This week we discuss some of the latest news and rumors around bundling and aggregation of streaming services, the impact that wholesale rates have on DTC profitability, and the lack of data in the market to prove that bundling reduces churn. We also cover the viewership numbers from Prime Video's first NFL Black Friday game, Amazon's new licensing deal with NASCAR, and Charter's recently launched mobile broadband service that limits video streaming quality to 480p.
Podcast produced by Security Halt Media
This week we discuss some of the latest news and rumors around bundling and aggregation of streaming services, the impact that wholesale rates have on DTC profitability, and the lack of data in the market to prove that bundling reduces churn. We also cover the viewership numbers from Prime Video's first NFL Black Friday game, Amazon's new licensing deal with NASCAR, and Charter's recently launched mobile broadband service that limits video streaming quality to 480p.
Podcast produced by Security Halt Media
Welcome to this week's edition of the Dan Rayburn podcast, the show that curates the streaming media industry news that matters most, unvarnished, unscripted and providing you with the factual data you need to know, without any of the hype, the pulse of the streaming media industry.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Dan Rayburn podcast. I am Dan Rayburn, I'm Nicole Mark Donigan, here on geez, December 1st already.
Speaker 3:Mark.
Speaker 1:December 1st. This is podcast number 77.
Speaker 3:So we're coming up on our two year anniversary, which is awesome. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100. Wow, I mean, I was thinking about that the other day. We still have 25 more almost to get through, so plenty of time. Incredible, though, to think about, just over the last 12 months of this year, everything that's taken place in our industry. For sure, I think we could say that every year, but in particular the last two years. Clearly, covid had an impact, but the biggest impact these last 12 months has been the fact that companies need to get the profitability on the D2C side, and that's part of what we're going to talk about today, mark, because let's just cover the news.
Speaker 1:I don't even consider this news, but what everyone's talking about today is the rumors that Apple and Paramount are discussing possibly putting their services together in a bundle. That would be cheaper than what you could buy individually. Now, I wouldn't classify that as news in the sense that these companies and by these companies I mean hardware vendors, platforms, distributors, ott services are talking with each other all the time about potential tie ups. That by itself is not news, and also, when this came out from the Wall Street Journal I believe it was the Wall Street Journal Well, we don't have any indications going to happen. We don't know how far along. The conversations are. So the fact that someone throws out an idea internally, to me that's just not news. Could it happen? Sure it could. Now we've seen some of these deals Mark in the past, in the sense that one of the things I noticed is that a lot of people in the industry today, analysts, seem to be confusing aggregation with bundling.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:Which, as you and I know, and many of the listeners know, are not the same thing. So the example I keep seeing analysts say is well, we know, bundling works really well because look at what Disney does, that doesn't count, that's not bundling, when Disney owns all those properties ESPN plus Hulu. And what am I forgetting? Oh, disney plus.
Speaker 1:So it's technically a Disney bundle, but that is not the same as competitive streaming services bundling with one another. Now, historically, we've had almost no companies do that with one another. However, apple TV plus subscribers were able to get a Paramount plus showtime bundle for $10. Now that ended two months ago. But I think we have to segment in the industry what is truly a bundle versus what isn't. Now we did get news last week Mark Instacart plus users can get Peacock TV for free. It's cool. Walmart plus users have been getting Paramount plus for free. Some TV manufacturers, when you were buying, for instance, lg, had it. Where you bought a new LG TV, you got Disney plus free. So we have seen bundles before, but none of those companies that just announced are competing streaming services.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:There's also talking the market rumors of Verizon playing stall for a Netflix and Max Bundle at $10 a month hasn't been released as of yet.
