2019
Where Will Voiceover Be ONE Year From Now?
We often consider the question - where is voiceover as an industry headed? We are already witnessing monumental changes, and the momentum from this sleeping-giant is likely to keep on going. At this pivotal point in the industry, with relentless advancements in digital marketing; He who dares most certainly wins!
“The monetary value of the global voiceover industry is 3.5 billion pounds. North America currently has the most activity and growth in voiceover work, in the world today.”
Gig economy could be driving down wages!
Researchers at Exeter University have warned the gig economy could be driving down wages in the voiceover industry. Experts have quantified, that an increasing tendency to advertise jobs online could be driving down wages and de-professionalising the UK voiceover industry.
Regrettably, this will only continue to get worse into the future as there will be too many people trying to do voiceovers on the cheap. In particular, social media platforms are playing a major role in producing and funnelling mediocre content, that is forcing rates into the ground.
Different languages are gaining ground, but English is still the most popular language for voiceover.
Demand is steadily rising for varying accents, languages and dialects in the voiceover industry. However, English remains the go-to accent for voiceover work today.
This trend is likely to continue into the foreseeable future, though currently and indirectly, the greatest demand is for a North American, English accent.
Manage as much as possible in-house to stay ahead.
It’s like Marmite! – “You either love it, or you hate it!” But Working from home will likely be the norm for voiceover artists.
The affordable costs of professional-grade equipment and the essential software that is required to produce exceptional audio will be more accessible than ever – By managing when to work and the accumulative savings involved once set-up, voiceover talents will be in a position to offer more for less.
However, It is best not to overlook that voiceover talent will need to become incredibly competent with their new equipment – There will be a lot to learn to remain competitive.
On the plus side, we are living in the information age – The answers and help you will need are readily available at the touch of a button!
Multichannel voiceover opportunities will be everywhere.
The tendency to sit and watch TV without also checking your social media, emails or other attention-grabbing apps is now a thing of the past! Times have changed considerably from when we would only consume one form of entertainment at a time.
Therefore, many brands are now fully aware that consumers need a constant multi-channel experience to feel satisfied and engaged. We can only see this trend gaining traction year on year.
As dystopian as this all sounds, the future is looking very fruitful for the voiceover industry. The opportunity to scale your business and have a successful career has never been so good!
Voiceover takes a new turn toward AI and machine learning.
Machine learning and AI are now being used to market hyper segmented audiences – With Streaming companies at the forefront of applying this technology.
With great success, viewers and listeners are finding their streaming content via their company’s recommendation. Ultimately, this model will refine itself over the next few years, with audiences, generating their own personalised and tailored online channels.
The sure magnitude of content required to appease everyone is a great indication of the health of our industry and its future.
This is yet another example of technology indicating a great sign of things to come for voiceover artists.
A thought-provoking development is underway that could cause ripples in the voiceover industry!
Voice synthesis technology is the process of algorithms, that as of right now, only requires just a minute’s worth of audio to generate a digital voice that sounds a lot like yours!
Although this potentially, industry-changing technology has been hailed in the ether before, researchers from the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms at the Universite de Montreal have indeed excelled.
The technology is called Lyrebird and they say it can come in handy when you want to create a personalised voice assistant, a digital avatar for games, spoken word content for audiobooks or for when you want to preserve the aural likeness of actors.
It is still too early to say exactly, but we decided to give it a go and the results were uncanny! – This big question is, where will this technology take us, and should we be concerned?
To Conclude.
It is essential to keep up with the big changes that are happening in the voiceover industry. To be a lasting and successful voiceover artist, you must be prepared to train frequently, be competitive, and furthermore, be adaptive with your voice.