Speaker 1 0:02

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 0:24

Welcome to the Dan Rayburn podcast. I am Dan Rayburn, along with co-host Mark Donaghan Mark, I just realized now, even though we prepped before we got on here, that this is Podcast 100.

Speaker 3 0:33

Oh, 100. I see the notes say 100. We made it.

Speaker 2 0:36

We made it. We made it, I mean, I was happy when we made it past 10.

Speaker 3 0:41

Exactly, hey, dan, do you know, and now I can't remember the exact statistic, but it's a very high percentage of podcasts.

Speaker 1 0:49

Never get past a few, never make it to 10. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 0:52

So the fact that we made it to 10 was an accomplishment, I'm not surprised.

Speaker 2 0:56

And a hundred, you know. I don't think people realize just all the work in terms of prepping, content and you know and and look you know, you have a producer.

Speaker 3 1:05

Uh, I mean people who are trying to do this on their own. It is shocking how much time it takes. I, I've done it on my own. It's like how, how come this is so hard?

Speaker 2 1:18

it does well. Content is king, as we know, but also consistency with everything in life is the key so if you you're not consistent. You don't get into that routine, but pretty amazing considering just the travel schedule I have alone for the military, plus what you have just on the business side. And then thanks to shout out to you said producer Denny who's on the line.

Speaker 3 1:36

So thanks to Denny for that.

Speaker 2 1:38

Editing all the things when the Amazon delivers to your house and the doorbell rings you know those types of things.

Speaker 3 1:44

Air conditioner decides to kick on.

Speaker 2 1:46

You know all that stuff, yeah, but yeah, a hundred of the weekly. And then I looked up, I think I've done about another 10 podcasts for the executive interviews. Yeah, which is great. Have some more of those coming up as well. So thank you to you, thank you to Denny and then, of course, to all the listeners.

Speaker 3 2:01

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 2:02

And then of course, to all the listeners the questions, comments that we get in. I did record, mark that CDN Focus podcast.

Speaker 3 2:08

Yeah, by the way, how is that doing?

Speaker 2 2:10

I mean that's our number one that's the number one podcast in terms of downloads.

Speaker 1 2:13

No surprise.

Speaker 2 2:13

Yeah, it's just. I mean, it was six or 700 just the first day, yeah. And then the post I put up yesterday, less than 24 hours later, just breaking down where I came up with the math and how I did it, that's at about 50,000 impressions on LinkedIn. So it's fascinating. Just what it shows me is I'm not surprised that many are very interested in what's going on in the delivery market, because it's a very important segment of the market, even though it's not growing very fast year over year revenue wise. But the vast majority of what we are all watching is coming from a third party CDN.

Speaker 1 2:47

Yeah, critical and crucial to the success of streaming services.

Speaker 2 2:59

Yes, that have methodology that's shared behind them. That isn't just some big large number thrown out with like what exactly does that, or doesn't that not?

Speaker 3 3:09

entail. You mean. You mean you mean we're not in a tam of like 43.5 billion dollars and growing at a 20 kegger?

Speaker 2 3:18

well, I was going to say I mean biggest kegger I've seen was 37% in a report for this year 37%, and it's going to grow 3% if we're lucky. Yeah, so people can check that out. If you go to cdmmarketcom that'll take you directly to the post, yeah, but yeah, I mean, the podcast has been a lot of fun. It's great to run across people who are just like, oh, I love listening to that, or you guys should cover this more of that, more, more than 50,000. I think we're 52,000 downloads now I'd have to look, but uh, it's. It's been a lot of fun. So thank you to everyone involved, thanks to the listeners we're going to expecting.

Speaker 2 4:06

So, with all that's going on with paramount, we decided not to just do a entire show around paramount because, frankly, so much of it would be speculation. That's right. There's so many unknowns. So we're going to highlight a few things about paramount what we're looking for, what we think could happen in terms of just content and mark, just what you're excited about. So let's just real quickly go through the Paramount deal. So, just very fast.

Speaker 2 4:28

So Skydance Media and Paramount Global have agreed to a two-step process here. So Skydance and its deal partners are going to acquire National Amusements which holds the Redstone's family controlling stake in Paramount and they're going to pay $2.4 billion in cash. After that's done, skydance is going to merge with Paramount. It's offering shareholders $4.5 billion in cash or stock and then providing an additional $1.5 billion for Paramount's balance sheet. So that's the structure of the deal. Now, depending on what shares you have, what you're getting paid no reason we need to go into that. Yeah, exactly Now. Depending on what shares you have, what you're getting paid no reason we need to go into that. Yeah, exactly Now. The merger agreement does include a 45-day what's called a go shop period, so it does permit Paramount's special committee to actively consider alternative acquisitions and see if there's others that might want to come forward, which is pretty common.

