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This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I do an “around the horn” of four significant industry topics. We lead off with the expected bankruptcy filing of Diamond Sports Group earlier this week, the largest owner of regional sports networks (RSNs), resulting in a complete wipeout of the equity-holders. Where to from here is anyone’s best guess; but I reiterate my stance that sports teams’...
Pay-TV providers lost another 7 million subscribers (approximately) in 2022 as losses accelerated from 2021. The losses span those actually cutting the cord, plus those that simply don’t take on a pay-TV subscription in the first place.
On this week’s podcast Colin and I discuss pay-TV’s melting iceberg, and among its consequences, what’s it mean for sports teams’ valuations and players’...
At this past Tuesday’s VideoNuze Connected TV Advertising PREVIEW: 2023 virtual, 22 speakers on 5 sessions provided critical insights about the industry and its future direction. We discuss our key takeaways on today’s podcast.
All of the videos are posted here.
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In this week’s podcast, Colin and I are delighted to welcome BBC Studios’ GM of FAST Channels, Beth Anderson as our guest. BBC Studios has been one of the leading innovators and early adopters of FAST, and has a well-developed, highly-strategic plan for how to optimize its vast, 100-year old iconic programming library through aggressive FAST distribution.
Beth explains all of this and also...
This week we go on a “field trip” to India, where a battle between multibillionaires - at the intersection of streaming, marquee sports, mobile, commerce and FASTs - provides a glimpse of the future.
First up, we discuss news that Viacom18 Media Pvt. a joint venture between Paramount Global and multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd., the most valuable company...
Disney reported its fiscal 2023 first quarter this week, the first since Bob Iger returned to the CEO role. While other parts of the business are doing reasonably well, for Direct-to-Consumer, which includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, subscriber gains were weak and ARPU was down. Iger also shared that Disney will cut its content spending by $3 billion this year. For Colin and me, all of that...
On this week’s podcast, Colin Dixon and I boldly introduce to the industry a new acronym (technically it’s a “macronym” or “nested acronym”).
We’re all aware that free ad-supported TV (“FAST) services are currently all the rage and that many are predicting it will become a multibillion dollar streaming segment in the years ahead.
Content providers, TV OEMs and TV networks are seizing...
This week we discuss new data from Inscape, Deloitte and HarrisX, which all illustrate how streaming is continuing to build its dominance over traditional media. To highlight a few key points:
Inscape found that among its VIZIO panel of users, 55% are streaming-only (i.e. no pay-TV), up from 49% in 2022. Deloitte reported that the average U.S. household is now spending $61 per month on 4...
Disney reported its fiscal Q3 2023 this week, with Disney+ global subscribers (excluding Disney+ Hotstar) growing 800K to end at 105.7 million. Both ESPN+ and Hulu stayed approximately flat too. The sore point was Disney+ Hotstar, which lost 12.5 million subscribers to end at 40.4 million, primarily due to the loss of IPL cricket.
It is less clear what’s ahead for Disney+ subscribers with...
It’s earnings season, and on this week’s podcast, Colin and I discuss results from Disney, Roku, WB Discovery and Dish. The four companies’ subscriber counts, profitability and shifting business models all provide insights into larger industry trends and challenges.
Listen to the podcast to learn more (37 minutes, 36 seconds)
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