Podcasts

We’re happy to have Jonathan Carson, CEO and co-founder of Antenna, join us to discuss the firm’s Q1 ’25 State of Subscriptions report, which provides insights on premium SVOD in 2024.

Among the topics we discuss are growth of SVOD services last year, which ones gained the most subscribers, churn stabilization, the role of “re-subscribers” (people who rejoin a service within 6-12 months of dropping), how Amazon and other third-parties are driving subscriptions, the success of the Disney-Max bundle and more.

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Deloitte released its 2025 Digital Media Trends report this week. On the podcast Colin and I discuss our key takeaways related to social’s role in how consumers discover TV programs, sensitivity to SVOD price increases and churn, plus budgets for streaming services.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Looper Insights. Their new report is available here.

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This week we discuss a number of new developments that contribute to streaming sports’ momentum. These include NBCU making its RSNs available to Peacock Premium subscribers; Disney looking to buy NFL Media which could become a valuable piece of the flagship ESPN app slated to launch later this year; Comcast extending its Olympics rights through 2036, which benefits Peacock; Fubo adding the Texas Rangers RSN, and DirecTV adding RSNs to its My Sports Home tier.

First up we discuss Wurl’s new CTV trends report and new research on political ad spending in CTV from Basis Technologies.

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Colin attended the Connected TV World Summit in London this week and shares his observations about the CTV landscape in Europe and some of the challenges. First we discuss new research from Bango detailing strong adoption of Gen AI among younger users, and also new Gracenote research about the burgeoning market for FAST services.

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Peacock subscribers held steady at 36 million from Q3 to Q4, though up from 31 million a year ago. Importantly Peacock’s quarterly loss declined from $825 million in the year ago quarter to $372 million this quarter. Elsewhere at Comcast, the company lost 139K broadband subscribers in Q4, worse than the 34K loss a year ago.

We also discuss Fox’s increase in Super Bowl ad rates to $8 million, and new data showing how FAST apps built into the TVOS are garnering more attention.

Thanks to our sponsor this week, Looper Insights. Click to access their new report, “Streaming Forward: Trends Shaping Digital Entertainment in 2025.” Colin has the QR code on his site to scan for the report as well.

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Netflix reported strong Q4 results, adding 19 million subscribers globally to end 2024 at nearly 302 million. We discuss what was behind the growth, which was up across all regions except EMEA where it was flat. Netflix’s huge scale gives it the ability to invest heavily in content, while others are pulling back.

Netflix’s ad-supported tier accounted for 55% of sign-ups where it’s available and we talk about the role this tier has played while password sharing has been eliminated. Last, Colin explains the important role of games in Netflix’s future.  

Separate, complimentary sign-up is now available for VideoNuze’s virtual CTV x AI conference on Feb. 25th. Grab a ticket now!

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First up this week we discuss Tubi’s plan to stream the Super Bowl in UHD, a bold move by Fox’s free ad-supported TV service. As we discuss, it’s further evidence of how premium streaming sports experiences are continuing to improve. Next Amazon Prime video set a new viewership record for itself with last weekend’s NFL wild card game. We dive into its ratings gains.

Hub Entertainment Research released new data about consumers sentiments on AI which we dive into. Speaking of AI, complimentary sign up is available for VideoNuze’s next virtual CTV conference on Feb. 25th that will focus on the intersection of CTV and AI.

Last, we discuss VIZIO’s discounted bundle of AMC+ and Starz.

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Talk about events moving fast. Not long after Colin and I recorded and posted this week’s podcast about the Disney-Fubo deal from earlier this week, the three Venu Sports JV partners said they were cancelling the service.

At the end of the podcast we cautioned that with DirecTV and EchoStar raising the possibility of a renewed Venu litigation, the JV partners might have second thoughts. Given the new twist this week’s Inside the Stream is kind of optional listening. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up!

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Happy New Year and welcome to the first podcast of 2025. We’re pleased to have PBS’s Chief Digital and Marketing Officer Ira Rubenstein join us to discuss PBS’s recent partnership with Amazon. Under the deal more than 150 local PBS stations and the PBS Kids channel will be included in the Prime Video FAST section. Two new PBS FAST channels will also be included.

Ira explains how the Amazon deal keeps PBS accessible for those who have cut the cord, don’t have an antenna, etc. PBS is also talking to other potential partners, especially those who can support donations and benefit PBS stations. Beyond the Amazon deal, Ira also shares his thoughts on the broader industry and key changes he’s paying attention to.

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This week Antenna’s Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Carson joins us for an exclusive interview to discuss the firm’s top streaming insights from 2024. Antenna’s research has become a go-to source of data for executives from around the industry. 

In the interview we dive into a number of findings, including the shift in subscriber growth from paid to ad-supported streaming services, how sports and live events provided the top subscriber acquisition moments in 2024, the role of sports in driving virtual pay-TV operators’ growth and  which promotions worked best for new sign-ups.

