off to an interesting start in the media industry and the pace of change shows no sign of slowing down, with Hulu, Canvas, Sky's 3D service, the Amazon Kindle and paywalls in the national press all set to make their UK debut this year.
The challenge for media companies will be how to keep up with the changes in consumers' media consumption as new technologies come on the market, and then adapting their business models to extract the maximum revenue from their customer base. Here, Gavin Mann, digital lead at Accenture's media division, lists the top five trends that will shape the commercial media industry in 2010.
1) Direct to consumer selling
"This year, content owners must invest heavily in selling products directly to customers and building relationships with consumers, as the Times+ membership scheme and music companies selling tracks direct from artists' websites have done.
Our research with 105 senior media executives shows customer data is very slight - we haven't yet reached a stable, steady state. Media chief executives believe customer data will give them a competitive advantage but they don't think they are leading the market, so this indicates a lot of effort will be made in this area."
2) Video
"Video plays out on two fronts. First, there is a drive towards a higher quality experience, such as 3D and HD. Secondly, there will be significant investment in higher availability of lower-quality experience, whether this is increased ramp-up of iPlayer-like technology or Canvas-like services. The focus will be enabling consumers to watch what they want, when they want it, and there will be a rush to own that experience.
On the 3D side, gamers will drive the uptake of 3D boxes because the concept of playing a game in 3D on a large TV will be a huge leap in quality of experience. It is unlikely to be driven by consumers rushing out to buy a 3D TV because they will still be waiting for their upgrade to HD to show promise."
3) Internet on your TV
"Ten years ago we were promised internet on the TV, but it hasn't come through yet because the experience is too clunky - how do you get a keyboard into the living room? The interesting analogy here is that five years ago, almost everyone said internet on the mobile would never happen, but apps changed all that: you are using the internet but not in the same interface.
"So we will see a huge increase in apps for the TV. Many of the apps popular on the iPhone will transpose to TV relatively easily, for example a weather app that pops up in the corner of your screen.
"Once this shift happens it will happen very fast - just as it did with apps on the mobile phone. Any console that gives you internet connectivity in the back of your TV will be able to offer this service - such as Xboxes, PlayStation and the Wii - and we will see more and more of these launching, such as Canvas and Sky's HD box.
"It is about making it relevant for the consumer. People don't want a keyboard in their lounge, but you can easily imagine having nine icons arranged on your TV and using your remote control to click through them, as you do on your iPhone.
"Looking even further ahead, voice-activated search and controlling TV viewing via hand movements could become common: anything that allows you to access new things on your TV without a keyboard. Voice-activated technology will start to become widespread on mobiles, led by Google, and that could also happen in TV."
4) E-readers and tablets
"The market will start by digitising books but it will move into any content you can read in an electronic fashion. Newspapers will move onto e-readers this year, by putting their apps on e-reader devices. Two years ago, an avid book reader would not have chosen to read a book on a digital device. But now they say the experience is like reading a book, because of the way the e-ink technology works.
"Consumers will start to see new forms of content coming out - for example I could buy the diving section of all the Lonely Planet guides. As in the music industry, publishers will be able to modularise content; they will divide the book into sub-sections and create new publications, based on existing content.
"Since the CES trade show in Las Vegas earlier this month, a huge number of new devices have launched. Apple will launch a device and that will be the one that everyone wants, because it will be marketed in the right way.
"The Sony e-reader is already on the market in the UK, and the Amazon Kindle - currently available from the States with a US sim card - will launch a European version this year. There will be all sorts of devices but the people who can package the technology and the content into a meaningful end-to-end experience will be the ones who will win."
5) The battle of the business models
"All three principal business models - ad-funded, subscription and pay-per-play - will have a part to play, because different consumers prefer different models. The fact you can go to market with all three is a benefit, because it allows you to deliver the maximum value and extract the maximum revenue from your consumer base.
"Media businesses must be able to support all these business models, really understand their consumer segments, deliver the right models to the right people, and be very clever about how they price it. Hybrid models - such as freemium, the hybrid of free and paid-for - will be very popular as things play out. Some people will stop at the free content and be happy; others will pay to see the additional content.
"But paid-for is a very difficult model. It is a significant barrier to entry for any consumer to sign up for a new experience, so you need to get them hooked first. The Spotify model is interesting, because it builds up a base of people who start to love and get used to the service, then markets to them continuously to upgrade to the paid service.
"Any content that is scarce enough, has a high journalistic quality and an existing physical user base can move direct to pay."