Podcasts

Welcome to the first edition of the new Inside the Stream podcast with Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. After many years of recording together, Colin and I decided it was time for a branding refresh. With Inside the Stream we intend to keep providing an insider’s perspective on the streaming video industry. We’re adding a feature at the beginning of the podcast noting a few important stories that hit our radar. We also intend to bring on more guests to the podcast.

This week we discuss YouTube’s dominance, underscored by Pew’s latest research, showing 81% of U.S. adults use YouTube. Then Colin shares an updated forecast for Disney+ and what it means to the larger Walt Disney company.

Many thanks to our inaugural Inside the Stream sponsor Verizon Media. When you have quality connections at scale, you’re truly connected.

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Welcome to the 555th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

This week we discuss new data from FreeWheel and Nielsen highlighting gains in connected TV usage. Higher usage directly translates to ongoing CTV advertising revenue gains. One example of how this usage translates was a bullish new forecast from MoffettNathanson which pegs YouTube/AVOD ad revenue growing to $53 billion in the U.S. alone by 2025. MN sees a new “mid-top layer” of the traditional marketing funnel emerging that blends the long-form video experience being driven by CTVs with better targeting and conversion.

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Welcome to the 554th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week we dig into the NFL’s new distribution deals with Amazon, CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC, in the context of major changes that are happening in the TV and video industries.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the deals bring “an unprecedented era of stability” to the NFL. But as Colin explains there are at least three key challenges that are going to buffet the NFL and the TV networks in the years ahead: diminished pay-TV subscriptions, which are the dominant way to watch games; shift in ad budgets to CTV and digital, especially as linear audiences drop; ad loads in NFL games that are far heavier than what viewers are being conditioned to expect, suggesting the games themselves need to be shortened.

With a rumored $100 billion in distribution fees at stake, what do all of these challenges mean to the NFL and the networks?


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Welcome to the 553rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

On today’s podcast Colin and I explore whether Netflix should pursue a crackdown on subscribers sharing their passwords (as it’s doing in a trial) or if it should consider launching a lower-priced, advertising support tier, or if it should do both.

Earlier this week Colin shared thoughts about the potential consequences of policing passwords and I wrote about the benefits of offering subscribers more pricing flexibility as other streaming services do already. On today’s podcast we dig deeper into both of these approaches and agree an action plan will become more urgent if there’s a fall in U.S. subscribers in the first or second quarter this year.
 
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Welcome to the 552nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

First up this week Colin and I discuss recent data from Strategy Analytics showing that globally, a record 109 million connected TV devices were bought in Q4 ’20. For the full year of 2020 over 305 million CTV devices were bought, another record. Amazon had the highest market share.

But user experiences across different CTVs still vary, including the presence of traditional grid guides and other content navigation which impact viewer choices. Colin provides a couple of tangible examples of how searching for content can yield sub-optimal results. We explore why this is the case and what might be done to change things.
 
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Welcome to the 551st edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Vizio filed to go public this week and it’s looking to take a page out of Roku’s playbook. Vizio’s business is dominated by sales of TV sets today, but it wants to ramp up its Platform Plus segment which includes its advertising and data business. Colin and I discuss the opportunity and also what challenges Vizio will face (note, this is not investment advice).

Switching topics, discovery+ accounted for 19% of SVOD signups in the U.S. in January, marking a very strong start for the new streaming service. Looking ahead, we explore whether discovery+ will be able to maintain this pace, and also retain these new subscribers.
 

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Welcome to the 550th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

ViacomCBS shared more content and pricing details for Paramount+ this week, ahead of its March 4th launch. Colin and I agree that from a content perspective, it’s an “everything but the kitchen sink” strategy, with a strong lineup of 30K+ TV episodes and 2,500 movies, plus sports, kids and originals. ViacomCBS repeatedly referred to the Paramount+ approach as a “mountain of entertainment.”

