The impact of Covid-19 has affected not only the lives of people but also the global economy. Due to the pandemic situation, everyone begins to work under technical and digital influence. Nevertheless, our association, MDCA, has held a virtual zoom meeting regarding the encounters of content creators under the topic, “The Struggles and its attempts of Individual Content Creators during Covid-19”, together with the panelists who are already professional and experienced in the respective fields to discuss briefly about the topic.

         The panelists we invited are from content creating industries. The first panelist is Mr.Win Khine, the CEO of Mahar mobile streaming app which is the first online movie in Myanmar. Padamyar K Khine, Ruby, is the descendant of the Great Po Sein; a legendary performer who took the leading role at Myanmar Theatrical Industry. The third one calls for Nay Htoo Naing who was a distinct actor in Myanmar with over 20 years of experience in the field of acting since the beginning of his career in 1999. Mr. Myat Min is from the Myanmar Music Association who is the Music Director and Executive Director of the association. Mr.Zaw Win Htut is the CEO and Director of Music Hub and has gained tons of experiences in Music, Entertainment and other business industries for almost over 20 years. Last but not least, Ms.Phyu Phway as a facilitator is responsible as Manager at Content Hub Services which is mainly focus on providing content services to operator related business.

       First and foremost, our panelists declared the situations of the content creators before and after the Covid-19 outbreak. When discussing about the performances of the respective industry, one of our panelists from movie industry pointed out that it was finally time to transform the platform to advance every industry in its own way. Despite of that, we can take advantage of this virus in a positive way by preparing the things to do in advance after this pandemic period. The movie industry has been running regularly before Covid hit seriously. For the Thabin industry, the troupers used to visit tour around Myanmar, stream live and always keep in touch with the public. They were still in conversation with the Thabin BOD to create data banks in order to record the streaming lives and to rewatch the shows.

          The music industry was running with the regular processes. Some people do the entertaining, some prepare for the Thingyan Festival, and some focus on the recording and production. Moreover, they were trying to enhance the music industry by emphasizing on copyrights and to be a more systematic industry. Everything is accelerating steadily until Covid-19 appeared suddenly.

          And then, every single business including movie, thabin and music industries pause because of the virus. The community is starting to use the digital platforms during the stay- home period. Even the government updates the news on internet and social media rather than the traditional ways. Therefore, they have to work to entertain the people especially in this pandemic. Singers and actors use social media apps such as Facebook to keep in touch with the people. Some singers compose news songs on their own, send the draft to the producers and they release the new tastes of music to please the people.

          From the view of movie industry, we still need to boost up the new normal style of movie production. Since we cannot meet in crowds, the producers have the problem of making new films. So, the only thing they could do is preparing for the after-situation of Covid and the channels and apps had better update new movies and old movies as well to run the movie industry regularly. The panelist form the movie content creator industry also revealed that they also upload over 2,000 movies on their digital platform. Additionally, they donate the free movies along with the codes they send to people through operators.

          The struggles for Thabin are worse than the rest two industries. Since the tours and shows of the troupers have the direct contact with the audience, they are having a serious problem these days. Some already prepare for the new normal way of entertaining people by making virtual shows on Facebook with close and private groups. Moreover, some of the heads create the internal close groups and give trainings to troupers. So, they are testing virtual shows to know whether it is convenient or not, they will ask feedbacks and check the viewership. This can lead to increase the engagement between the audience and artists.

         It is such a relief that everyone is taking advantages of the use of technical and digital platforms. But traditional content creators are lack of knowledge about the modernized technical usage since most of them are adults and still need to learn more about the digital platforms with the help of youths. Therefore, content creators have to plan for the upcoming situations by preparing the contents and data so that they could be able to confront the unexpected conditions and need to put effort in generating new contents.

       In conclusion, the users and subscribers of digital and streaming platform increase from 9% to 47% during this pandemic situation according to the research. From the flip side of the coin, it is great we can see that our country is developing digitally. We all hope Music, Thabin and Movie industries will function systematically if the individual content creators can take benefits of this pandemic outbreak by preparing for new normal life.