In August Google announced its new Google TV Streamer device along with feature updates for all Google TV devices. To learn more about all of this, Rob Caruso, who leads product management and user experience for Google TV, joins us for an in-depth Q&A.

Rob is especially excited about two features: smart home integration and deeper integration with Google Photos. The former is an extension of the controls in the Google Home app. The latter is part of a trend Rob describes as “ambient computing” with the opportunity to use Gen AI to create new imagery and collections of images on Google TVs.

In addition to these features, we also discussed Freeplay, its newly-named its FAST service, how AI is being used for personalized content recommendations and much more. As Rob describes, Google is in a position to both address mainstream user needs with smart TVs, while also pushing the boundaries to introduce new features and see what new use cases emerge.

It will be interesting to follow how these new features impact Google TV’s market share in smart TVs.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (37 minutes, 48 seconds)

Browse all previous podcasts

Subscribe to Inside the Stream
Apple Podcasts  Google Podcasts  Spotify  Amazon Music  RSS

We’re pleased to welcome Antenna’s CEO and co-founder Jonathan Carson back to Inside the Stream for an exclusive interview about the firm’s new State of Subscriptions research focused on specialty SVOD services.

Antenna’s research has become a key source of industry intelligence and we’re excited to share that Jonathan will be a regular quarterly guest on Inside the Stream going forward, providing exclusive insights and detail on the firm’s ongoing research.

For this week, Jonathan dives into why the specialty SVOD category, which is still much smaller than premium SVOD, is actually growing at a far faster rate. Speciality SVOD is a highly fragmented category, and Antenna is tracking the progress of over 100 different streaming services.

We discuss particular services like AMC+, Crunchyroll and Hallmark+ and specialty SVOD’s churn profile. We also explore the fact that 58% of specialty SVOD subscriptions happen through Amazon Channels and what the implications of that are. We also touch on the interplay between specialty SVOD and FAST services which are closely linked. And lots more…

Listen to the podcast to learn more (40 minutes, 51 seconds)

Browse all previous podcasts

Subscribe to Inside the Stream
Apple Podcasts  Google Podcasts  Spotify  Amazon Music  RSS
 

Four topics for this week’s podcast:

Both Google and Roku announced new streaming media devices this week, with Google launching its Google TV Streamer, which is positioned as the “next generation of Chromecast,” and Roku releasing an updated version of its Roku Ultra. As we discuss, these are two companies at far ends of the TV OS battle, with Google somewhat surprisingly still a laggard, and Roku still a leader.

Next up, Disney+ officially launched its paid sharing globally, following its announcement earlier this year. Disney+ is clearly hoping to emulate the success Netflix had following its rollout of paid sharing, though as we detail, there are important differences between how Disney+ is executing that could lead to much different results.  

Then we discuss a newly announced initiative by Whip Media to bring more transparency to FAST viewership across channels. While this would be a step forward, as Colin explains there are critical challenges to making this a reality.  

Finally, we circle back to a report last Friday about remarks from Netflix’s co-CEO Greg Peters concerning the possibility of the company leaning into live sports. Peters said “never say never” about live sports and with nearly 280 million global subscribers, Netflix would have an immediate impact.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (32 minutes, 34 seconds)

Browse all previous podcasts

Subscribe to Inside the Stream
Apple Podcasts  Google Podcasts  Spotify  Amazon Music  RSS