Paramount+ is also priced aggressively, at $4.99 per month with ads and $9.99 per month without ads. That’s slightly less than Hulu’s comparable tiers and equal to Peacock’s pricing. Colin and I are interested to see what the Paramount+ ad load looks like compared to Hulu and Peacock.

We also discuss Netflix’s new Downloads For You feature, announced earlier this week. Colin has given it a spin and while we agree the feature is a valuable, it is diminished by the content that is recommended, which didn’t match Colin’s tastes.

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Welcome to the 549th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

On this week’s podcast, Colin and I dig into Roku’s strong Q4 and full year 2020 results which were reported yesterday. As has been the case for the past several years, “platform” revenue, which includes Roku’s advertising business, led the way. Platform revenue reached  $471.2 million in the quarter, up 81% year-over-year. The Roku Channel was another bright spot for the company in Q4, with 175 ad-supported virtual linear channels now included.

We discuss these and other topics, including whether Roku’s interest in original content could cause conflicts with existing content partners.

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Welcome to the 548th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Disney turned in yet another strong quarter of direct-to-consumer streaming growth, with 146.4 million subscribers at the end of its fiscal Q1. Disney+ added 21.2 million to reach 94.9 million subscribers. The only hiccup was that Hulu with Live TV dropped by 100K to 4 million subscribers. Colin and I dig into the numbers to better understand the trends revealed in the quarter.

Then we shift to discussing this past Sunday’s Super Bowl TV ratings which were down and streaming viewers which were up. We discuss what drove each - and add a little commentary about our favorite ads.


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Welcome to the 547th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

A couple of weeks ago on our podcast, Colin and I discussed how both AVOD and SVOD services keep growing strongly. This week we explore two specific examples. In AVOD, YouTube’s ad revenue hit $6.9 billion in Q4 ’20, up 46% and for the full year ad revenue hit $19.8 billion, up 31% from 2019.

Meanwhile Crunchyroll, the anime OTT service, announced it’s up to 4 million subscribers, adding a million in the past 6 months, a record growth rate. Like many other streaming services, Crunchyroll appears to be benefiting from Covid. Colin and I explore what’s behind both companies’ success and where things go from here.

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Welcome to the 546th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Comcast reported its Q4 and full year 2020 this week and as usual, the divergence between residential video and broadband subscribers was stark. Remarkably, Comcast now has nearly 10 million more residential broadband subscribers (28.3 million) than residential video subscribers (18.9 million). The pandemic furthered the divergence, with 1.9 million broadband subscribers added in 2020 (up 47% vs. 2019) while video subscribers declined by 1.3 million (nearly double the 671K lost in 2019).

Broadband has been Comcast’s core strategy for a while now, and we discuss how Peacock is one of the beneficiaries. Peacock now has 33 million sign-ups and is well ahead of plan. Peacock has also made some strong content moves with “The Office,” “Modern Family,” the WWE Network and some sports coming over from NBCSN which is being closed down.

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Welcome to the 545th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

AVOD services are growing strongly, yet linear TV still accounts for 90% of video ad spending. This week Colin and I discuss a new report from Tubi that details how advertisers can now only reach a sizable share of younger audiences by shifting more spending to AVOD. With AVOD services poised to grow even further in ’21, advertisers will be pressed to reevaluate their spending decisions.

Meanwhile, it’s not just AVOD that’s growing, it’s SVOD too, as Netflix’s Q4 and full year earnings report underscored. Netflix added nearly 37 million subscribers, with international making the biggest contribution. We dig into the highlights of the report, including analysis of differences in Netflix’s results by region.

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Welcome to the 544th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

Kids movies were a big part of the success of Disney+ in 2020, with the service having seven of the top 10 streaming movies, according to Nielsen. But as Colin and I discuss, Disney+ will be challenged this year by Netflix, HBO Max and others. With theaters still running at low capacity due to Covid, 2021 is setting up as a game-changing year for streaming movies.