Speaker 2 5:32

Yeah, alternative acquisitions and see if there's, see if there's others that might want, which is pretty common.

Speaker 3 5:33

Yeah, now, if they do find someone, there's a 400 million dollar breakup penalty.

Speaker 2 5:34

That's, that's not. Uh, you know that's not significant.

Speaker 3 5:36

No, it's not. We've seen bigger numbers, but that's a pretty big number yeah, so, uh, paramount also.

Speaker 2 5:41

I've seen people speculating like oh, maybe paramount will say they're talking to son Sony again or this, or that they're not going to say anything. Yeah, paramount came out and said quote we do not intend to disclose developments with respect to the GoShop process unless and until it determines such disclosure is appropriate or otherwise required. Yeah, in other words, if we don't have to say anything, we're not touching it. Yeah, yeah, of course. Now do we don't have to say anything? We're not touching it. Yeah, of course. Now, do we think someone's going to come in with a better offer? The answer, easily, is no. Yeah, because they've been shopping this for a long time. Yeah, exactly, there was a report put out, mark I don't know if you saw it today where somebody had a quote from someone at Sony who just said they were not going to look at this again. So that's the deal as of now.

Speaker 2 6:29

Now, what are some of the other things we're watching? Well, the first thing is that Larry Ellison and his family are going to invest about $6 billion in the takeover, and that's a big deal.

Speaker 2 6:45

You know, I think that's something that um you know is going to impact how things actually, you know, end up working in the market. So David Ellison, who will be the founder and chief executive officer, um, it has gone on quite a few podcasts and just new shows. He was on CNBC and whatnot talking about some of what their plan is and what they're striving for. And Paramount did put out, when they talked to investors about the deal, a slide deck 32 pages where it does break out some of the information, just high level of what they're thinking a little bit of go-to-market strategy. But the thing to really think about here is, and to be aware of, david was very clear that even though this deal doesn't close, they think until second half of 2025, and now the date everyone seems to keep saying is September 2025 is the goal.

Speaker 2 7:41

In the meantime, the three co-CEOs at Paramount do have the ability to lay off people and to sell assets that they think would benefit the company. Now they still have to get approval of the new who will become the new management team. So they still have that ability. So what we don't know is what's going to happen with people's jobs at Paramount. Yeah, what I was told by multiple folks was that job cuts were actually going to be coming this past Monday, which would have been Friday, monday, july 8th, but because the deal was announced Sunday night, the job cuts were put on hold. So now what we don't know is do the three co-CEOs of Paramount decide hey, let's start doing a lot of the heavy lifting before the new management team comes in?

Speaker 3 8:29

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 8:30

And start cutting costs now and potentially selling off assets. That could happen Flip side. They could just wait and say, well, we don't want to make those decisions. That's a new team manager.

Speaker 3 8:40

That's their problem. It's on you, right, right. I don't want to be the bad guy, as I'm leaving Like I'll be the good guy.

Speaker 2 8:47

Possibly so interesting. We don't know what will happen there. Also, some are saying, well, okay, well, this now guarantees a paramount plus is not going away. We also don't know that either. What David did say and was very clear is we're going to be looking and already are looking at all the options on the table. We're going to be looking and already are looking at all the options on the table. What it sounded like the initial plan was that he outlined was that Paramount Plus in the US they were still going to invest in. He used the term invest, but internationally they're really looking at. Do they want to be an arms dealer? Does it make sense to license that content they have internationally and not have a paramount plus offering? Maybe they're looking at both. You know, on the bet side, are they going to sell that off to be determined? So you have to think about how they're actually going to manage all that. And he made it clear they are having multiple conversations right now with very large companies about bundling, synergies like all kinds of things you know so.

Speaker 3 9:50

So whenever there's M and a, it's generally a payday for law firms, for, you know, attorneys, lawyers. This is a payday for lawyers as well as consultants. Can you imagine the army of McKinsey? I mean, they must have dozens, probably hundreds of consultants.

Speaker 2 10:12

I don't know about McKinsey but I'm not going to give out names. I know a whole bunch of names that Jeff Schell, david Ellison and others have already. Brian Robbins have already reached out to who they know who are in the industry. Some you would know Mark by name.

Speaker 3 10:25

So there's definitely a lot of uh experts, third-party folks who are helping, a lot, who are helping and working on this and it's um, you know it's, it's complicated and and there's a lot to consider, and you know that's I. That's why I think, dan, it's good that you know we both agreed really easily, like, let's not spend a lot of time in conjecture, and because there's so many facets and you know, as, as the saying goes, there really isn't one right answer. You know, in terms of the reorganization, and you know you talk about shedding assets, or you know where to cut, where to invest, where to it's, it's strategic right, it's strategy. So it's going to come down to

Speaker 3 11:11

what they're optimizing for you know, and then putting the best plan together for that.

