The Dan Rayburn Podcast
The Dan Rayburn Podcast
Episode 97: The Latest Sports News and Viewership Stats; Price Increases; and Why App Download Metrics are Worthless
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This week, we recap details from the ongoing Sunday Ticket trial, including the news that the NFL rejected ESPN's proposed $70 price for the entire 2023 Sunday Ticket season, as well as single-team packages. Trial evidence also showed that Fox considered Sunday Ticket an "existential threat" to its business, asking the NFL in 2021 that Sunday Ticket not be allowed to grow more than 20% of subscriptions beyond its current level. We also discuss the contents of a second letter from House Representatives to Disney, Fox, and WBD about Venu Sports' business, deeming Venu Sports' response to their first inquiry "insufficient" on collusion, privacy, and pricing concerns.
In addition, we highlight the acquisition by Private Equity firm Clearhaven Partners of IP video transport vendor Zixi and the acquisition by CTV-focused DSP Madhive of omnichannel marketing platform Frequence. Finally, we break down all the latest content licensing deals from Netflix, WBD, Showmax, INDYCAR, Rogers, Warner Bros. Discovery and the new advertising network from Google TV.
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 3Welcome to the Dan Rayburn podcast . I am Dan Rayburn , back for another week . Co-host Mark Donegan . We took a little bit of a break there , mark , so we were off for a week . I had to do some traveling , but Same with me . You know , it was great . I was expecting to come back to being inundated with industry news and it was nice . The industry took a little break on us for for for a change .
Speaker 3There actually wasn't that much news that came out . There was a lot of rumors in terms of what's going to happen with Paramount , so it's being reported . This guidance deal is done and CNBC was the first I saw to really break down very specific details around shares and class of shares and what will happen in money . So certainly seems like there's some real information coming out there , but we don't have an official announcement yet . Second one is NBA . We did have multiple news sources reporting that Warner Bros Discovery will not keep NBA and it'll go to NBCU , so Peacock instead , which is which is , which is a big deal .
Speaker 3If if that does happen , naturally we all wonder what's the impact potentially to venue sports when they launch . If it's missing NBA , they'll still have March madness , though . Uh . So some some things we just still are are waiting to hear about . We also don't have a launch data pricing for venue sports as of yet . So I think in the next couple of weeks we're going to know the answers to some of these questions in terms of what's going to happen . However , now that I say that , mark , we're actually not , because how long would it take for the Skydance deal to go down ?
Speaker 3Yeah , exactly how would the company be reorganized ? Will they do a round of layoffs ? It's really unknown . On the content side at least , it's pretty straightforward . We know what content will come into Peacock over what period of time . But I'm also wondering on the NBA side let's say NBCU does get it Are they bringing that to broadcast TV ? I assume they would it as well , but maybe that's a bad assumption on my part . Sure , sure , exactly .
Speaker 1The point is , there's still a lot of questions .
Speaker 3There are . It sounds like it's narrowing down as to where we know content's going to go . Yeah , but final price to be seen . We're hearing rumors again of $75 billion in total revenue to the NBA over the course of the licensing terms between all of the licensees . So that's obviously a very big number , but we'll see .
Speaker 3So , mark , maybe let's start with a quick update on Netflix , and that is the news that the live boxing fight with Mike Tyson has been postponed because of a health issue with Mike Tyson . So interesting on that . Not because I thought there was going to be tons and tons and tons of people watching it I think the audience could have been fairly strong , but that would have also given Netflix just another great real world test as they prep for Christmas in NFL , exactly , yes , and now that's off the plate for an unknown period of time . So just interesting there , in terms of one potentially fewer event , that Netflix will have to pump a large volume of live video over the network before Thanksgiving . So interesting update there .