Separate, this week AT&T pulled the plug on its AT&T TV Now virtual pay-TV service, which at one point a couple years ago led the category with nearly 2 million subscribers (when it was called DirecTV Now). Colin and I examine what went wrong and why AT&T shifted its strategy so dramatically.  

Enjoy!

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Happy New Year and welcome to a new year of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

Roku continues to grow, announcing over 50 million active accounts at the end of 2020. On this week’s podcast Colin and I dig into the data that Roku revealed.

The explosion of premium content for streaming no doubt is helping Roku’s account growth and viewership. A recent entrant is Discovery+ and Colin shares his initial review of the service, including a few surprising limitations he found.

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I’m pleased to present the 542nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

Keeping with tradition, on today’s podcast, our last of the year, Colin and I discuss our top 10 video stories of 2020. This was certainly a year unlike any we’ve all experienced, and many of our top 10 reflect how Covid has accelerated underlying industry trends.

Colin and I have had lots of fun discussing all of the industry’s highlights each week - thanks for listening in!

Enjoy!

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I’m pleased to present the 541st edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

This week Colin and I discuss the recent activation of a Showtime channel within the free Pluto TV service. Showtime and Pluto TV are both part of ViacomCBS and in this case Showtime is tapping into free streaming to drive more subscriptions and higher brand awareness. Colin sees it as part of a larger trend toward “virtual linear TV” channels that streaming offers and a potential alternative to free trials that SVOD services have long used.

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I’m pleased to present the 540th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

discovery+ is set to launch in the U.S. on January 4th and on this week’s podcast Colin and I share our thoughts on why we’re optimistic about the service, especially in international markets where live sports will be included. We both like the service’s positioning as a complement to major SVOD providers, mainly by focusing on unscripted content.  

Before we get into discovery+, Colin provides some highlights from his new “Making Screen Time Family Time” report which revealed viewing behavior for families with kids under the age of 12. Colin notes the data around co-viewing, especially on weekday mornings.

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I’m pleased to present the 539th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

Despite gloomy predictions, the pay-TV industry in the U.S. turned in a relatively healthy third quarter in 2020, likely gaining subscribers. This was due to robust additions by virtual pay-TV providers (led by Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV) and moderating losses by traditional providers (especially AT&T which had a huge loss in Q3 ’19).

Colin and I discuss how a big reason for Q3’s gains was the return of all major sports. Except for the NFL, major sports aren’t available in Q4. That means churn is likely to be up in Q4, though it could be offset by the pandemic keeping people indoors more.

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I’m pleased to present the 538th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

Disney reported its fiscal year and Q4 results yesterday, with the highlight being that Disney+ had 73.7 million subscribers at the end of the quarter. Coincidentally, yesterday was exactly one year since Disney+ launch. Disney had initially forecast Disney+ would reach 60-90 million subscribers by 2024, so it is already at the midpoint.

Colin and I dig into the Disney+ numbers, along with its average revenue per paid subscriber, which is still relatively low by SVOD standards. We also discuss results at Hulu and ESPN+, both of which also had a strong Q4 and a strong fiscal year 2020. Overall Disney seems to have successfully pivoted to the direct-to-consumer model and is now investing heavily behind it. More details will be revealed at its investor day on December 10th.

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I’m pleased to present the 537th edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

On this week’s podcast, Colin and I return to sports, one of our favorite topics over the years. This week we focus on Sinclair Broadcast Group’s $4.2 billion write-down of the value of its regional sports networks (RSN) group, which was acquired in May, 2019. Sinclair has specifically been adversely affected by virtual pay-TV operators dropping its RSNs, Covid, cord-cutting and other industry trends that are being felt throughout sports TV.

One of the beneficiaries of the industry’s restructuring is Roku, which reported a very strong Q3 ’20 yesterday. We wrap up the podcast touching on the highlights.


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