Speaker 1:So I'd say a couple things we want to sort of unpack here, mark, and the first one is educating listeners, in case they don't know, that when a deal like this is done whether it's Instacart and Peacock, whether Apple did something with Paramount one company pays the other what's called a wholesale rate. So a wholesale rate simply means that one company is paying another a lower rate per subscriber than you and I would pay if we signed up individuals. So that's not helpful when companies are trying to get to profitability and free cash flow. And to put it in perspective, let me read this directly from Disney what they said, because again, let's go right to the source. Disney specifically said this was three quarters ago, where their numbers were a little better and their ARPU was higher. They said that is quote thanks to a lower mix of wholesale subscribers, end quote. So in other words, bundling doesn't make them as much money per sub. Now could you make that up in volume, economics of scale, potentially.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:These plans would also naturally be the ad plan, so they'd be inserting ads. How many subscribers could Paramount get by teaming with Apple? Well, how would Apple promote it? What type of marketing dollars would go behind it? What type of push? We just don't know. Now, paramount stock was up at one point a pretty good amount. Today, not surprisingly, I think it was 10% or more, mark you could probably look that up.
Speaker 3:They liked it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll take a quick look here. So they liked that, but they may not like it if it impacts the ARPU and the balance sheet Additional numbers here. Paramount plus ARPU was up 5.5% in Q3 year over year, so Q3 of this year, 2023, was up 5.5% over Q3 of 2022. And that's not great yeah.
Speaker 3:Paramount stock today popped 10%, 9.8, 8.1, 10% Interesting One month.
Speaker 1:They're up 32% over the last 30 days They've had a bit of a bump.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they've had a nice run.
Speaker 1:So interesting here. What we've heard in terms of how bundling impacts ARPU and the wholesale price and what they mark is we have never had any data shared publicly from any OTT service ever. That says if they bundle or they give away services with something like an LG TV, that it is driving new subscribers or keeping the subscribers they get.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah, it's an acquisition. This is a very traditional business problem to solve, In the sense that it's as straightforward as we as a business know that we have a certain acquisition cost. As you and I have talked many times, dan, these businesses have it modeled. I mean six ways to Sunday. So, believe me, the notion that they're not in control of how much they need to spend to capture I'm not saying the notion we get that, but sometimes you hear people talk as if these services don't know how much you have to spend to attract customers. They have that modeled.
Speaker 3:So the business analysis, kind of the calculus that goes on here with these bundling deals, is A can we reduce that for the set of customers that we're able to get through this channel, through an LG TV tie up, just as one example, because you mentioned it, not suggesting LG is better or worse than anybody else and so they're running math and they're saying, no, we think we can. Or the other scenario is no, we're going to spend the same ultimately because, yes, we're going to sign up, we're going to get an uplift, but our margin shrinks by 18% because, wholesale, whatever the numbers are, I'm totally making them up At the end of the day. Then they say yes, but we can get there faster, so that can be part of the calculus. Is like well, all right, we do this.
Speaker 1:Time to market.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're going to grow the subscriber base that much faster. And these are all of the levers that get moved into position with these bundling deals. I'll tell you, and you're probably not going to be surprised at what I'm about to say To me, all of this is just the slippery slope back towards the big bundle. And what am I talking about? Pay TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say it's yes. I would agree, mark, if it goes too far. That's the case. But the other thing to keep in mind here is a lot of these companies are also doing trials, right, they're testing what works, what doesn't. Yeah, that's right. You know Fubu was really open about. Look, we changed pricing because we're testing packages.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:All. Some of them are all like.
Speaker 3:Fubo.
Speaker 1:Fubo all the time and I like that right. It collects information. But Wall Street, and particularly analysts in our space, you know an analyst today was saying quote bundling is a way to acquire and retain subscribers. Says who, yeah, you Show me the data. Where is it Right and don't point me to some antenna nonsense. Right, show me the data. Because Disney, mark and a couple others were specifically asked how giving away accounts during Black Friday with devices that were bought, or when? Remember when Salesforce had their dream force?
Speaker 3:conference. Oh, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:As long as you attended virtually and watched a certain amount of video, you got a free Disney Plus account for a year. Disney was specifically asked during those times how did that impact net new subs? Did you retain these subscribers after Now? What was their answer? Well, we're not going to disclose that. Yeah, we're not going to disclose it, of course you're not.