Speaker 2 11:16

That said you know I did put up on LinkedIn already. There's no doubt that a lot of the infrastructure is going to move to Oracle, To Oracle.

Speaker 2 11:24

Yeah, yeah, some people are like oh, there's no way that could happen. What I can tell you is there's already discussions internally at Paramount from the new management team outlining what they want to do. Now. It's going to take a long time, Absolutely no. Oracle doesn't have AWS media services. They only ingest, live and transcode. But think of storage and all the data stuff and think of all the compute processing. Over time, a lot of that will move to Oracle.

Speaker 2 11:48

Now if you end up cutting a lot of people from the streaming team and then you want them to migrate to a whole other cloud platform, that may not be the smartest move. So we'll see what happens there. Also something, mark I haven't published this out on the blog as of yet, but there have been conversations going on about Paramount Global selling Pluto TV back to CEO Tom Ryan who they originally acquired it from?

Speaker 2 12:15

Yeah Well, I forget when they acquired it, but Pluto TV is 10 years old now. Yeah, exactly, so there's some discussions going on there. They've been going on for a bit of a time. I'm going to do a blog post on that.

Speaker 3 12:26

Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:27

But that could be interesting if they're looking at Pluto, if they're looking at BET, so any reorg like this, somebody's going to have to decide and it's obviously a team of people of just what are the assets we want to keep, what is most important. I would say, mark one thing if you look at the new management team that's going to be taking over here, none of them come from the streaming or tech side. They don't. They come from movie, they come from studio they come from TV and that's okay, but they don't come from technology.

Speaker 2 13:03

I thought it was very interesting. So you have a founder and CEO, founder and managing partner.

Speaker 3 13:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:09

You've got a chairman, you've got a partner on the capital side, you've got a president and CEO on TV. Yeah, you've got a CEO and president on the MTV Showtime. Again TV side, you have one on the Paramount, which is Nickelodeon TV, and then you've got a EVP for financial. Well, what's the one thing that's missing in all of that? Technology? Who's your technology?

Speaker 3 13:36

team.

Speaker 2 13:38

I don't know, maybe they haven't. They just haven't announced it as of yet, not really sure. So you have a lot of content people and hey, that's cool Broadcast TV, linear movies studios but at some point, especially when they are reinforcing that, they need to create a new platform here and they also need to Paramount Global to be thought of as not just a content company first, but also technology. Would love to know who your technology team is going to be. Yeah, exactly, probably too early to know.

Speaker 2 14:08

okay, fine, but at some point we need to hear that yeah, for sure so uh, final piece here, just uh on the paramount deal that people should note. So ownership change at paramount global does allow the n NFL to renegotiate its deal with.

Speaker 1 14:23

CBS.

Speaker 2 14:26

Roger Goodell was on CNBC this week and said that quote we're paying close attention to the process. We know Skydance They've done a terrific job with our relationship. So we'll look at the structure of the deal, we'll see how it impacts us, we'll see how it impacts our business and we'll make the best decision for the NFL at that point.

Speaker 1 14:45

End, quote.

Speaker 2 14:47

Doesn't sound like, though, from what others are saying publicly, that there's going to be a big impact here in terms of the NFL on trying to renegotiate. That said, that's not a guarantee, and it's just another thing mark on a checklist of what will happen with that yeah so the amount of information that's going to come out between now and really the next.

Speaker 2 15:10

Forget just the next year leading up to this, but even the year after as they continue to refocus the business. We're going to see content leaving. We're going to see some content, new content coming. You're going to see content licensing. You're going to see content licensing. You're going to see potential partnership tie-ups. You might see larger. I still think they need to combine with Peacock TV in a bundle. We're going to see a lot. So this is just the start of what is a long news cycle with Paramount.

Speaker 3 15:36

Yes, yes, and we'll be covering it as there's, as there's actual news.

Speaker 2 15:41

Yeah, while we're talking NFL here with Paramount, let's just real quickly highlight that the NFL has started on their on their quest to overturn the four point seven billion verdict in their Sunday ticket anti-touch trial. So what they're saying is you know it's an irrational. It's just what happened the jurors badly miscalculated the award, um, all kinds of things that they don't agree with. So Roger Goodell on CNBC just said this is going to be a very long process. We believe that we will prevail in the end, but this is not going to be resolved anytime soon. Sure, not surprising, yeah, now let's jump on to MBA here. So I've seen tons and tons and tons of deals here about this MBA licensing deal is done, it's not done. Credit to those folks reporting the industry who, in their title, made it clear like a deal is imminent, it's been agreed upon, but it's not yet done. It's not official, contracts are not signed.

