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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...
On this week’s Inside the Stream Colin and I dig into Netflix’s first engagement report, released earlier this week. The report details what subscribers watched during the January-June 2023 period. It includes viewership of over 18,000 titles, which comprises 99% of all viewing on the service. Colin has used the data to make several calculations about Netflix’s overall business. Hopefully other...
On this week’s Inside the Stream Colin and I first discuss the trend toward SVOD services being bundled with one another. We agree the approach makes sense to cut churn and increase the lifetime value of subscribers. Next, Peacock has hit 30 million paying subscribers, which we believe is a healthy milestone for the three year-old service, though its losses are in the billions of dollars....
Charter and Disney settled their dispute and on this week’s podcast we discuss the outcome. Last week we discussed the broader implications of the impasse. Colin is on his way to IBC in Amsterdam and we catch up on Eluvio and its blockchain-based streaming platform. Also in the news this week was Gracenote’s new metadata solution for FASTs. Last, we discuss recent news that Comcast and Disney...
Blackouts have been commonplace in the pay-TV industry when operators and TV network owners are unable to come to terms on renewal terms. While the current dispute between Charter and Disney includes typical challenges like pricing and bundling, it also includes Charter’s desire to see its subscribers receive complimentary access to Disney’s DTC apps.
Disney is of course reluctant to do so...
This week on Inside the Stream, Colin and I discuss Comscore’s 7th annual State of Streaming report, which was just released. For CTV homes, Netflix leads with 74% reach, followed by YouTube, with 71%, though YouTube has 47 hours of viewing time per month, compared with 35 hours for Netflix. Despite billions of dollars of content and branding investments, broadcasters’ SVOD services lag in both...
Colin has attended a couple conferences recently where some industry colleagues have likened FASTs to “cable TV 2.0.” On today’s podcast we discuss the distinct differences between FASTs and the traditional cable TV model, starting with the biggest one, which is that FASTs aren’t paid any type of carriage fee to be included on platforms (in fact, as we discuss, the opposite is often the case,...
Inside the Stream: 5 Key Takeaways from the VideoNuze’s Fourth Annual CTV Advertising Summit virtual
Yesterday was VideoNuze’s fourth annual Connected TV Advertising Summit virtual, featuring 27 senior executives on 6 sessions across the afternoon. Hundreds of industry colleagues attended, hearing insights, data and forecasts from participating speakers. I will post all of the session videos on VideoNuze early next week.
There were a lot of really interesting observations, which Colin and I...
Some big SVOD services are cutting content from their libraries, including certain originals. Most prominently, Disney recently said it’s taking a $1.5-$1.8 billion impairment charge related to content cuts.
The idea of “rotating” content in and out of libraries is nothing new in SVOD, but as profitability becomes paramount, the current cuts seem to be deeper and signal a shift in thinking....
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...