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Starz will split off from Lionsgate in 2025 and on today’s podcast we discuss Starz’s streaming strategy, as outlined by CEO Jeffrey Hirsch in a presentation at the UBS Global Media & Communications conference.   

The strategy’s core elements include partnering with big streaming platforms for Starz to be sold as an add-on (a successful approach for smaller services as we learned from Antenna’s Jonathan Carson several months ago), retaining the rights to its own originals and avoiding annual rate increases others like Disney+ have pursued).

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Walmart has closed its $2.3 billion acquisition of VIZIO. As Colin and I discuss on this week’s podcast, there are many opportunities that the deal creates. We focus on a few, including Walmart extending WatchFree+, driving new CTV ad revenue and also broadening the availability of one-click buying and attribution.

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This week Comcast announced its decision to spin out all of its cable networks except Bravo into an independent company. For years cable networks were the financial jewel in the TV industry, driven by both carriage fees pay-TV operators paid to carry them, plus advertising revenues. The shift from analog to digital opened up vast new shelf space which enabled even more cable networks to be created.

But as Colin and I discuss, the Internet and streaming have changed all of that. In the age of cord-cutting, cable networks have become a declining business, and Comcast’s decision to spin off most of its portfolio was inevitable. For a variety of reasons the spin off also paves the way for addition consolidation in the industry.

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Disney’s fiscal Q4 results confirmed a broader industry trend that ad-supported subscribers are driving growth for streaming services. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said 60% of new DTC subscribers are on the ad tier, with 37% and 30% of US and international subscribers, respectively, now on the ad tier.

Related, Netflix said earlier this week that 70 million monthly users are reached via its ad-supported plan, up from 22 million in January. It also said over 50% of new subscribers in countries where an ad tier is available sign up for it. Colin and I discuss the reasons viewers are choosing ad-supported plans.

Related, we also explore new Gracenote data showing the disproportionate amount of SVOD titles on Amazon Prime Video.

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eMarketer’s latest data reveals that in 2024, 20 million more viewers will consume live sports on streaming than on pay-TV. With a number of marquee games shifting to streaming ahead (notably NBA to Amazon and Peacock), streaming is poised for more gains. eMarketer forecasts that in 2027 over 127 million viewers will consume live sports on streaming vs. just 75 million for pay-TV.

As we explore, the traditional notion of “sports as a firewall” against cord-cutting is becoming more ambiguous. In some cases sports-oriented TV networks are further blurring the lines. A good example we discuss is The Tennis Channel’s new initiative to include a live feed of its linear network in its Tennis Channel+ streaming service. It’s the first time tennis fans will be able to directly access the linear network.


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There was plenty of news in the TV/streaming industries this earnings week. First up we discuss Comcast raising the idea of spinning off its cable TV networks to shareholders. A move like this has been speculated about for years, as the networks are buffeted by cord-cutting. Comcast also said Peacock gained 3 million subscribers in Q3, benefiting from the Paris Olympics. 

Meanwhile Alphabet said that YouTube’s revenue for the past 12 months hit $50 billion, a first for the company. As we discuss, it’s likely that subscription services, which include YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium, Primetime Channels and Sunday Ticket, exceeded $15 billion. That would make YouTube one of the top 3 streaming subscription providers by size. 

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Four topics for this week’s podcast:

First, Disney+ and Hulu are no longer available for sign up in Apple’s App Store. As we discuss, this feels like a move by Disney to preserve margins, though at the expense of some of its subscribers losing the advantages of unified billing and integrated search/discovery. It also means less competition for Amazon, which is already the dominant distributor of third-party streaming services.

Next, IAB Tech Lab this week announced an initiative to help standardize emerging CTV ad formats. We’re confident it will help more advertisers move spending into the channel.

Third, Fubo is boldly offering premium services on a standalone basis, not requiring a base subscription plan. Fubo aims to be a “super aggregator” and is breaking from pay-TV operators’ traditional approach of enabling access to premium services only for subscribers. It’s a sign of the times, with viewers requiring flexibility and it seems like a savvy play by Fubo to keep viewers engaged with its app.

Last, a variety of streaming services are partnering with grocery chains and delivery apps, which both of us think makes a lot of sense to reduce churn and cost per acquisition. We expect to see more partnerships going forward.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (28 minutes, 3 seconds)

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Bloomberg’s Screentime 2024 conference in LA offered opportunities to hear directly from a variety of industry executives about their companies’ streaming initiatives and results (all video interviews here). Colin and I were especially interested in interviews with Comcast’s Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Amazon’s SVP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins.

As we discuss, the interviews highlight the companies’ divergent future as premium video distributors. Amazon is ascendant, having become by far the dominant distributor of third-party streaming services in the US. Meanwhile, Comcast, long the biggest cable TV operator in the US, has seen cord-cutting erode its subscriber base.

However, as Roberts articulates, Comcast is using its formidable broadband presence and Peacock to re-position the company for future success. Meanwhile Hopkins underscores how Amazon’s vast resources allow it to invest aggressively in technologies like AI to continually improve the viewer experience and partner value proposition.

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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)

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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…

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