Speaker 1:But this idea that the median Wall Street, you know, is so focused on, you know this will drive real business benefits. That is pure speculation and is completely unknown. Let me give you another, because Verizon I'm sure most people don't know Verizon has this Plus Play marketplace where you can sign up for different services all in one place. In some cases, you are getting a discount, depending on what it is. Verizon has disclosed no numbers to date on their Plus, on their what do they call it now? Now, I got it wrong Plus Verizon Plus Marketplace. I got to look it up again because I wrote it wrong in my notes, but here's the only thing you ready that Verizon has said.
Speaker 1:When asked how well it is going, they said quote it's a smash hit. That's it, that's all we got. Smash hit, hey, smash hit. But a smash hit could also mean it's destroyed, right. So my point is people are going bonkers in our space. Mark the amount of analysts in our space who have not even to your point. Earlier, you know you talked to them. You said a word, I forget what it was. Oh, analyze. Why is nobody analyzing what this would do to their bottom line if they're getting fewer dollars per subscriber?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like how is that helping the profitability?
Speaker 3:It's the angel joke, Dan. We lose money on every deal, but we make it up in volume.
Speaker 1:Economics of scale. That's the business Now. Could they over time, especially because you have ads in there? Potentially, but the idea that this would impact the balance sheet in a positive way quickly is not going to be the case of anything. It could impact it negatively for a period of time. So One could argue against me and say well, dan, they're playing the long game here, right? They're looking at the impact of this a couple years out. Okay, that's cool. However, they have no data yet to show that this is a long-term strategy that equals success. So my point is take this at face value. We don't have data to know that this would work from a profitability standpoint.
Speaker 1:The other thing is someone was talking about, oh well, you know, you had the Paramount Plus and Showtime Bundle through Apple TV, like I mentioned, and that was great. Well, it didn't change the user experience because you had to use the Paramount app or the Paramount Apple TV channel for Showtime and then you had to use the Apple TV channel. So in some cases, you had to use an app, you had to use a channel, you had to go to Apple TV Plus. It's not as if those services were combined into one user experience. So we also have to think about the user experience, I think, as well. And also, even if this came out cheaper than what you could get it for now, how long before that price would be raised? We don't know, but we've seen what goes on in the market. Prices do not stay the same. You're lucky if they stay the same for 12 months for a streaming service. So everyone should just calm down, chill out. It's not a big deal of summer making and, by the way, it hasn't even been announced. So what if it never comes out?
Speaker 1:That said, mark, I think the key takeaway here, the point that is valid, is and we've heard this from the CEO of Warner Bros Discovery is they do believe that bundling their service with other services of some kind does make sense. If it's the right partner, it's the right type of content. If there's not as much overlap of content, you could potentially see bundling live with on demand maybe. Okay, I understand where this is going and that we've got to make this easy for consumers, but at the same time, you have a lot of big companies in the space that then have to agree to work with one another. And then, by the way, who's sharing all the data you're collecting. What's the data sharing deal here? And then you have privacy issues. So on the face of it, this looks like a really simple oh, they'll just bundle together. It's a lot harder than that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:So let's move on to Prime Video. So viewership numbers came out for the first NFL Black Friday game. It was the lowest rated and second least watched game on Prime this season. Not surprising, it's a 3pm Eastern start. It's the Jets. They have a losing record. They started their third string quarterback for the game.
Speaker 3:Did they really?
Speaker 1:I didn't watch it yeah they did, yeah, so you didn't miss anything. So no surprise that according to Nielsen's national TV ratings that's panel only that game averaged 9.61 million viewers. But the key takeaway here is what Amazon was doing with that game, because the numbers by itself for this particular game doesn't tell the full story. The metrics Amazon was using to judge success for this particular game is different, because they were offering ways for viewers to interact with ads barcodes, also hitting enter on the Fire TV remote that would allow you to get deals on items from Amazon's website. They did a big push with ads also during the game, so 30 second spots reportedly went for almost a million dollars each.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw that.
Speaker 1:Which was a lot more expensive than what they traditionally cost for Thursday night football.
