Podcasts

In this week’s podcast, Colin and I do a deep dive interview with FuboTV’s CEO and Co-Founder David Gandler. FuboTV, which reported having 1.6 million subscribers at the end of Q3 ’22, has differentiated itself primarily with sports, which, as we discuss, has its advantages and disadvantages.

Specifically in the podcast, we dig into escalating and fragmenting sports rights, what impact tech giants like Apple, Amazon and YouTube will have as they stream more sports on their platforms, the role of FAST channels and regional sports networks (RSNs) for pay-TV providers, the decision to shutter FuboTV’s nascent sportsbook, how FuboTV is pursuing AI for cutting-edge user experiences and much more.

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In this week’s podcast, Colin and I discuss Warner Bros. Discovery’s plan to launch a new streaming bundle in France dubbed “Warner Pass,” exclusively on Amazon Prime Channels, which Variety reported. Warner Pass will include all HBO content, plus 12 WBD channels including CNN, Discovery Channel, Eurosport and others.

The move caught our attention because WBD has been quite vocal about its intention to launch a combined HBO Max / discovery+ service (expected to be simply called “Max”), which the Variety report noted it still plans to introduce in France in 2024.

Colin and I think Warner Pass could offer clues about how WBD will price the combined service eventually (especially in Europe). Yet it raises a concern that having two different streaming brands in France with similar content is clumsy and could cause consumer confusion (not to mention spending required to support two streaming brands).

Further, as we discussed in December, Warner Pass is yet another step in reversing the company’s strategy on third-party distribution. Prior WarnerMedia management decided to pull HBO from Amazon Prime Channels and others in September, 2021. As I wrote back then, in a direct-to-consumer world, not owning the subscriber, nor seeing their detailed viewing data, are real drawbacks.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (31 minutes, 56 seconds)

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Happy new year and welcome to the first edition of Inside the Stream for 2023. Just after recording our Top 10 streaming stories of 2022 podcast a couple of weeks ago YouTube announced its deal with the NFL for Sunday Ticket.

In this week’s podcast we dig into how we think the economics of the deal might work. Colin modeled many of the variables, which I then tinkered with. The clear caveat is that no external person, including us, really knows all the pieces of the deal, nor the terms. So we’re taking our best guesses, based on how Sunday Ticket has performed for DirecTV and the new value we believe YouTube brings to the package.

Based on all of this Colin is skeptical about YouTube’s ability to turn a profit on Sunday Ticket, while I’m more optimistic. In addition I highlight a number of valuable strategic aspects of the deal to YouTube and Google, especially gaining direct experience with the NFL for the next 6-7 years. These insights will be extremely valuable as YouTube contemplates potentially bidding for some or all of the NFL broadcast package when it’s up for renewal in 2033.

Ultimately the value of Sunday Ticket to YouTube hinges on its ability to monetize the package much better than DirecTV did - more subscribers and more advertising revenue.

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Keeping with our end of year tradition, this week on Inside the Stream, Colin and I discuss the top 10 most important streaming video stories (in our humble view) of 2022.

Several of our top 10 stories focus on broader industry trends that are accelerating, such as cord-cutting and the rise of connected TV advertising. Others focus on changes at specific companies including YouTube, Netflix, Disney and WBD. And others involve emerging themes such as sports rights migrating to streamers, adoption of hybrid video-on-demand (HVOD) business models and the growth of FASTs. The top 10 highlight the industry’s vibrancy, as well as the challenges of navigating an ever-changing landscape.

Thank you for listening to Inside the Stream in 2022; hopefully you’ve found value in our discussions. We look forward to continuing the dialogue in 2023 and wish you all happy holidays!

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On this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I dig into four topics: World Cup streaming quality and the lack of 4K differentiation, Netflix’s offer to refund advertisers due to inventory shortfalls, WBD’s decision to remove “Westworld” from HBO Max, and the proliferation of music-oriented FAST channels.

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HBO Max is coming back to Amazon Prime Video Channels, reversing a move by prior owner WarnerMedia just over a year ago. Removing HBO Max led to an immediate loss of 5 million subscribers who had signed up through Amazon Channels (it’s unclear how many rejoined directly).

