Posts for 'NBCU'

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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Four topics for this week’s podcast:

Last week IAB released its new 2024 advertising outlook report based on a survey of media professionals. CTV advertising was at the top of expected gains, revised upward from a 14.5% lift vs. 2023 in IAB’s prior report to 18.4% now. It’s another positive sign for CTV ads and we discuss how big a role political ad spending is playing.

Next up, Comcast’s president shared insights about NBCU’s position in movies and PVOD which were relatively upbeat. While NBCU has had a strong year, as we review, movies still face stiff headwinds.

Third, Charter and AMC signed a new distribution deal that gives many Charter TV subscribers access to the ad-supported version of AMC+. While the deal averts a blackout like the one happening with DIRECTV and Disney currently, Colin and I question whether the deal is sufficiently forward-looking for AMC.

Finally, Colin explains the significance of Amazon introducing TVs that support the NextGen TV standard.

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Early returns show Olympics viewership is up strongly so far. But while many devoted fans watch the full-length events, many other more casual fans consume just the highlight clips - often after they search for them subsequent to hearing about a particularly exciting moment (e.g. the clutch pommel horse performance, the long match-ending runback in rugby sevens, etc.). Watching highlights can also help drive casual fans to watch full length. 

All this means that for a long duration event like the Olympics, solid strategy/execution highlight clips distribution is imperative. In today’s podcast Colin and I discuss how we’ve been impressed so far with NBC’s Olympics highlight clips distribution across Peacock and YouTube. We’re able to compare and contrast experiences because Colin’s only been watching on the former and I’ve only been watching on the latter.

We discuss NBC’s balancing act of seeking to build value in Peacock, its owned and operated property, while also recognizing and respecting the reality that YouTube is the number one video search destination for hundreds of millions of users, so it simply can’t be ignored. Finally we discuss the business model benefits of distributing on Peacock and YouTube. 

Overall NBC’s Paris Olympics clips execution is far superior to the last games, and provides lessons for others. Still, we see still further room to optimize, which we review toward the end. 

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Big TV manufacturers made news at CES with new models and improved viewer experiences. Meanwhile NBCUniversal and Disney stepped up their ad games with announcements of many new initiatives. Separate, Netflix said it now has 23 million monthly active users, up 8 million in the past couple of months. Lastly, Amazon announced broad headcount cuts to Prime Video, MGM and Twitch.

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The following video was recorded at VideoNuze’s fourth annual Connected TV Advertising Summit virtual on June 8, 2023.

Unraveling the Measurement and Attribution Imperative
There is likely no single topic that generates more coverage and industry hand-wringing than measurement and attribution. For many in the industry, establishing a single, or possibly multiple credible currencies, is priority #1. Yet tens of billions of dollars of spending are transacted in digital without such currencies, and rather are based on actual outcomes. With a full-funnel/lower-funnel future ahead for CTV, how should CTV’s transaction backbone be informed by a traditional TV currency paradigm? Join us for a robust discussion of how critical measurement and attribution issues are being addressed, with an eye to unlocking CTV’s ultimate success.

Bharad Ramesh - Executive Director Research & Investment Analytics, GroupM US
David Sederbaum - EVP, Head of Video Investment, Dentsu Media US
Andrea Zapata - EVP, Head of Ad Sales Research, Measurement and Insights, Warner Bros. Discovery
Maggie Zhang - SVP, Measurement Strategy and Operations, NBCUniversal
Lynda Clarizio – General Partner/Co-Founder, The 98 and former President, US Media, Nielsen (moderator)

Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

At NBCUniversal’s One22 developer conference this week, ShoppableTV was one of the innovative ad experiences showcased. ShoppableTV allows viewers to buy products while they’re watching TV. In this week’s podcast Colin and I discuss ShoppableTV’s opportunity and what the potential challenges are.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

Last Sunday’s Super Bowl was viewed by over 112 million people with around 10% or more streaming the game. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss the mostly positive experiences that streamers had, albeit with latency that ranged up to 40+ seconds.

We also discuss strong results for Paramount+ and what’s ahead for the company.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

This week Colin has been following various reports of NBA, MLB and Premier League potentially coming to streaming, courtesy of Sinclair, Apple and DAZN. Colin explains more about what this might mean for the industry, as consumers seek out new alternatives.