Speaker 3Let's go through two pricing updates , mark . Beginning June 4th , so just two days ago , warner Bros , discovery raised pricing on Macs , so the ad-free tier in the US went up a dollar from $16 to $17 . Annual plan went from $150 to $170 . And the ultimate ad-free tier also went up by a dollar . So that's now rising to $21 a month Wow , and $10 per year . So the new annual cost , if you want to add free , is $210 . Ad free is $210 and not surprising that that's going up . Now . I did reach out to wbd and I asked hey , what , what's ?
Speaker 1up with the bleacher sports max . Yes , that's right , it's still free for everybody .
Speaker 3We were questioning , yeah , and like hey , that's awesome , that's like the best deal free sports like why is it still free ? What's ?
Speaker 3going on here and all they said was they they couldn't comment to this time about it , which is fine . I'll obviously take that . But you know I will point out , mark , that , um , I'm not going to call them out by name because I don't want to miss anyone on the whole team , but but I gotta say wbd's communications team is by far the best in the industry . Every single time I reach out , even if they don't have an answer , they at least say sorry , we can't talk about that now , sure , but you get a response .
Speaker 1They always reply .
Speaker 3You always get a response . They're always cheerful . It's a great team over there . I wish every streaming service was like them . They're a great team , so shout out to them . Others should follow what they're doing . Second price raise here is Spotify . So Spotify is raising the pricing for all of its premium plans . The student plan , which is offered at a discount , that's going to stay at $6 . So no change there . But there's some rates that are going up here with Spotify that I was kind of surprised , just in terms of the level it's a pretty big job , yeah , so the family plan is rising by $3 a month , which will now cost $20 .
Speaker 3The individual plan is going up $1 per month to $12 . The duo plan is going up by $2 a month to $17 . So really it's $1 per user in the plan maybe is what you think of it and the family plan allows more than more than three . I think it's six now I just downgraded , so I forget . Yeah , but another price increase first max , now spotify . I did see mark some folks comparing just the pricing increases between video and audio services . Frankly , I think they're very different services . Yes , yes , of course , not comparable . Yeah , I can have music on in the background all the time for something . I'm not really going to do that as much . I'm not going to be streaming netflix 10 hours a day if I'm working yeah , I'm sure some people do , but music I think , very different car airplane I've downloaded it .
Speaker 3I don't really think they're comparable . To be honest , some news that came out today so this is thursday , june 6 . We're recording this amazon has agreed to acquire some key assets of the mx player . That's an indian video streaming service , which was uh , which is owned by times internet , and times internet is part of the local media giant Times Group . So note here that Amazon is acquiring assets and some of the talent and executives they've confirmed will come over to Amazon , but they're not acquiring the company .
Speaker 1Oh , interesting , the entire company . Okay .
Speaker 3Yeah , now it's being reported again . We don't have confirmation from Amazon , but it's being reported that this deal values MX Player at less than $100 million , which is a huge fall for them in just what they were valued at , because their last round , when they raised money , they had at least a half a billion dollar valuation . Yeah , wow , which was frankly ridiculous .
Speaker 1Yeah , it shouldn't have been that high to begin with Sure so interesting there .
Speaker 3This is something Amazon has confirmed . The news leaked out and then Amazon did confirm it . There's not an official Amazon press release , but the news is out Now , mark . What we have to cover today is actually quite a bit of just lots of little hits around sports news . So while we were gone , some stats came out in terms of viewership , both TV , pay TV and also online . But we've got news here tied to FIFA , dazn , ipl , nba , apple TV , nba , nhl , us Soccer , wimbledon , sky Sports , olympics , indianapolis 500 . It was quite the week for sports .
Speaker 1That's a comprehensive list . It is .
Speaker 3So let's just run through these . None of these are super . I hate the word game changing , but none of these are really big . They're just all interesting pieces and a lot of them have to do with viewership , which I think is really important . So let's start with Warner Bros Discovery . They've extended their exclusive deal with Wimbledon , so let's see they extended that across their channels and platforms in 11 European markets , so it's a new long-term rights agreement . European markets so it's a new long-term rights agreement .