On today’s podcast, Colin and I try puzzle through why WBD, which is now HBO’s owner, would want HBO Max to rejoin Amazon Channels. Although Amazon will surely generate some incremental HBO Max subscribers, their lifetime value is likely to be far lower than HBO Max subscribers who sign up directly with the service. That’s because Amazon has “customer ownership” of these subscribers and shares little to no data with SVOD providers that would be critical to retention (starting with an email address to directly communicate with them). I wrote about my personal experience with this in August, 2021.

The move seems to suggest a push for incremental subscribers, despite the likelihood of a higher churn rate. That’s at odds with streaming services executives recent emphasis on profitability over pure subscriber growth. It’s possible Colin and I are missing something here. If you think you know what it is please let us know.

To wrap up the discussion we also discuss WBD's reported new strategy to collect its streaming services under the "Max" brand in 2023.

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Earlier this week AMC Networks disclosed a large-scale layoff (reportedly 20%) and that their CEO was departing. AMC Networks’ chairman James Dolan said in an internal memo that “It was our belief that cord cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case. We are primarily a content company and the mechanisms for the monetization of content are in disarray.”

AMC Networks’ predicament typifies what’s happening across the industry. In today’s podcast Colin and I share estimates of what AMC might be earning from its streaming services vs. what it earns from its linear channels distributed by pay-TV operators. Other data we share highlights the conundrum broadcast and cable TV networks face: their assumptions for target pricing for their streaming services and subscriber forecasts are too high.

The monetization disarray AMC and others are experiencing is the messy transition from the pay-TV world that masked what consumers were paying for individual channels and how they were valued vs. the DTC world where consumers are in full control.

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Yesterday was VideoNuze’s Connected TV Advertising Brand Suitability Summit virtual which included 24 speakers on 5 sessions. On today’s podcast nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss some of the key highlights from the afternoon, including the session Colin moderated.

Speakers are optimistic about CTV for many reasons, despite economic uncertainty. However, throughout the afternoon many noted challenges in transparency, frequency management, fragmentation and measurement. Speakers shared their thoughts on what’s being done, and still needs to be done, to address these challenges.

Consistent with the conference’s theme, there was a lot of focus on how advertisers and agencies are thinking about brand suitability and also what initiatives they’re pursuing to promote DE&I within their organizations and the work they do. I’ll be posting all of the session videos early next week on VideoNuze for on-demand viewing.

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Although Disney gained a healthy 14.6 million direct-to-consumer subscribers in its fiscal fourth quarter reported this week, it also lost nearly $1.5 billion in the segment. That raised its annual DTC loss for fiscal 2022 to over $4 billion, more than twice the $1.7 billion it lost in fiscal 2021. Disney reiterated that it expects DTC losses will decrease going forward and that Disney+ specifically will achieve profitability in fiscal 2024, absent a “meaningful shift in the economic climate.”

On this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I examine the various cross-currents impacting Disney’s DTC business going forward. These include declining ARPU at Disney+ domestically and Disney+ Hotstar, upcoming price increases, SVOD and FAST competition, content costs and more. The stakes are high for Disney to turn the corner on DTC profitability but it isn’t clear when or how that will happen.

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This week on Inside the Stream nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss Roku’s Q3 ’22 results which were reported earlier this week. The company had a pretty strong quarter, adding 2.3 million active accounts to reach 65.4 million. Platform revenue, which includes advertising, increased 15% to $670 million. And streaming hours increased by 1.1 billion to 21.9 billion from Q2 ’22.

While the Q3 results showed strong resiliency for Roku, company executives were less upbeat on the earnings call about Q4. While noting that the Q4 holiday season is typically the strongest period for most companies, including Roku, executives expect this year to be different. Roku has already observed a decline in “pretty much every vertical” category of advertisers due to uncertainty about an upcoming recession and is also worried about the impact of inflation on consumer spending, which hurts its device sales.

However Roku continues to benefit from the shift in ad spending from linear to CTV, its international and original programming expansion and a new set of smart home products.