Speaker 1:Now, amazon gave out no details regarding purchases made during the game, how many people clicked on something or scanned a QR code. We also don't know how many new signups Amazon got, because this game unlike all the other Thursday night games, this game was free as long as you signed up for an Amazon account, didn't have to be a prime account. So, between all the data Amazon collected on how the interactive ads worked what may be worked well, what didn't QR codes, how many people scanned them, new account signups, the advertising revenue If Amazon actually paid $100 million to get the rights to this game and that's the number being reported somewhere between 90 to $100 million If you just look at the number ad breaks they had and you're thinking about 30 second spots and a million dollars each I think it's a good use of the money that they spent. Between the money they got back, whatever they got from shopping and everything else that they learned with the experimentation of ads, we see where this is going.
Speaker 3:It is. Yeah, it's super interesting because if you completely took out the ad revenue, it's, you know it's works out to be a little bit more than $10 per viewer, but let's just call it $10. Let's call it $11 per viewer. If each viewer spent on now, now that would have to be profit, you know. But anyway, you know, if they got $11 per viewer, like well, that paid for the game, but that's like not even, that's not even the value. Now you've got these people who have adopted a whole new way of transacting, buying products, in the middle of a live viewing experience.
Speaker 1:And I and I would say testing. I don't. We don't know if they're adopting it yet.
Speaker 3:No, no, but yeah.
Speaker 3:But what I mean is, is it yeah, of course I don't mean now like, oh, I only want to buy things, I'm watching TV, but now you have, you have a large set of people and again, not all 10 million a very, very, very small fraction, you know, probably transacted, so you know. But if you just think about the thought exercise, you know this. This is very interesting because in Asia, where things like stream selling, where these influencers go live and it's like QVS, you know, except over over, you know, these social platforms, whatever, this buying behavior, this way of interacting and with commerce, it is, is huge and and it it changes the relationship, you know, of the buyer to the seller and the seller to the buyer. And I don't know. I'm also very bullish on the, on the, the testing attributes of this and, of course, will never, they'll probably never even hint at what they're really, what they're really looking at. You know, for all, we know they're like, we don't care if one million people watched it. We know exactly what we're trying to measure and you know so.
Speaker 1:And they do. I Exchanged. What I will say is I exchanged some very interesting emails with Amazon specifically about this game. I will not go into the details of it. I can't. But to your point, yes, they're very focused on Measuring what was the ad experience, what worked right, what works throughout the game, more than something else. So you're absolutely right the amount of people to have looking at how does this factor into what they do going forward? Because they also came out and said they want to make this black Friday game more of a Yearly thing every year on Amazon, getting it ingrained into people's head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's not surprising. Yeah, so so it was. It was interesting to see. I Didn't really have any issues with the stream. Did you try?
Speaker 3:and buy it. It wasn't, did you click?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I clicked on everything QR codes and whatnot. Now I had a few problems QR codes where it was like hey, here's the special on Nintendo's Game console, and the QR code would take me to the home page of Amazon, but not to the actual Nintendo product okay now.
Speaker 1:Could it have sold out in a couple seconds? I don't think so, but it didn't take me to the page other times. If I clicked Enter on the fire TV remote, it would send me an email Telling me here's the product you wanted more information on, with the link directly to their site. So there was a couple ways to interact with it. It was interesting how they had a couple different ad formats, but I thought it was just cool in terms of how they were doing their, their testing. I also think marked.
Speaker 1:The key here is what they did was in terms of offering special deals. I don't really feel the need to have to go by Gatorade right now During the football game. Right, like, cool, I'll get that later, or whatnot like. So that's not an incentive for me. The moment you're dropping special deals that are only available during the game If you scan the QR code, okay, now you've given consumers an incentive in incentive, so I Think that's the big deal as well. Now also talking about prime here, before we move on. So last night's game, which was the cowboys and Seahawks, I post to an image on my LinkedIn post about this.