Then we discuss NBCUniversal’s move that it has selected iSpot.tv as its first cross-platform video certified measurement partner. NBCU’s move is the latest by the industry to find a new currency alternative to Nielsen, the long-time standard and to better compete with digital options. NBCU said more measurement partners will be announced.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

On Comcast’s Q3 ’21 earnings call, management was vague about how Peacock is performing. In Corporate America, not highlighting numbers is typically a sign that things are not going as well as hoped and/or the numbers are not as impressive, comparably speaking, as those of competitors. A round of speculation about Peacock’s performance and what might happen next has ensued.

On this week’s podcast, Colin and I try to explain what we think is happening. The hard truth for Peacock is that it came to market very late and that it is competing against well-funded and highly aggressive competitors which are spending heavily on originals and on promotions - a commitment that Comcast/NBCUniversal have not publicly committed to match. Another issue - at least relative to Paramount+/Showtime, which gained 4.3 million subscribers in Q3 - is that Peacock doesn’t include NBC’s linear feed, and also doesn’t specialize in mature content, which has a strong draw. These two benefits (and “Star Trek”) have no doubt helped Paramount+/Showtime. Yet another issue is that popular NBC programming continues to be available in Hulu.

All of these factors, and others, are limiting Peacock’s appeal. As if that wasn’t enough, Comcast has mixed incentives related to Hulu, because it still has a 30% stake that is getting more valuable by the day, as Netflix stock hits new highs. Comcast is financially disincented from harming Hulu by pulling programming to help Peacock (all of this would have been moot if only Comcast had acquired Hulu when it had the chance back in 2018). Comcast has missed out on billions in additional revenue and value creation.

In short, Comcast/NBCU are now facing a dilemma with Peacock that can be boiled down to: Go Big or Go Home. Either commit to spending what's required to compete effectively (either at the AVOD or SVOD level), or recognize Peacock is going to keep treading water and will likely never break out. It’s a tough decision, but it reflects the penalty late entrants face, especially when squaring off against competitors like Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO Max, etc.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

Rather than focus on just one story this week as we usually do, today we do segments on 5 different stories that caught our attention. First we pick up on last week’s podcast about the dustup between YouTube TV and NBCUniversal. The companies avoided going over the cliff together and managed to extend their relationship. But it is a harbinger of more fights between networks and virtual (and traditional) pay-TV operators as the size of the pie continues to shrink due to cord-cutting.

Then Colin and I have a spirited debate about Google’s Fiber TV, which is being retired, and the broader question of whether Google Fiber’s 1 gigabit per second broadband service is a worthwhile product offering (Colin thinks it is and I think it isn’t, and I haven’t since it launched way back in February, 2010, see “Google’s Fiber-to-the-Home Experiment Could Cost $750 Million or More.” Also see "Google Fiber is Out of Synch With Realities of Typical Consumer Technology Adoption" from July, 2012 and "No Surprise, Google Fiber is Falling Short of Expectations" from August, 2016.)

From there we discuss the steep drop in L7 TV ratings that has continued in the first week of this Fall season. But even at these depressed levels, I assert that the most popular broadcast TV shows like “NCIS” still draw audiences that may likely be bigger than the first 7 days following the drop of a popular show on a big SVOD service like Netflix. Related, we discuss new Kantar data on SVOD churn in Q2. For more insight, have a look at my post from November, 2019, “Will Spinning Video Subscriptions Become a Thing?”

Finally, there’s a game of musical chairs happening in our industry and this week’s move by Kelly Campbell from president of Hulu to president of Peacock is just the latest example. We discuss why these executives’ shuffling matters to all of us as consumers.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

YouTube TV and NBCUniversal have become embroiled in a highly public dispute about the details of their distribution agreement. On today’s episode, Colin and Will discuss what’s really behind the dispute and the larger industry shifts that impacting the negotiation.

It is a very complicated situation as each company is trying to hold on to certain industry conventions (such as most favored nation pricing), while also broadening into new areas (such as including Peacock Premium, a streaming service, with underlying YouTube TV subscriptions). Each company also comes to the table with a host of business imperatives, with many driven by Wall Street’s expectations and the overall streaming market’s evolution.