Speaker 3Geocinema this is an interesting one is going to stream the Paris Olympics 2024 for free , so they're not going to put it behind a paywall , and they said they expect to reach 150 million viewers . They did break out in their press release . It was interesting . They're going to be offering 23 feeds in total five curated and 18 direct feeds and some of the curated feeds're going to be offering 23 feeds in total five curated and 18 direct feeds and some of the curated feeds are going to be specific to um sports fans in that particular market in india , tracking certain players or teams , sure , sure that makes sense , totally makes sense .
Speaker 3I think that's good . Um , this is a good number that geocinema put out here , which which I always love seeing from them , because they , they do something that no other platform mark I have seen . Do . Man , I can't even remember the last time whether it's super bowl . Uh , exclusive nfl wild card game on peacock , which is list what the average viewing time is . Yeah , that's right .
Speaker 1How long ?
Speaker 3does someone watch the average stream for we don't know ? Yeah , yeah , well , we do it . Thanks to Geo Cinema , the official streaming platform for the IPL 2024 season , the average viewing time was 75 minutes , which was up from 60 minutes last season , and the platform recorded over 350 million minutes of watch time , which was up tremendously as well . So , interesting there , 75 minutes . This was news that was interesting when it came out and there's not a lot of details on it yet .
Speaker 3It was interesting when it came out and there's not a lot of details on it yet , but the Chicago Sports Network , which is being called now CHSN , is going to launch in October with plans to bundle and deliver Chicago Blackhawks , which is hockey NHL , Chicago Bulls basketball and Chicago White Sox and Major League Baseball into one package . Interesting , yeah , so they're going to deliver over 300 games live between all three of those teams and it said in the press release they'll have agreements in place with traditional cable providers and streaming services when it launches and then it's also going to be available free over the air Hmm services when it launches and then it's also going to be available free over the air . So fascinating , as we see more regional bundles come together yeah it , it makes sense .
Speaker 1I wonder what the viewership numbers are in some of these markets . You know what the potential is . That seems like part of the challenge it is .
Speaker 3we've gotten some numbers and I don't remember them off the top of my head , but we have some numbers that came out when the Boston Red Sox baseball team did something and then we also have was it the LA Lakers ? I think it was the LA Lakers also who did something and had some numbers out there as well . But you know , boston Red Sox and LA Lakers are very big teams in their respective leagues ?
Speaker 3Yes , yes , they are . I would consider them a national team , so not sure that's the best use case to look at , but we don't have a lot of numbers , but there's some out there , mark , yeah , yeah . Interesting it's certainly not in the millions . It was in hundreds of thousands .
Speaker 1Yeah exactly , but those are big teams . Is my point Right ? And you know , and I'm reading this Is this available ? Are there regional blackouts ? Don't know . Can you watch it out of market ? I didn't see something .
Speaker 3Well , no , let's see . In the press release it specifically said something about in the area .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's exactly . It was a little bit vague . So , yeah , we'll have to watch this . You know , is this just the , the reshaping of the rsn , you know , the regional sports network and this is what we're going to see . You know , various deals are going to be done and and each market is going to look a little different . Um , I yeah , I don't know . It'll be interesting . Yeah , it seems to be what it is .
Speaker 3Yeah , we also got news tying to this around uh diamond sports group speaking of yeah because they recently had uh , there was recently another court appearance tied to the bankruptcy and the judge told them that they needed to um , come up with a plan quickly for the company , and I think it was by July , and that was because some of the sports leagues were complaining and saying they're they're still not , uh , they're not doing what they think they need to in order to get the business healthy and they don't have a deal still with Comcast , which is a big , big deal .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a big one . Right , I mean that's kind of the one you really need to figure out . That's important distribution .
Speaker 3Yes , yes , so I didn't read what time it said in July , it had to be done by , but it was in July . Yeah , and it looks like it's July 29th . So that's one where we're going to know in the next couple of weeks . Yeah , going to know in the next couple of weeks . So we already have Major League Baseball , who have come out and said they anticipate filing an objection in terms of just what the company is thinking they're going to do to survive . Nba has been pretty vocal about it . Nhl also came out and said we don't have answers we need from the , from the company , for go forward business plan . So clearly this is a problem in . Comcast publicly came out and just said we're currently at an impasse . So that's a problem as well . So the judge overseeing the case , uh , specifically came out and said whether Comcast is essential to the deal or not . I don't know . That's a quote , but there's bigger issues at play here . So that's one that'll shake out in the next month for sure .
Speaker 3Going over to some pay TV here on Memorial Day weekend , ion , cbs and NBA TV set viewer record ship for this is women's . So WNBA broadcasts , which peaked at 981,000 viewers for one of their games and then , according to Nielsen , separate game here of the WNBA . It averaged 1.53 million viewers on ESPN and viewership on ESPN peaked at 2.19 million . So 981 to 2.19 million depending on the team and who it was Interesting . Let's go to Indianapolis 500 car racing . Uh , that had a total audience delivery of 5.34 million . Problem there is we don't have the breakout . This is across NBC TV , peacock , nbc Sports , digital Platforms . So $5.3 million . It was up 8% , nbc said . We've also got news that Apple TV is going to stream the final three rounds of the 2024 US Open Cup for free on MLS Season Pass . Open Cup for free on MLS season pass . That is not a multi-year agreement , that is a one-off agreement for those three final rounds only . We've also got some hockey news here .
Speaker 3I didn't even know this was happening and wasn't watching this at all . But potential strike here . Fifa worn players could go on strike as the legal ponders some legal action of what they're going to do . Uh , so that would be interesting to watch because we know that's that's content that , uh , everybody wants to watch . Yeah , for sure .
Speaker 3But what I don't know here and I am not an an expert in terms of this , but FIFA's president has said that the global governing body for this only organizes 1% of the games of the top clubs of the top clubs . So FIFA has basically said players are going to take matters into their own hands . So there's there's a there's a big debate here in terms of how many games they should play , cap on the number of games , how much time they get to recovery in the off season . So a lot about just . It's interesting . This one doesn't seem to be about money . They , they do want , naturally , more money , but this is all about just the number of games of play in their schedule . The number one thing is a schedule Wow , so you might have to watch that one .
Speaker 1It's another one , yeah , so they want to work less .
Speaker 3I think it's they want fewer games , paid more and work less , but also , apparently , the schedule , the downtime . Yeah , there's a lot in terms of the details of the stories . Sure , let's go to what else we have on the sports side here . I'd say the last one that I saw , mark , was the 2024 NHL Eastern Conference Final on ESPN . That saw viewership up 42% . Yeah , which seemed like quite a lot . 42% . Now , that was Rangers versus Florida . So my guess is that's because New York Rangers may be a major market team . That's the only thing I could think of .
Speaker 3But the Rangers-Panthers game six averaged 3 million total viewers and peaked at 3.7 million on ESPN . So it was up quite a bit overall . Uh , espn plus viewership was up 38% . But of course , on ESPN plus they didn't give us any any numbers of any kind , sure , which is the case for Disney . When it comes to ESPN Plus , they didn't give us any numbers of any kind , sure , which is the case for Disney when it comes to ESPN Plus . Yeah , a couple other things here , mark . Let's go into Olympics . So I saw this just in the last few days . We've got the Olympics coming up . Peacock has rolled out a limited time offer , peacock TV with ads for $20 for the year .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a steal with ads for $20 for the year . Yeah , that's a steal . Yeah , $20 for a year . I caught that .
Speaker 3That's a no brainer , yeah , really . And it expires that deal on June 30th ? Yeah , so you have another 24 , 25 days to take advantage of it . So many times these deals are three days , five days , maybe a week , but this is for the whole month . Yeah , now it excludes for all those going Ooh , that sounds pretty good . It excludes current Peacock premium , premium plus subscribers . Yeah , so if you already have it , you can't get that deal . Also , even though the Olympics is global , you have to reside in the U S Sure For this deal . Yeah , obviously , nbcu does not have the rights to the Olympics globally . Yeah , so that's a deal there . Now , interestingly , mark , at the exact same time a day , I think it was a day earlier I noticed that Peacock joined Verizon's Plus Play content hub , but Peacock is not discounted in the bundle .
Speaker 1Interesting , so netflix and other services are bundled yeah , that's right by verizon verizon doesn't have a discount .
Speaker 3Yeah , that's so I don't know if that's verizon's doing , I don't know if that's nbcu's doing with peacock , but it's not discounting . Wow , yeah , so right now in the verizon plus play content hub you can get peacock premium with ads for , let's see , for 12 , no , so eight dollars . In july , premium plus is 12 per month , rising to 14 . So you can get it for 14 for one month , verizon plus play , or you can spend 20 and get it for the whole year direct interesting it is , it is yeah , so , okay , let's see , I'm looking on peacock premium , okay , so , uh , what does premium get you ?
Speaker 1uh , but it is with ads , and then you have to go premium plus is without ads correct . Yeah , okay , okay , got it . Yeah , that's the difference in the two . And they're not limiting resolution , right ? So if it's available in uhd , I'd have to look it up . I don't remember .
Speaker 3Yeah , I'm I I'm looking here to see if it's available in UHD .
Speaker 1I'd have to look it up . I don't remember . Yeah , I'm , I . I'm looking at it to see if there's a little disclaimer . Asterix yeah , exactly yeah .
Speaker 3Like max does with the max increase . Yep , yep , you have to go up to the largest one . Just like Netflix , well , and Netflix , yeah , netflix , same way . Yeah , yeah , well , for 20 bucks , watch the Olympics alone you , by the way , that's right , it's very expensive to get nba uh , but we we need a little more details in terms of how many games you're going to get , but I still think peacock is extremely affordable for the amount of content that you're getting yeah , yeah , and I think of that as as netflix as well , in the ad supported plan yeah I don't , I agree , I don't think that's expensive .
Speaker 3And so , for all the talk of , oh my God , this stuff is so expensive , um , you know , it's $8 for this and $8 for that . And even if you get , um , okay , five different services , you're still just at $40 a month , which to me doesn't seem like a lot , considering people spend that very quickly either on dinner drinks like one Uber ride .
Speaker 3It's crazy . $40 goes really fast . So $40 for five different services yeah , many of which have live in sports . Yeah , I still think it's a pretty good deal . I agree . Let's see what else we have here , mark . I agree . According to Sensor Tower data , netflix saw a decline of downloads of 6% in April . Yeah , and they're using the crystal ball to say , oh okay , this is a problem . It's showing streaming's not growing as much as it used to .
Speaker 3Now here's the problem . In Q1 , we know that Netflix subscriber growth jumped 16% year over year . We have the numbers , we have the subs , yes , and Netflix beat quarterly earnings and revenue estimates . But Netflix also told us that it expects paid net additions to be lower in the second quarter compared to the first quarter due to seasonality . So if your paid net additions are going to be lower , we would assume downloads might not grow as much in the quarter . So sensor data , sensor tower data , simply saying , okay , you know , netflix saw a decline of 6% in downloads in April . That's not a big deal .
Speaker 1Yeah , and it's not correlated to usage . I think you recently upgraded right your phone , right .
Speaker 3And yet I downgraded Netflix and downloaded an app on a new phone which they can't tell it's new .
Speaker 1Exactly , exactly . The point is is that , um it that could be chalked up to ? Oh , netflix got a new subscriber ? No , they didn't . And then , in reality , netflix lost some revenue because you downgraded . Correct Both . Now some of this sensor tower .
