Part of the CineGouna's Bridge activities, a panel discussion was held yesterday at the TU Berlin University's Audimax Hall titled ‘Digital Media in the Wake of a Global Pandemic' highlighting the impact of covid-19 on media companies and the industry as a whole. The panel was aimed at discussing how the industry managed to survive the crisis while other media platforms grew larger than expected and how, on the downside, the pandemic had a negative impact on businesses like advertising agencies. The panel was moderated by founder and CEO of DigiSay Ahmed Abbas and the participants were; Vice Media's President of International and Global Chief Revenue Officer Dominic Delport, co-founder and CEO of Minly Tarek Hosny, executive and content developer Jakob Mejlhede and Strategic Partner manager for Media Publishers of Facebook, in the MENA Region, Moon Baz. The panelists shared data saying that while Netflix has 16 million users all over the world, Zoom was the actual hero of the pandemic, successfully connecting people who couldn't physically meet. This added 8 billion dollars to their assets while the Shahid platform managed to attract more subscribers than ever. Media companies saw an accelerated growth that in normal times would have taken a much longer time. Streaming has been the hero in the quest of entertainment during the pandemic, for example, Shahid focused on expanding their content base to meet the expectations of their audience. They accomplished this by producing their own original series and in a parallel line bringing in some remarkable external content to keep the balance of providing diverse content on their platform. Meanwhile, the gaming industry was also one of the most successful industries, during the pandemic, with the development of integrating between gaming and content that created a community. On the other side, Facebook has been focusing on providing credible information regarding covid-19, through its Facebook safety centre where there is updated information. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture
