This week, we review what's behind all the industry layoffs as companies reset the cost bar on CAPEX and OPEX expenses. With full-year 2023 financials in the book, some companies didn't hit the revenue, efficiency, and cost savings goals they had expected, prompting layoffs to start the year. We also detail how some vendors are restructuring their debt with Fubo, the most recent example, which will pay a higher interest rate in exchange for pushing debt out by three years and getting to profitability faster.
We detail the 2023 domestic box office revenue numbers, which topped $9.03 billion, an improvement on the $7.4 billion total ticket sales from 2022 and the great year that IMAX had financially. On the sports front, we discuss the NCAA's nearly billion-dollar handshake with ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to continue to give away its B/R Sports Add-On for several more months before they start charging consumers.
Finally, we mention some executive changes at VideoAmp, Prime Video, Brightcove and Edgio.
Podcast produced by Security Halt Media
This week, we review what's behind all the industry layoffs as companies reset the cost bar on CAPEX and OPEX expenses. With full-year 2023 financials in the book, some companies didn't hit the revenue, efficiency, and cost savings goals they had expected, prompting layoffs to start the year. We also detail how some vendors are restructuring their debt with Fubo, the most recent example, which will pay a higher interest rate in exchange for pushing debt out by three years and getting to profitability faster.
We detail the 2023 domestic box office revenue numbers, which topped $9.03 billion, an improvement on the $7.4 billion total ticket sales from 2022 and the great year that IMAX had financially. On the sports front, we discuss the NCAA's nearly billion-dollar handshake with ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to continue to give away its B/R Sports Add-On for several more months before they start charging consumers.
Finally, we mention some executive changes at VideoAmp, Prime Video, Brightcove and Edgio.
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 2:Welcome to the Dan Rayburn podcast. I am Dan Rayburn, along with co-host Mark Donoghan, who's back in the new year.
Speaker 3:Yes, happy new year.
Speaker 2:Dan, good to have you back. Glad you're feeling better there. Seems everybody these days in the last couple of weeks actually has been having a cold year there or something that's right, not surprising, it's that time of year, but we hope everyone in the new year is doing well. As I mentioned in the last podcast of the year that I did, focusing on your physical and mental health is and we are family is more important than anything in the business world, so we do hope people are feeling well in the new year.
Speaker 2:What Mark and I are going to cover today are some pieces of information that are going to come out around content, also some changes some companies have made at the executive level. A couple of different pieces here mark around mergers and acquisitions that are not taking place or being slowed down, which is interesting. Little bit of financial information as well, which is always important to cover, and also just what we have upcoming later this month. We do have already. It is earning seasons Season. I should say that's right Pretty soon. So the week of the 22nd, which is great because we're going to get not only Q4 numbers from companies, but we're going to get full year 2023 numbers and some companies will put out 2024 guidance for the year.
Speaker 2:Super helpful for us Give some indication of what we're seeing in the market. So let's just start For listeners. Let's go through some content deals here, mark. The first one that came out in the last few days is that the NCAA and ESPN have announced an expanded agreement for eight years and 40 NCAA championships, which includes women's basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball. Quite a few different sports will be across ESPN's networks for the next eight years, which is more than 800 hours of NCAA championships.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of content A lot of sports, a lot of sports.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of sports. The deal is $920 million, which is pretty incredible, and it will include more than 2,300 combined sports on linear and digital platforms. The agreement includes all 24 sports that are already covered in ESPN's previous contract that they've had. And shockingly, mark I mean this is awesome for us, but shockingly the NCAA came out and told the Associated Press that the deal had an average annual value of $115 million. So that's how we know the $920 million is accurate.
Speaker 2:And he said that's an increase of more than 300% per year based on what the previous 14 year agreement with ESPN was paying the association. Not real surprising if you see what viewership has been on NCAA games. Certainly basketball does better than volleyball and whatnot, but a great deal for the NCAA. I don't know what this does as far as impacting ESPN's balance sheet, positively or negatively. We do know that Disney recently put out financial numbers just on ESPN, broken out individually, and the business is doing a lot better than many people originally thought, but more content on ESPN. What we don't have here, mark, and of course, which we'd love to know, is what percentage of this content is going to be on digital networks, because this is really a linear network deal to start, let's just call it what it is, but it includes digital platforms, so unknown right now. But that's the deal between the NCAA and ESPN.
Speaker 2:We've got some news that just came out. Actually today, friday January 5th, warner Bros Discovery planned to launch their paid version of BR Sports add-on, coming up at $10 a month. It would take effect in February, so another month. Warner Bros Discovery has announced that they will continue to make available to max subscribers with the sports add-on for free for the next few months as they finalize they say quote, as we finalize some tech integrations that will ensure more seamless customer experience with their platform partners. So I love this. If you're a consumer, you're getting at least a couple more months of sports for free, and the reason WBD is doing it is to make sure that the integration properly works and they set proper customer expectations when they do make the changeover. I think that's a great thing.
Speaker 3:That's great yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Serving the customer.
Speaker 1:If someone's going to say, oh, they're having technical problems or oh, they can't figure it out like you know it's not easy.
Speaker 2:It's sports. Sports is challenging. We all know that. So they have not given out a date mark of when they will start charging. They haven't given out a new date. They will just say they just said that it will be free for a few more months. So we'll wait to see.
Speaker 2:In that one Some more content news. According to ComScore, 2023 domestic box office topped just over $9 billion, which is an improvement on the 7.4 billion total ticket sales from 2022. So $9.03 billion is what ComScore says. So at the same time, people in the industry who track this very closely studio executives, comscore and others are saying that the WGA and SAG-AFR strikes are actually going to impact box office revenue this year by about a billion dollars less. Wow, that's what they're suggesting and some of the data around that to support that is pretty interesting. The weakest part of the 2024 theatrical schedule is in the first four months of this year, with releases down 30% compared to the same months in 2023. So if you go online, you can see exactly how many releases are scheduled to come out January to April this year compared to what came out the year before. So it's fewer movies coming out for the first four months. So most analysts are projecting total domestic box office sales this year to be down from last year and I'm seeing projections specifically on Wall Street anywhere between $8 billion and $8.6 billion. So $9.03 billion this year or last year, it looks like it's going to be down a bit.
Speaker 2:That said, let's highlight IMAX here. Imax had a great year. We haven't had their full year revenue because they haven't done Q4 earnings, but they had their second highest grossing quarter ever at the global box office in Q3. They generated 120 new signings for new and upgraded IMAX systems worldwide and their operating cash flow was more than three times what it was last year in the same quarter Pretty incredible. And to give you an idea of what they have in the bank, through the first nine months of 2023, cash from operations was $55 million, compared to half a million dollars for the same period in 2022. Now, at the end of Q3, imax's available liquidity was $308.9 million Pretty incredible. So the idea that nobody's ever going back to the movies again. It's not the case. Yes, $9.03 billion in domestic box office for last year is down from pre-pandemic still down from a couple billion. Part of that, too, is based on how successful some of these movies have or have not been. Obviously, barbie was a big thing it was yeah.
Speaker 2:That was a shocker. But Taylor Swift to Eris Tor Oppenheimer, mission Impossible, dead Reckoning Part One, did very well. We've got Dune 2 coming out this year. Many have projected that we'll do over a billion dollars so we'll have to watch the box office, but the point is it's still alive and well. Moving into some content slash merger news, it's being reported that the merger discussions between Zee and Sony are creating an issue over Disney Star's plans to broadcast ICC tournaments. So about two weeks ago the Economic Times reported that reliance industries and Walt Disney signed a non-binding term sheet to merge their operations in India, their media operations. So those talks between Viacom and 18 and Disney Star for a merger basically creates issues with the ICC, because the under 19 men's cricket world cup is just weeks away. So I don't follow all the different cricket things out there. Mark, I doubt you do either.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not up on it. There's a lot of them.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them, but, as we know, cricket is the most popular sports on the internet of the data numbers we have, so we'll have to see how that plays out. We've got a lot of moving pieces there between Disney just Disney in general. Right now Disney's also. There was news this week about what's going on with Disney's board right that's going to be changing, so we'll see what happens there Now.
Speaker 2:The Sony and Zee merger wasn't completed before the end of the year and originally it was supposed to be finished by the end of 2023, and it's a $10 billion deal, and the merger was set for September of last year. It got moved to December and now it's unclear when it's going to happen. Some are saying it's going to be February of this year and others say it's not going to happen before April. So we've got some big, outstanding mergers in the market that we have to keep an eye on. If the Sony and Z merger goes through, the combined companies will have 70 plus TV channels, film studios that will control 26% of the market. That's that's a big deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dan, I'm, I'm actually reading here in real time, as you're, as you're talking, this, this article, the link that I know is up on LinkedIn to the story about the Sony.