Speaker 3When I've talked to them , I said , well , we can correlate some of it , Cause we're also looking at credit card data and working at some other points . But so much of what SensorTower in particular is doing different from an antenna and others is looking at downloads , and I really think the argument here , Mark , is that not surprising to either of us and some of our listeners ? But the media simply sees Netflix downloads are down 6% . They pick that up , that's the headline , they run with it . They don't look at the methodology , so that's a problem . But just downloads are a worthless metric for tracking usage around ARPU engagement .
Speaker 3Yes , If you think about Netflix or any other streaming service , talking to Wall Street on their earnings call in their press releases , in the presentations they do , when do they ever talk about downloads ? Yeah , exactly , I mean that reminds me of the dot-com era , when it was page views .
Speaker 1I was going to say that that's like . So , like 18 years ago , yes , or more , or more .
Speaker 3I'm thinking of the globecom for those . Ogs who are listening . Oh yeah , you know the globecom raised money and others based on .
Speaker 2we got X number of page views and then , years later , the industry moved to .
Speaker 3Well , unique page views engagement yeah , yeah , yeah , they started asking how long did they stay on the page for ? What was the bounce rate ? So when you hear these calls with Wall Street around subscriber lifetime value , arpu , engagement depending how everybody tracks it , it's never about downloads . The other thing I was thinking Mark too , in this was we know that Warner Bros Discovery rebuilt completely the Max app for certain platforms , so just think of all the people that had to go and re-download the app or a brand new one ?
Speaker 3How are they tracking that ? Yeah , so downloads , that is not a good metric to determine much . Remember when ? Who was it Clubhouse ?
Speaker 1Yeah , that's right .
Speaker 3Clubhouse was supposed to be the next Twitter , and it was all like oh my God , look at all these downloads . We could say that of threads . Yeah , same thing . Yeah , don't Downloads .
Speaker 3We could say that of thread threads yeah , so same thing .
Speaker 3Yeah , don't don't get caught up on downloads . Yeah , so that's what we've got for this week , mark , pretty quick and short . Uh , next week uh , there , there is going to be some news coming out next week , some press releases already floating out there that maybe we can cover . Uh , also , I've been getting some questions about the NAB streaming summit . For those that don't know , I am no longer doing the NAB streaming summit in New York city in October . Uh , the NAB show is still having their event at the Javits , but just , uh , that's not really the right location for the streaming summit anymore . So no call for speakers , uh , for that . Uh , but I will , of course , be bringing the NAB streaming summit back next April to NAB show in Vegas . Working on that now , logistics , we have a meeting actually next month to iron that out . So I'm thinking of opening the call for speakers much earlier this year , in the October November timeframe .
Speaker 3Wow , but no New York City . New York City show ? Yeah , for anyone who's wondering . So , mark , that's what we've got this week . All that we talked about is already online . I put almost everything we talked about , mark , in one post on LinkedIn . You probably saw , with all the recap of the sports numbers .
Speaker 3I think that's important in terms of pay TV comparison to digital . Where we have it . Sometimes it's combined , which isn't helpful , and then we'll see what we have coming out in the next week for Paramount and certainly MBA Something to discuss once we get get more details on that . But if anyone has any questions , reach out to Mark in any time . We appreciate everyone listening . We'll be back on a regular schedule next week , so we'll be recording at the end of every week for the rest of this month . So we'll , we'll be back , and by the end of every week for the rest of this month . So we'll , we'll be back . And by the end of this month , mark , let's see 96 and 79 , we'll hit our 99th podcast .
Speaker 1Amazing .
Speaker 3So next month we'll hit a hundred . We'll have to wait till July . That's great , but appreciate everyone listening . We'll talk to you all soon . Everyone say stay , stay safe and have a good week .
Speaker 2If you enjoyed the show , send it to a friend . Have questions for Dan or Mark . Have a good week .