Colin and I try to break things down. As I mention, one significant factor weighing on my assessment of things is Comcast’s gigantic missed opportunity when it decided not to acquire the 70% of Hulu it didn’t already own, back in 2018 when Comcast and Disney were battling over control of Fox (see "Why Comcast Should Take Control of Hulu" from May, 2018). Comcast had a one-time opportunity to vastly expand its footprint in streaming and CTV advertising and likely to position a combined Hulu-Peacock entity for eventual spin-off (see "Quick Math Shows Comcast Missed Out on Almost $6 Billion in Annual Revenue by Not Buying the Rest of Hulu" from January, 2020).

Instead Comcast passed and became a passive owner in Hulu. Comcast will eventually realize a nice return on this stake, but Comcast needs strategic assets for the streaming era far more than it needs additional cash.

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(Reminder - if you are a listener of The VideoNuze Report podcast, please update your feed per below to the new Inside the Stream feeds which have been available for a couple of months....we don't want to lose you as a listener as we complete this transition!)

Welcome to this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, the podcast where nScreenMedia’s Chief Analyst Colin Dixon and I take listeners inside the world of streaming video.

Earlier this week ViacomCBS and Comcast announced a partnership to launch “SkyShowtime,” a new SVOD service launching in 2022 in over 20 European territories with over 90 million homes. On today’s podcast Colin and I discuss why the companies chose to partner, especially since they have incumbent services in Peacock and Paramount+, rather than go it alone.

As Colin explains, the key here is content - both quality and quantity. The minimum size and selection of content required to be competitive in SVOD, especially in Europe, just keeps getting bigger. Colin brings his insights about the European market to our discussion. Importantly, he discusses the critical role that the big local broadcasters play as well as the “30% rule” for locally-produced content.

Another topic we explore is how this partnership signals a further evolution for Comcast from a primarily U.S.-focused company to one where a full global presence may be in the cards longer-term. Another intriguing question Colin raises is why, given the relatively unknown “Showtime” brand in Europe, it was incorporated into the service’s name.

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Content being used to drive consumer purchases isn’t a new idea, but streaming is breathing renewed interest, with a variety of different strategies and implementations. A number of interviews and articles illustrating the trend have recently caught my attention.

Given its commerce, content and technology capabilities, Amazon is primed (pun intended) to be a major player. In an interview at IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting a couple of weeks ago, Amazon Studios’ COO and Co-Head of Television Albert Cheng talked at length about how the company is using its Prime Video app on certain connected devices, along with its “X-ray” feature, to enable seamless viewer transactions. Albert highlighted successes the company has had with Rihanna’s “Savage x Fenty,” Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn’s “Making the Cut” and NFL Thursday Night Football.

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At its ONE21 developer conference this morning, NBCUniversal announced plans to launch its NBCU Audience insights Hub, which will contain all of its first-party audience data. The “proprietary data clean room” will give authorized partners permission to run restricted queries across their and NBCU’s audience data without exposing users’ personally identifiable information.

Using the NBCU data, partners will be able to discover overlaps in their audiences to drive better targeting and cross-platform campaign planning. Partners will gain access to NBCU’s linear TV APIs and certified reach measurement models to improve efficiency and effectiveness. NBCU plans to add to its measurement capabilities so that partners can do their own self-service multi-platform attribution. The clean room framework is being powered by Snowflake and VideoAmp is the first measurement partner to be integrated.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the fees CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN each pay to broadcast NFL games will double or more in new long-term agreements currently being finalized. Once again we are presented with the incongruity that sports rights are escalating even as the pay-TV subscriber audience able to watch these networks is shrinking.

As the Q4 earnings season wrapped up, the contraction of pay-TV was again in the news this week as analysts tallied the final losses for 2020. MoffettNathanson pegged the subscriber loss in 2020 among traditional cable, satellite and telco operators at approximately 6 million, with virtual operators (e.g. YouTube TV, Hulu, etc.) offsetting it by adding approximately 2 million subscribers.

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I’m pleased to present the 532nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.  