Speaker 3:Oh this is on storyboard 18. Storyboard 18.com, it's merger limbo, threatens Disney stars ICC broadcast as Z Sony talks delay. So it's just based on this and it's not a very. It's quite short, but it does have some details. It looks like this is probably one of those typical contractual complexities where, you know, discussions went out a window, deadlines weren't met, certain, you know, either payments weren't made or it triggered provisions in other agreements and all of a sudden it concludes here and it says that Disney star will have to go ahead and broadcast the upcoming ICC. You know cricket World Cup, and I guess the question was, if everything had happened in time, maybe that would have been so needsy. Does that make sense? I don't know.
Speaker 2:It is, it's unknown depending on how the right exact exactly, and so you know and also reliance, the. The deal that they're saying is reliance would own 51%. Yes, yeah which is more so they have control interest. So yeah, there's definitely some other questions.
Speaker 2:So anyway, yeah, it's complex and, to your point, you talk about triggering things and you know in contracts, which takes us into our next deal, which is by do. So by do has terminated its plan 3.6 billion acquisition of joy. So joy used to be known as yy, which is the live streaming business in China, and that was and the business is huge mark the 2022 revenues 2.4 billion. This is big, that's joy's revenue. So Live streaming in China is big. So it was supposed to close in the first half of 2021 and it didn't. So by do exercise the rights as you point out the contract to terminate the share purchase agreement and cancel the transaction because Regulators did not approve the transaction by the December 31st deadline. So by do filed an exchange, filed a document and then joy filed a separate document saying basically that they're seeking legal advice and are going to consider all their options in response to the notice that the deals no longer going through.
Speaker 3:So clearly they're not happy. Yeah, the complexity. There is certainly not about to wait into any discussions around the uniqueness of the government and regulatory environment in China. But, yeah, no thanks. But let's just say that you know there's some very Different set of working conditions there. You know in terms of how agreements and approvals and regulators. You know Function and and what they can do you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, right and what I couldn't find out. The mark is. I looked at there were two filings One was on, I believe, the Korean stock exchange and I had to translate it into English, and joys was US so that was easy to read, but what I couldn't find was I couldn't find if, in the deal terms, there was any sort of payment that by do would have to make the joy if the deal ended up right, ended up didn't happen.
Speaker 2:I couldn't find that out. Many times there is, and sometimes that number can be in the billions yeah.
Speaker 2:So if there's another thing that we're gonna have to keep an eye on as far as a merger, it's interesting how we've three big ones Just in the last couple weeks. End of year. That didn't really really happen, so we're gonna have to watch that one. Let's go into finances Money Something you and I have talked about a lot over 2023. About how hard it is for companies to get money. Mark, since you were out, you know, last week in the podcast I was mentioning that, I spoke to someone who Was saying that a vendor, you know, has raised 95% of a recent round but literally can't close the last couple hundred thousand dollars. So money is gonna be very tight this year. It's just the reality of it. So some news from Fubo. I got to start off the year saying their name, right? You?
Speaker 3:did good.
Speaker 2:I'm always messing up Fubo. Yeah, fubo announced that it's reduced its debt by 28.3 million, which is good, and it's extended a meaningful portion of its debt out to 2029, which was due in 2026. So a lot of numbers here, but I'll just make this really simple. So what they did is they went to a current investor, mudwick capital management, and and they converted some existing 3.25 percent notes that were due in 2026 Out to 2029. So for the ones that converted, fubo is going to pay 7.5% interest on the new notes if they're paid in cash and 10% interest if it's paid in kind. But the new interest rate only applies to the new notes. So the notes that were not exchanged are still tied to the 3.25 percent interest rate. So what did I just say? Basically, the key takeaway here is that Fubo has agreed to pay a higher interest rate on in some of its debt in Exchange for pushing its debt out by three years.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:So there's a trade-off there. What I what I like about this on multiple fronts for Fubo is it's going to help assist them in terms of getting to their their business, to free cash flow by 2025. That's the goal that they have set with Wall Street. I Also like the number they got here at 7.5 percent. In today's market, we've already seen deals at 13 and 15 percent. So for them to get 7.5 percent Okay, it's not 3.25, but it's also not 13 or 15. Now it is 10 if they pay in kind and they don't do cash.
Speaker 2:So in that case, their interest has tripled almost, almost, yeah, just over three times what they're paying now. So it just goes to show you what companies are looking at when it comes to debt on their balance sheet. Would they rather have more flexibility and pay it off over a longer time, but pay more interest? It's not a right or wrong answer, but I do like what Fubo is doing here. It also allowed them to reduce their total debt owed by 28.3 million, the way they restructured it. So, all in, I think this is a good deal and we're going to have to watch other companies in the new year of how they restructure some debt as well, we did recently talk about EGO, how they redid some of theirs as well.
Speaker 2:Right, so that was another one. And then that takes us to the next one, which is video amp. So video amp in September raised 150 million in a series G round and they laid off 10% of their workforce. At the time All the numbers I heard it wasn't published by them was that they got 15% on their G round. That's their interest. 15%, it's high. 150 million, it's a lot. That was in September. Now they announced this week that their CEO is stepping down from his role and they plan to lay off another 20% of their workforce. So interesting in that of in a four month, really three month period, September to January he raised 150 million and you're now laying off 30% total of your workforce in a 90 day window. And what concerns me here is, if you lay off 10% of your workforce in September, I can understand if you refocus your business and you're like maybe there's a few more we have to lay off, but to then decide you have to lay off another 20% more.
Speaker 2:That seems a bit odd to me. You're also going to be very. You're going to have a confusing message internally at your company, or employees who don't understand how finances work in most cases are going to say wait a minute, you're flush with cash, you raised 150 million, you have the money to pay us, but now you're going to lay 30% of us off over a 90 day window. I understand why employees would say that if they don't understand the interest, the video I'm past to pay and whatnot. But it does make 2024 more challenging for video amp because now they have to deliver a much clearer go to market message about okay, you're laying off 30% while you're doing it, what is your focus? How does it change your product portfolio when you're laying off that many people from your company? Something has to change, yeah, and you have to message that somehow yeah, for sure, I think 24,.
Speaker 3:It is going to be so critical for CEOs and executive leaders and this is across all industries, but let's talk about ours, the video space to have very clear, articulated visions as to what they're doing with the company today and where the company is headed, what they're building for. Because the reality is, interestingly enough, I was talking to an executive just not too long ago and they were lamenting some challenges with attracting talent, et cetera, based on challenges they have in their own company. And yet this person then paused and went but who across our industry isn't having problems? And are we any worse? And the reality is they're not actually any worse than anyone else. And so I think everybody can look in their own company and can feel unsettled, and yet this story is being played out just time and time and time again.
Speaker 3:So, for those CEOs and those executives who are able to step forward and clearly articulate, here's the reality, folks, and the reality may not be very good, it may actually be quite bad, but here's the reality, but here's what we're doing and here's where we're going to get to, and they can convince not only their own team, but ultimately, this goes out to the market, those companies are going to win. They're going to win because they obviously have clarity of thinking, which hopefully means they're going to execute, actually achieve what they need. But they're going to be able to attract people who are in other situations and saying I have no idea what's going on and I'm confused and I don't know. Well, you're talking about setting proper expectations.
Speaker 3:Yes, but that's what it comes down to. Yes, but it's also been able to articulate, and I find so many just really struggled to be able to articulate. You might, as a leader, have the right expectations, you might be able to sit down and, over the course of 25 minutes, be able to present them, but what do you do for an employee who, in a town hall, has just a really narrow window to get a view and you're asked a question, and what if you don't get to that, that full answer, because you don't have it.
Speaker 2:Well, you bring up a good point, mark what I've seen inside some companies, what I've recommended to C-suite teams, because I hear from their employees and they're like hey, how do you think our company is actually doing financially. I've gone back and told executives listen, I get multiple questions from your own employees.
Speaker 2:So here's all you need to do Put out a company wide one sheet, two pages if you need to. That says here's our current hash balance. Here's what EBITDA means. Give a definition. Your average employee, to your point, doesn't know that they're going to ask a question in town hall meeting. They're going to get a quick answer. In many cases that's not really going to explain it to them.
Speaker 2:I find it very odd that when I ask people who work at large and small companies, does a company share financials in a way you can understand, they say no, we don't get anything from the company. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's all about communication, especially with amongst your own team. Now I do find Mark at smaller companies they tend to be better at that. Traditionally, when it's by small, I'm saying 50 or 200 people because they're also just working closer together.
Speaker 2:I think that's true, but I don't think it's the size of the company that matters. It's just to your point. You need to inform your employees, and it starts with them, because every employee, no matter what their job is, is a representative of your company. They're going to go somewhere and say something about your company.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, that's absolutely right. That's why what we're talking about is so, so critical, because there are no, let's say, private conversations. The employees all talk, they all have other, they know other people in the industry, across the industry. None of our industries, and our industry in particular, are actually that large. They're actually quite small. The word gets out, it just does when you message clearly. Now it helps that employee who previously would have said I have no idea what's going on, my company's totally lost and jeez, we just raised this round, but we just made this huge layoff and what's going on Now? They at least can put some words around it, even if those are not totally right or accurate. At least they have something to say.
Speaker 2:Agreed. Yeah, it's all about speaking intelligently and intelligibly and setting proper expectations. That starts internally. It has to go to Wall Street. It has to go to your customers, your suppliers, your channel partners, everybody. I agree Some companies are better at that than others.
Speaker 3:I think most companies are pretty poor at that, they're pretty poor, and that's my whole point that's where I started with my little monologue is that 24 is the year to get better at this.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, agreed, I think 10 years ago was the year to get better. But yeah, of course You'll write in that there's more emphasis this year because you're going to do more with less, You're not going to be able to hire, Money is tighter, the interest rates are higher. I also find it interesting, Mark and it's not surprising, but it's interesting how many analysts we have. Quote analysts we have in our space.
Speaker 2:They're throwing out numbers by antenna and Nielsen and viewership and this and that I see that it's like, okay, that's part of the conversation, but none of you are looking at the underlying fundamental structural issues with the market and the business when it comes to money and interest rates, and who can actually get money from PE and who can't, and where the PE companies are spending money. To me, that's where more of the effort should go into. But that also means you have to have an understanding of this business. You have to have been in the industry. You have to run product at a vendor. A lot of analysts have not done that. That's the downside of it. That's the difference to me in knowledge and experience. We all get knowledge from reading a book. Anybody can get that but you can't get the experience unless you've actually done it. I hope we see more of that in the new year. Mark, that'll take me to a question in a minute or two that I'll ask you about what you want to see from the industry this year. Think about that for a minute.
Speaker 2:As I mentioned just a couple of quick changes in the space. Talking about some executive changes, ego is a new CEO. Ego has announced that Todd hinders effectively immediately is taking over for Bob Lyons. Todd was previously EGO's CRO since May of last year. So Todd's gonna join Ejio's board as well, and he's also joining the board at a time when Ejio just in, within a few weeks ago, announced that there are Three recently announced new board members as well. So structural changes going over at Ejio, with with Todd coming in as a CEO, naturally sounds like they're gonna have to now find a replacement CRO for him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. What do you think of this? You know, because this is quite interesting. If you look at the profile of Bob Lyons, who you know, I met and had the opportunity to talk to a number of times Impressive guy. And then, and then you look at Todd as a first-time CEO and look at his background, it's very interesting. I have my own thoughts, but I'm curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I it's best I not answer that. Obviously I, I have had personal conversations with both about Changes. Yeah, what's going on, and I'd rather they, you know, put that out the way they want to. What I will say is just yes, no doubt that you're talking about different experiences from a background here. All right, bob came in as an operational guy. That's his background. And what did Ejio need when he came in? Operational support.
Speaker 3:I need to be good. He came in the limelight, by the way.
Speaker 2:He came in the line. What's the first thing? That was M&A, right, but also look at what he did in terms of leaving the company with a good balance.
Speaker 2:He haven't just restructured that 66 million and got more money for the company. That was huge. And then you had to tie in the acquisition of the security side, and then you also had to think about, you know, all everything that was going on with Apollo in terms of getting edgecast, so there was a lot of Operational work needed in. Oh, and then they had to clean up the financials.
Speaker 2:That's all operational work, and so I think they certainly had the right person in there who left the company in great shape after more than two years of being there. You know Todd's background obviously, having been at Amazon for so long, is definitely more focused on go to market. How do you price, package, market, sell and deliver a service, which is great because I feel that's the next stage. Ejio is at right now. Right, the fundamentals have been reset the finances Cleaned up the balance sheet foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've changed the board. You've brought in some new people. Now Does that give Ejio a pass? No, like every other vendor in the space, they need to show that they can grow. This year, they need to get the EBITDA positive. I Buy Q4 this year, which is what they've told Wall Street, so you have to execute your they and every other vendor is going to be Judge based on how well you execute Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I don't think it's a bad change. It's certainly not negative in any way, but, like many companies who are in a geo's Position in terms of size and scale, you've got your work cut out for you. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am. You know, my view on this is I think it's really fascinating that the CRO was moved out and moved up to CEO and I think it's very positive. And my, my observation is this is that I agree with what you just said about the foundation, though the work that Bob did, you know shoring up you know lots of structural things that needed shoring up, the M&A, get getting all that done you know that was really good, that was good work. Now it's about execution and it's about revenue execution and you can say, well, you know he could have done that, just staying a CRO right, you know.
Speaker 3:But I think revenue today, when you talk about how complex our businesses are and in the landscape of the market it, you know there are CEOs that are that are just focused or thinking about, or maybe interested in different things. And I Would assume, when you look at the background of a Todd hinders who I don't know I've met Todd a few times Very, very sharp guy, very nice guy but you look at his background and you know it's it's it's business development, it's sales, it's it's operations, it's it's revenue, right.
Speaker 2:It's revenue, it's product, it's go to market. It's go to market and, and that's what they need.
Speaker 3:So so I think it's I wish them the. I wish Todd, the in the rest of the team the very best, and Bob as he moves on to do other things, you know so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't see it as being negative, but again, executions.
Speaker 2:That's right, so we'll have to watch them Going into another vendor. Break over, break over announced. This was a couple weeks ago. They announced it, but it takes effect actually next week. Three new executive changes. So they've brought on a chief marketing officer CMO. She's not from our space. I thought that was an interesting one only because they had a CMO and then she left and they decided they didn't really think they needed a CMO as a 200 million dollar a year company and revenue, I guess they've decided they need that again. They've also brought on a new CRO, jim Norton, and then they've they've also Basically promoted David Beck, someone who's been there a while, who's our current chief strategy and corporate development officer.
Speaker 2:He's also taking on the role as COO. Well, I guess that is a promotion. Basically what they're doing, sir, giving him more work In the position you're in. So David Beck's also taking on the COO role. So some some changes over there. It's a you know break over. They'll do earnings before too long and we'll get there to Q4 earnings, but based on what they projected and full year guidance, they look to have no year-over-year growth from 2022 to 2023. Again, not uncommon with a lot of the vendors in the space, but to what we just talked about with EGO. You know another example or vendor really has to focus on Revenue growth in the new year and growing revenue year over year, which is a lot of what vendors are gonna have to focus on absolutely while spending less money on marketing. So go to market messaging strategy focus 2024 is going to be very important to get all that right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Dan, I mean I'm. I'm looking at bright cove and their market cap as of today is a hundred million dollars. Yeah, I mean their revenue is 200, market cap is half.
Speaker 2:That it's yeah, yeah, although you know that's totally true and those that that's factual. But let's not have listeners think we're picking them.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no. There's no more done than vendors. Like we can pick it up. Yeah, 100%, 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:That's just the reality of the market right now. Even Vimeo. I remember when Vimeo's market cap was just absolutely absurd. Their market cap, if I remember one point, was 7 billion. It got up somewhere. Their market cap now is 600 million, 600, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a lot of vendors in the space where we've seen that. That's just the reality of the market. Another change here in executive level Now this is at Amazon, but it's an interesting one. So five years ago, marie Donahue was tapped to be Amazon's global sports programming lead, former ESPN executive. She announced internally this week that she's departing and her title when she was at Amazon most recently was VP of Global Sports Video for Prime Video, working directly for the global head of sports, who's J Marine, so she's leaving. Amazon did confirm in the media that she's leaving. Having been there five years again, it was interesting, mark, to see the media be like, oh, that's bad for Amazon or oh, there must be a problem with their business, and it's like, hey, listen, they were there five years and they literally built that, helped build that entire group from the ground up hired a ton of people.
Speaker 2:How many licensed sports licensing deals has Amazon done in the last five years? Wow, a lot. So, hey look, I don't know why the person's leaving, but it doesn't mean that there's a problem with their business. Stop reading into that. Maybe they just time to move on. But that's a change there. We'll see if Amazon brings in somebody new for that or not. We'll be interesting to see what happens there.
Speaker 2:Also, this news has been out for a couple of weeks, but Jeremy actually put it out officially on LinkedIn this week, which is Jeremy Hellfend, who used to run a lot of the ad stuff over at Disney. He is, and before that he was at Hulu. He's now over at Amazon and the Prime Video Group working on advertising. So that's a new change there. There's a couple others that have left positions I won't announce until they ask me not to, until they have their new job lined up. There'll be a couple more executives at an SVP or EVP level that some people will know, who've been in the industry for a while, that are changing up a bit, so we'll have some more of those. And then, mark, what we have coming up this month that I'm watching is Peacock's exclusive NFL playoff game on Saturday, january 13th.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be well. I guess I know what I'm doing that Saturday night now. But even if they do a flawless event, perfect right, qoe man, you're gonna have a lot of angry people that are like what do you mean? I?
Speaker 1:can't get this playoff game on TV Peacock what the hell is that.
Speaker 3:What's Peacock?
Speaker 2:So the comments during their other game was just I couldn't believe on Twitter. It was actually kind of funny Just how many people are like so wait a minute, I have Comcast, just whatever this Peacock thing is owned by Comcast.
Speaker 3:I can't watch it on Comcast. I'm paying Comcast for internet and for TV.
Speaker 2:I still can't get it and they're like I was trying and then others. It was funny how many were like. I'm trying to explain my dad now what Peacock streaming is and he just doesn't get it.
Speaker 2:So there's definitely gonna be some backlash with consumers. There's no way around it. I hope they better kill me than last time, but we've got that coming up. And then the week of the 22nd we've got Netflix, comcast and Verizon earnings. I might have one or two more that haven't been announced as of yet, but we've at least got those three. And then finally, mark, I'll end the podcast asking you a question.
Speaker 2:Since you were out sick last week, I was going to ask you what you want to see from the industry this year, and what I picked and explained to listeners for last week's podcast was I want to see true product innovation when it comes to packaging and pricing and streaming services. I still don't think there's enough flexibility there, and I also said I wanted to see more professionalism in the space, less people cursing one another, and LinkedIn do a better job of returning emails basically act like adults, which seems so simple but seems more challenging every year for people to do that. So that's what I'd love to see in the industry. What would you like to see, as a collective industry, do better?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a better articulation of the real problems that a product or a solution is solving not just where the next best, greatest low latency live streaming platform for sports or fill in the blank and making a point is that there's a lot of I think I'll almost say confusion on the buyer side. But it's really not confusion, it's inaction, and that's a good word. I just have been a part of and I think you know, dan, and I think pretty much all the audience knows that I work with a very small number of companies. I do work with multiple companies throughout the space and so I get to travel a little more widely than some maybe. And I just see repeatedly, just time and time and time again, where a deal ends in Salesforce, what we call closed, lost, which is not good, basically means we're closing the opportunity and we lost it More than half the time. It's not because it went to a true competitor, it's because they literally did nothing. They did nothing and it's easy to say well, you know, when the salesperson always has an explanation, you know, well, you know, the budget got pulled and this happened and that happened. And yes, those things are definite realities, but you can often dig just a little bit beneath the surface and say, you know, they did nothing because, at the end of the day, all the solutions they looked at looked the same. It was impossible to really understand how this was going to solve what their real need was. And guess what? There was a lot of risk. You know, they have a platform that's working. Today they bring this in this new one. Is it really going to reduce costs by 35%, as the vendor's claiming? Is it really going to improve? You know, again, fill in the blank, whatever. And I just see this time and time and time again.
Speaker 3:You walk the halls of NAB a lot of claims, a lot of messages that, on the surface, sound really good, but then you say but what does it mean? You know, it's like Dan. You ask all the time what is that based on? You know, when somebody puts a stat up, you know, you know what. You know, what is that number really based on? Okay, great, 35%, what is that based on? How was it measured? How did you get to that? You know, show me what's behind it. And too many vendors are just, they're not doing that. And you know, and I think it's bad for everybody. As my real point, because this is what I mean by buyers are confused, you know, if, if their perception is, the whole market is speaking, these generalities that are not specific, that are not concrete, that you know can't really be proven, then when someone real does come along, guess what they say. You're like everyone else, you know, and it hurts everybody, so that's it does.
Speaker 2:It does At the same time. I think it's. You know, it's very hard for us as an industry to move past that, especially when there's so many different business models, ways to monetize what looks similar at one company is different from another. True, I'd love to see that as well. We've been struggling with that, I think, as an industry forever.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not new. I also think, even though that is true, right, it's not new.
Speaker 2:And even though, even though this is the industry we follow, you know, friends I have who are in other industries, not related to streaming or tech, talk about the same problems. Yes, vendors, they deal with in that industry. That's true. I think that's a that's a big part of just any industry out there is. You're going to have a collective group of vendors that are not going to do a great job of messaging you know what the real value proposition is in the market. You know, I think. I think that's sort of always been the case and something that we are always going to do Well you've asked the question and that's my you know and certainly I'm.
Speaker 3:You know, when I'm out I'm trying to play my little small part, you know, and trying to bring, you know, just more clarity and more focus so that, so that you know those that I'm interacting with in the companies I work with, et cetera, you know that they're saying to the market things that that are clear, and it's a process and it's hard, you know, the whole point is it's not easy. So if it were easy, well, everybody would be doing it right. But it's something to definitely aspire to. And you know, as I believe in 24, those who focus on some of these, seemingly I don't want to say small things, but on the surface, you know, it could feel like what are you talking about? You mean just getting you know, really taking the time to hone my messages is going to improve my business. Yes, yes, you, you will really, really really stand out in 24. I guess that's true, but I think 24 is a year where it's going to pay dividends.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's certainly. Time is crucial. You know, it's important that, as we mentioned earlier, as we wrap up here, mark, it's just, we have to start with the facts. We have to base everything off of actual numbers that we have from companies that we know are real. Yeah, they'll change over time, but you know, remember, everything we see is a perspective, everything we hear is an opinion. That's important.
Speaker 2:So we have to focus on factually what is accurate and then, okay, what is opinion? And what is that opinion based on? Opinions are okay, but far too many opinions are not based on facts. So you know, everything we see perspective, everything we hear opinion we've got to separate. We've got to separate facts from opinions. So with that, mark let's let's wrap it up here. See what I have on my list here in terms of what we have coming up next week. There's one or two pieces of news coming out next week that have already been seated under, you know, embargo, so we'll cover that next week. That could be interesting Nothing crazy, but interesting to discuss from some vendors. We've got CES next week. I don't expect anything big there other than here's a whole bunch of TVs coming out, exactly.
Speaker 1:Okay, great.
Speaker 2:Thanks. I don't know that we need, like any revolutionary new TV, backlight dimming quad.
Speaker 2:QLED 4K 9K, 100k, whatever they're going to announce now. Exactly, Roku did announce some higher end TVs this year already. They're coming out this spring. Okay, great, you know they're going to start $1,500. It's nice, but there's a lot of options in the market, so I don't expect too much from CES, and then we will have later this month, you know, two podcasts.
Speaker 2:From now, we'll have some numbers from Netflix and others, which is which is really good. We need. We need some more data from from them. In particular, I think we'll get some stuff on the ad side In terms of how their AVOD business is doing. They've already done some projections on content spend for this year, in 2024. So that's good as well. So a lot more to come.
Speaker 2:So if you guys have any questions, please reach out to Mark and I, or anytime. Everything we talked about today is up on LinkedIn. All the numbers are already up there. These are from what we talked about today, from posts I've already put up, but if you have any questions at any time, reach out to Mark and I. We appreciate everybody listening. If you want to send in anything to us this year, that hey, how come you guys don't cover this or talk about that? We'd love to talk about it if enough people want to hear more about it, and it's tied to the streaming market as much as Mark would probably love to talk about blockchain or something blockchain enabled. Maybe it doesn't tie into streaming directly, it's.
Speaker 3:I've moved on. You have now, okay, I've moved on blockchain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's generative AI, oh boy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll do an AI episode at some point, but if there's something you really want to hear Mark and I debate, shoot us a note, be happy to do it. Other than that, we thank you for listening and we'll talk to you in the next show, everyone be well.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed the show, send it to a friend. Have questions for Dan or Mark? Click with them on LinkedIn at any time, and be sure to check out Dan's blog at streamingmediablogcom.