Speaker 1:The takeover of the home page Amazon calm was like nothing. I've ever seen the entire and I mean the entire page Above the fold. Everything you could see in the browser window and a 16-inch MacBook Pro was the Amazon game, the logos of the teams and the video auto playing in a fairly large-sized window. Now, previously I'd seen it where it would auto play when you went to Amazon calm in the upper right hand corner in a smaller window, but you could still see products that are featuring. This took over the whole site completely. Maybe others have seen that. I had never seen that before to that degree now. At the same time, interesting in that and no one's really sort of questioning Nielsen's metrics outside of the panel stuff, because what Nielsen won't say is what's considered an actual viewer. Yeah, if that's auto-playing on the home page and I never click on it to expand it, am I a viewer? I don't know. Now they also don't say, when they report viewer statistics, unique viewers. They just say viewers.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:So if I'm shopping on Amazon site and I hit the home page two or three times and that video yeah, it starts up now.
Speaker 3:Am I now multiple viewers? Are you three viewers? Well, you do have a lot of TVs in your house and you know if they're all running at the same time.
Speaker 1:I can only watch one at a time, unless I'm testing your testing.
Speaker 3:So See, you're not there, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yo, one person. I mean it's possible if a lot of us were doing that, I can run up to ten streams at a time. So they may not like that. But you know, I've I've asked Amazon in person about this, even recently, and they're like hey, these are Nielsen's numbers. You gotta ask Nielsen. Well, of course Nielsen is not gonna say you know they don't.
Speaker 1:They don't want anyone to know. But what bothers me, mark, is why is nobody in the industry questioning Just hey, by the way what are the exact metrics we're getting? Because every time Amazon puts out these numbers, I Don't see anyone the media saying okay, but what is a viewer? Now, also, one of the key point here which I thought was interesting is Amazon has A Twitter handle Just for the stats for Thursday night football that they put out after the game. For some reason, they didn't push these out. Hmm, I don't know why. Interesting, it's still not up on up on their site. So I don't know why they decided to put them out for what I saw for all the other games for the year, but they didn't for these.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, more sports news for prime video, nascar. Now it's the deal with Amazon seven-year deal and beginning in 2025, where prime video is going to be the exclusive home of five NASCAR Cup Series races. So, just so listeners are aware, this is this is five races, because Fox, tnt sports and NBC sports are Already the other distribution partners for the NASCAR Cup Series. So it's not only Amazon for distribution, but Amazon will be exclusive for five of the Cup Series races. A Couple other stats here. Mark NBC sports at the Thanksgiving stream of the 49ers Seahawks NFL game delivered the most streamed prime time NFL Thanksgiving game ever, registering an AMA. That's average minute audience of 1.6 million viewers. Now that's across peacock NBC sports digital and NFL digital properties. They say it was up 34% from previous year, which was 1.2 million. Now that does not, clue, include virtual and VPD's. So who, plus live TV sling TV fooboo? Oh, I did it again. Sorry, fooboo. Keep doing that, foobo said it right earlier.
Speaker 3:I said it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I should have listened to that. I'm gonna like write it down in a big piece of paper and walk by it every day. Fooboo, oh sorry, fooboo.
Speaker 3:Foo boo, I think it's a clothing brand? I think there's actually. It is yeah for you, by you.
Speaker 1:But you know, that's not my style.
Speaker 1:There is, there is, so it's fooboo. We don't know what their numbers are. We don't know what Hulu's are, we don't know what sling TVs are, but even if you look at all three of them combined, uh, four, five, let's see four, five, six, seven, so-called little over seven million subs, even if Half of them happen to be watching this game, which I don't think it would be, let's call it three million Subs, you're. You're still talking about an AMA audience of four point six million. It's just not that big. Total viewership was twenty six point nine million viewers when you included pay TV. So you know just just a little stat there. I love that NBC Sports, if anyone's listening. Nbc Sports, I congratulate you and thank you for actually putting out numbers when you break out digital from pay TV. You know who doesn't Fox Sports. They've never broken out anything I've ever seen on viewership. So I love that NBC Sports does that.
Speaker 1:A couple of quick things here. Mark of Duzone it's. The chief executive at Duzone Basically said an interview this week at a conference that it's he thinks it's only a matter of time before his company lands the broadcast rights to the Premier League in the UK. But he cautioned that he would not that they would not quote bid at any cost. He also went on to say quote. The timing is also important because we want to build a sustainable business. So what more evidence do we need? Profitability is what's driving these decisions on sports licensing.
