The trade body for UK entertainment retailers and streaming services - ERA - has published a new 'vision document' which sets out to, and I quote, "further drive an entertainment market which has grown over 40% over the past five years to more than £11 billion".
The key to further growth, it reckons, "lies in technology coupled with the passion for entertainment which characterises the sector".
Unveiling the new vision document at ERA's Annual Conference earlier this week, the trade group’s Chair Ben Drury said: "With AI throwing the spotlight on a new generation of technology, it's time to remind ourselves that new technologies are always a net positive for the entertainment industry".
"It's all too easy to forget that streaming, the CD and the vinyl record were new technologies once, and many of the concerns being voiced about AI would be familiar to executives of fifteen, 40 or even 75 years ago", he went on. "Growth in entertainment is a combination of innovation and the passion we all feel for music and video and games".
The new vision document - titled 'What We Stand For' - includes five values, four goals and three principles. Along the way the retailers and streaming services are aiming for collaboration, recognition, fan-focus, sustainability, diversity, choice, efficiency, pragmatism, fairness, transparency, value and service, and the embracing of technology and innovation.
You can figure out for yourself which of those are values, goals and principles. That’ll make for a nice Friday morning quiz, right? Answers in the vision document here!
Concludes Drury: "The digital entertainment and retail sector is the unsung hero of the entertainment business. This document will not only drive our work plan of advocacy and service for digital services and retailers but will also help define us to the outside world, including the musicians, actors, directors and games developers who depend on us to make a living”.