This week we dive into some of the key data from NBCUniversal’s new Cross-Platform Consumption Report, which revealed that for its entertainment programming, 76% of viewing by 18-34 year olds is now done on-demand. For 35-49 year olds it’s 69% and even for 50 year-olds it’s 50%.

The report points out that connected TVs have become the fastest growing device for consuming on-demand content. Colin and I see this only accelerating and we also discuss new CTVs that have been unveiled in the past week by Amazon, Roku and Google (Chromecast). The consumer experience keeps getting better and for $50 there are multiple solid choices.
 
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I’m pleased to present the 523rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast, with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. As always we wish our listeners all the best and hope everyone is staying well.

Peacock launched nationally this week and Colin and I are both impressed. The user experience and value proposition to advertisers are both strong. As more library and original content is added, it’s only going to get better. However, Peacock’s distribution is currently limited without deals with Amazon Fire TV and Roku, which is why Comcast’s own Flex device is critical. Peacock is also entering a highly competitive SVOD/AVOD market; it is poised to play a lot of different roles for NBCU and Comcast.

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Peacock launched broadly yesterday, though as a Comcast Xfinity broadband subscriber, I’ve had access to it for several months using my Flex device. I’ve spent a bunch of time with it and have been quite impressed. That the Peacock team put it together during the pandemic is quite a feat.

Some of the highlights to me are the very strong UI, the comfort food of popular programs like ’30 Rock,” “Parks and Rec,” “SNL,” and others, plus plenty of movies, the modest ad load of 5 minutes max per hour and the “Channels” which are about 30 virtual linear networks sorted into a traditional program grid.

As I’ve spent time with Peacock and followed the pre-launch coverage it’s become apparent how many different roles Peacock is poised to play for NBCU and its parent Comcast. Here’s a quick rundown:

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NBCUniversal used its One Industry Update livestream to emphasize that improving the viewer and advertiser experience remains a top priority. Laura Molen, President, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, said “this moment has only accelerated our efforts to make the ad experience more engaging for consumers and more effective for advertisers.” She continued, “I know we talk a lot about commercial time - and we’re still committed to bring that number way down.”

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Now that NBCU has revealed its launch plan, pricing and forecast for the Peacock streaming service, some quick math shows how much Comcast missed out on by not buying out Disney’s stake in Hulu. VideoNuze readers will recall this is what I proposed back in May 2018 (“Why Comcast Should Take Control of Hulu”) when Comcast and Disney battled to take over Fox. With Disney and Comcast each owning around 30% of Hulu at the time, as well as Fox owning around 30% and AT&T 10%, it was clear that whoever ultimately bought Fox would assume majority ownership of Hulu.

At the time I articulated all the reasons why, as part of any deal Comcast might make to step away from Fox, it should negotiate to take control of Hulu. Instead Comcast prioritized Sky (which it ultimately bought for $39 billion) and made a subsequent deal with Disney to sell off its Hulu stake. Disney also acquired AT&T’s approximately 10% stake in Hulu, making it Hulu’s 100% owner. Taken together, the moves make Disney CEO Bob Iger look like a genius, even if Disney was overcoming a late entry into the streaming party.

Comcast could have likely acquired the 70% or so of Hulu it didn’t own for around $13-15 billion, based on the $5.8 billion Disney ended up paying Comcast for its 30% share (Comcast also has an upside based on Hulu’s valuation  in 2024) Comcast could have done this in reverse. All of this is assuming Disney would have sold its share to Comcast. My hunch is there was a deal to be had if Comcast had said it wouldn’t bid up Fox’s valuation, in turn saving Disney billions of dollars. All in all, it would have been a very modest deal for a company Comcast’s size.

I think all of my original reasons why Comcast should have acquired Hulu still stand up pretty well a year and a half later. But now some quick math also reveals that acquiring could have generated nearly $6 billion/year for Comcast and NBCU and the springboard it could have become for Peacock, before even factoring in cost savings. I suppose it is worth keeping in mind that had the deal gone the other way, Comcast wouldn’t have received the $5.8 billion for its share in Hulu, but then again Comcast didn’t need the cash, so does that really matter?

In my view there are 5 key things to understand, 3 that relate to subscription revenue and 2 that relate to advertising revenue.

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