Speaker 1:Let's go on to charter communications. So they launched a mobile broadband service on June 30th. It is throttling all video streams, the DVD quality. So quote DVD quality video streaming is supported, hd videos not currently an option. So a little bit similar to Comcast, because Comcast is letting existing customers get 720p streams, which is only for an intern basis on the charge, but then they announced plans to charge extra For longer term access to HD quality video. But charter hasn't announced any plans to let customers stream an HD over its mobile service for free otherwise. So mark just another Interesting data point where we hear, you know some analysts that cover the broadband side of the house saying oh well, you know, I really want to get rid of broadband and we'll go to 5g in the home and you know, now we'll have 5g broadband access and it's like guys, okay, you know, if that happens, like videos are being capped at 480p.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a reason for that. So interesting that these Stats are out if you look at or I should say, these numbers, specifically on charters Page, where it's like FAQ, and you can also see him on Comcast. Now, of course, they don't highlight it. He got to dig it for it, yeah, but it's very clear what it does and does not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, verizon, I believe, is the network for charter and maybe for oh is that how the deals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:It's an MVNO, you know mobile virtual network operators. So that's what charter and Comcast are and it's Verizon for charter.
Speaker 1:I suppose I could look real quick, but yeah, I haven't really followed that, but you remember.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I Don't need their backs. They looked it up just to see who was powering it. But you remember now oh, this was maybe even five years ago Um, t-mobile, you know, had the big, I think even like, didn't Congress get Like some?
Speaker 2:government got it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was all net neutrality stuff and they were throttling and you know you're cutting and and that was a big you know Debate there as well, but look yeah, the key there too, though, mark, was they were cutting deals with continental yeah yeah, and they were cutting the same deal saying, hey, we'll give you all this now if you want us to provide better quality video, it's gonna be more.
Speaker 2:Networks, you'll have to provide.
Speaker 1:Now the problem is it wasn't under net neutrality technically, because they weren't prioritizing video packets right, but of course, to your point, it pulled into Regulatory discussions anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah anyway, I'm so happy that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know now until some other People and you know the government who don't understand how any of this works, want to bring that back. Oh yeah and they will, and they will, yeah, at some point, mark. Finally, let's just go through here. So I didn't interview Yesterday for an executive podcast with the CTO and CPO of Warner Bros Discovery, and that'll drop any day here, that'll be good.
Speaker 1:So listeners, by the time we push this out, actually it'll be up Next week. So just a den river podcast, calm, you can see it in the feed. So Really interesting. The things we talked about, mark and I don't want to give too much away, but we talked about you've got the chief technology officer and the chief product officer who have had to combine Many different platforms technologies services over. They've both been at the company larger company for more than five years. They've had to prioritize. What platforms do you actually publish to distribute on what legacy hardware Do you think maybe that's not where we have to put our time? Plus you're rolling international, plus they're going into lat-tam next year.
Speaker 1:We talked about 4k, we talked about latency and what I loved, mark, is they were extremely just open of look, here's the reality. So this is coming directly from you know, a company that has so many different subs, with so many subscribers across not just max but discovery as well, and it's Basically what they were saying is countering a Lot of what analysts are saying in the space. You know like, oh, you got to do 4k and ultra low-licency matters. And it's like guys, listen to the CTO and CPO. If people were responsible for their products, and the one thing I'm going to pull up here is Because there were some analysts that were highlighting this today, which is Ridiculous. According to hub research, 74% of TV homes now on a smart TV. Okay, it doesn't really surprise us.
Speaker 3:It's pretty much all you can buy.
Speaker 1:Yes, but what they're saying, what they're implying, is that smart TVs are replacing streaming boxes as a primary source of viewership, and Some analysts were even quoted as saying that. You know, users have quote switched from streaming sticks and boxes to smart TVs. Now I specifically asked Warner Bros, discovery, cto and CPO, and you know what they said we don't see any of that data. We don't see any platform that all of a sudden is replacing another or Moving past another as far as usage. And yet this hub research thing mark was picked up by so many analysts on our space, basically saying, like Streaming boxes are dead and they're dying out.