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On this week’s podcast Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia and I discuss Q3 2022 bumpiness for four companies heavily focused on streaming. Comcast reported a small gain of 10K residential broadband subscribers compared with 281K a year ago. It also lost 540K residential video subscribers compared with a loss of 382K a year ago, as cord-cutting and cord-nevering continue.

Meanwhile YouTube ad revenue was down 2% in Q3, after a blistering period of growth during the past couple of years. Apple TV+ is raising its monthly rate by $2, betting subscribers see enhanced value in its 3 year-old service. And Disney’s CEO envisions Disney+ being tied closer to its theme park business. We explore all of them and share our thoughts.

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In Q3 ’22 Netflix added 2.4 million subscribers globally, beating its forecast of a million additions, and more importantly, reversing the two prior quarters’ declines. As nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss on this week’s Inside the Stream, there’s a lot of action just ahead for Netflix as it rolls out its ad-supported tier and modifies its longstanding account sharing approach.

The latter will likely impact tens of millions of subscribers, who will have multiple variables to consider in order for family members to retain access to Netflix. We do a little back of the envelope math that illustrates  the significant revenue opportunities all of this will create for Netflix.

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This week on Inside the Stream nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss the intensifying competition among TV operating systems and in particular why two large TV manufacturers - Samsung and LG - are licensing their TV operating systems to smaller competitors. Earlier this week Samsung announced deals with three manufacturers to license its Tizen OS.

Given the competition, it appears that the primary monetization opportunity is through wider distribution of their respective content services, Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels, to gain more advertising revenue. But as we discuss there are likely other motivations as well.

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This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I interview Xperi’s EVP and Chief Products and Services Officer Geir Skaaden. Earlier this week Xperi completed its spinoff and is now an independent company with a portfolio of entertainment technology brands including TiVo, DTS, IMAX Enhanced and HD Radio. Geir walks us through how Xperi is focused on building out its media platform business as an independent partner to TV OEMs and automobile OEMs.

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This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I interview Hub Entertainment Research’s Founder and Principal Jon Giegengack about top conclusions from the firm’s latest “Decoding the Default” survey (excerpt here). Among them are that streaming services continue to gain as the default source for viewers (with Netflix by far the leader), being the default is the best protection from churn, SVOD stacking appears to have plateaued and some streaming services seem to be pretty well insulated from inflation. We discuss all of these and more.

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This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I welcome David Chu, EVP and General Manager of Cinedigm Networks who discusses the recent launch of streaming service Cineverse. David explains Cineverse’s main differentiators, including a large and well-curated VOD offering, exclusive FAST channels for enthusiasts, a unique user experience leveraging the company’s Matchpoint technology and a light ad load. David shares his views on the competitive landscape for streaming services and some of the innovations Cineverse has on its roadmap.  

(Also a note to listeners that Colin will be moderating a free webinar on September 29th with Zype on hybrid monetization business models. Sign up here.)

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This week on Inside the Stream Colin shares highlights from IBC 2022, which he just attended in Amsterdam. He focuses on enthusiasm for FAST services, clever new approaches to solving video piracy, advancements in metadata to improve search and discovery, and more. We explore all of the highlights and how they’ll play out in the industry. For further details, check out Colin’s posts here and here.

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Amazon took the unusual step of releasing viewership data for its new Lord of the Rings series “The Rings of Power,” saying that over 25 million Prime members watched it on its first day. On this week’s podcast Colin and I discuss how to put this number into context, and also whether the series is worth the reported $58 million per episode it cost. Then we transition to reviewing new data about viewer satisfaction with ad-supported FAST services vs. ad-free SVOD services.

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On the podcast this week nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I dig into four topics that have caught our attention: Disney’s rumored membership program, Netflix’s plan to charge advertisers CPMs of up to $65, Paramount’s bundling of Paramount+ and Showtime, and how “diginet” channels and FAST linear services are converging.  

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This week, nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I welcome Grace Lam, Roku’s Director of Partner Growth as our guest. Grace takes us inside the campaign that Roku and HBO Max launched for the new TV series “House of the Dragon.” It is the biggest SVOD campaign Roku has undertaken to date, involving multiple elements. Grace walks us through the campaign’s goals, viewer benefits, success metrics and how Roku aims to have the campaign be a template for future SVOD partnerships.

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