Speaker 1:So just another reason for listeners. I just don't believe everything you read, because what I love is why isn't hub research or one of these other firms that puts out all this data? Why aren't you going and asking the OTT platforms directly? You know why because you don't have relationships with them. Yeah, they don't trust you. So instead you go out and you do a survey to consumers where it's really vague and generic. And the hub stuff mark was pretty funny because you know, just in terms of talking, how many people had a smart TV. I mean, can you buy a non?
Speaker 1:smart, that's my point you can, but like it's pretty hard it is hard.
Speaker 3:I Challenge anybody. Go into Walmart. I mean I mean, don't go to Best Buy, go into Walmart and say I want to help. Can't be smart, it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard, you can buy one.
Speaker 1:There's gotta be some out there, but it's to your point. You probably have to hunt yeah, you gotta hunt nice.
Speaker 1:Else. I saw another analyst saying that Smart TVs are gradually replacing streaming devices such as Roku or Amazon Fire TV sticks or boxes. And then they said, according to hub research. Yeah, so Look, hub can have whatever research they want, but if you go and you talk to the company, so it's not what they're thinking. Now, mark, there's another company asked the same question to. They did not want to go on record, but let's just say their name starts with a D.
Speaker 1:Okay and they said the exact same thing, which was we don't see one platform outpacing another. We do, at times, see there's more usage from one particular platform over another. That happens right. But this idea that streaming boxes are just disappearing and smart TVs are replacing them, I Do not hear that directly from the OTT platforms, who have better data than anybody else.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:That is not the case. So that's what we got for you this week. Question data as always, super important. Let's see. Next week mark. We're gonna take a week off, since I'm traveling. Then we'll be back. So we'll do two more podcasts this month. We'll see what we wrap up the end of the year with. We are not gonna be doing prediction pieces, I can just tell listeners.
Speaker 1:that now good yeah and for thank you people, for people emailing me vendors like, oh hey, can we be your prediction piece? No, I don't do them. I Get those emails every year and it's like no, please, I don't, that's, that's not valuable. How about we condense all the best real-world data that companies have put out directly from OTT streamers in the last year, like how about you discuss that at the end of the year? So maybe that's what we'll do, mark. I don't really know yet, but we'll. We'll come up with something for the end of the year. Just recap Basically the most important key takeaways Based on factual evidence, data and where we might think that that skews to over the new year, because obviously data only tells one part of the story. The data does change, obviously, and I think we'll do a wrap-up to mark of the last 12 months of what we've seen on Wall Street. As far as stock prices, just what people understand year over year. Here's where stocks are. I Looked at some vendors just this morning and many of them are 52 week lows.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so not a lot. I did that there Unfortunately as well.
Speaker 1:No, it's surprising, but still unfortunate. So that's what we got this week. You have any questions? Let us know. Reach out to mark and I. Everything we talked about today is up on LinkedIn Now, depending on this podcast drops, I might not have the Warner Bros Discovery podcast up yet, but if not, it'll be up in a day or two From when you're listening to this.
Speaker 1:So just just look at it. Dan here from podcast calm, as always. We appreciate everyone listening, mark. We're over 30,000 downloads now amazing, well over that. I kind of stopped looking, but Still still doing great. With every, every episode people are sharing and more, which we we certainly appreciate. Our goal is always just to put out as much information as possible Actual data, give you practical, real-world data you can use Applied in your business actual intelligence and separate now our opinions from facts. I think opinions are okay, but I Think it's important when you're Highlighting what's your opinion versus what's actual fact, that we need more data in the market. So it's always the goal with the podcast. So we appreciate everyone listening. You have any questions? Reach out to mark and I anytime and We'll talk to you next week. Everyone have a great week. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed the show, send it to a friend, have questions for Dan or mark, connect with them on LinkedIn at any time and be sure to check out dance blog at streaming media blog calm.