Speaker 2 16:44

So the way it's being reported right now is that the NBA has finalized terms that will make NBC and Amazon Prime Video new partners, while maintaining the ABC and ESPN as home of the NBA finals. These agreements will be 11 years, 11 seasons sorry, I should say and be worth, it's reported, 76 billion, all three of the platforms would have playoff games, which I think is important to point out. Nbc is expected to pay 2.5 billion per season, amazon 1.8 billion and espn disney 2.6 billion. That's what's being reported, right? Right, we don't know yet if that's accurate. Now, this is important.

Speaker 2 17:27

While the NBA has agreed to terms in principle with the partners, tnt Sports can still have an impact here, right? Wbd CEO has publicly stated that he may attempt to use language in the current contract to remain involved. So what will happen is next week, so the week of July 15th, the NBA will send finished contracts to WBD, to TNT Sports, really, but to WBD, tnt Sports, really, but to WBD, and at that point the company will have five business. Well, actually, I don't know if it's business days, five days to match an offer. Legally they can do that, and the rumor is they would match, or they want to match, amazon's offer potentially and not NBC's and not NBC's.

Speaker 3 18:27

Yeah, so they would match 1.8 billion per year, instead of the 2.5 that NBC is supposedly paying. So what does so? Does that mean Amazon could then come and counter if they wanted to, if they want to retain it or I have no idea.

Speaker 2 18:36

Like does this? Suddenly become a bidding you know, I don't know, but it doesn't sound like it.

Speaker 3 18:48

It sounds like they have the ability to match it, in which case they would then have the rights Interesting, and that probably is a part of some most favored nations clause or something.

Speaker 2 18:57

I couldn't comment on that because I honestly have no idea. Wow, but we do know that they have five days to match it, because the CEO has come out and said that yeah, yeah yeah. So if he's saying, match it, to me that makes it sound like market.

Speaker 3 19:09

Yeah, exactly, he's not saying beat it. You know it's matching Right. You know, dan, it just reminds me and we touch on this when we're talking about sports and licensing and rights, touch on this when we're talking about sports and licensing and rights. But it's why I know you and I are quite critical about people who sort of, uh, armchair quarterback hand wave, you know like, oh, this company needs to do this, they need to do this, they need to acquire this, they need to. It is so these deals are so complicated and so sophisticated that it just isn't as simple even as saying you know, you know, company a needs to acquire rights to this league and that's how they're gonna. You know, like, maybe they do, maybe they should, maybe they want to, maybe and and perhaps they can't, you know it's like or it's just not, just can't, but I I still go back to disney.

Speaker 2 20:06

Yeah, when disney came out and said we were no longer bidding on certain ipl rights for streaming, we still wanted them for tv, but we weren't for streaming, because that's the price they were. It just didn't make sense for shareholders, yeah, you're making a financial business decision.

Speaker 3 20:22

WBD has to make that as well. Netflix has said that right. They've said we like sports, but we also like making money, Correct.

Speaker 2 20:31

So we're going to have to see what happens. This one is definitely going to shake out pretty quickly because if they only have five days, fascinating, but you know, that's definitely something to watch. Now, if WBD declines, we're expecting the NBA will make an official announcement with the new partners before the Olympics. And the Olympics open on July 26th. Yeah, also, this isn't impacting the current season. So if WBD doesn't go through, this upcoming season will be its final season of games after nearly four decades. I didn't realize that long they've been doing NBA.

Speaker 3 21:12

That amazing.

Speaker 2 21:13

Four decades. Yeah, it's a long time. So that's what we got. We'll keep an eye on that. We'll have some news out on that pretty soon, mark. Let's hit a couple of things real quickly. Hallmark has announced a new streaming service called no surprising hallmark plus hallmark, launching mid-september. Uh, eight bucks a month or eighty dollars for the year. This is targeting clearly very niche audience with niche content. Yeah, the company is going to create original content as part of it. They said it'll be their first ever foray into a holiday limited series, whatever that means, and a reality competition series.

Speaker 3 21:47

Because we need another competition series.

Speaker 2 21:50

Well, maybe I mean.

Speaker 3 21:52

I don't watch Hallmark, but I know.

Speaker 2 21:54

Hallmark's content is real unique. It's different. It's going for that whole positive vibe which, hey, that's cool. There's plenty of people out there who like that.

Speaker 3 22:02

Yeah yeah, absolutely, but it's niche, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 22:05

You're not going to get. You know, if they got more than single digit, low single digit. Millions of subscribers, over many years, I'd be shocked.

Speaker 3 22:15

You know what. You know what they need to do, though, and and here's an idea they need to have a Christmas, like a Thanksgiving Christmas and a Valentine's day um, special, where, for like $29 or something, for like a month, you know, around those holidays so, let's say, november, december and then February you can get all their content, because I I mean, you know when do you want to watch hallmark content?

Speaker 2 22:42

it's like christmas you know, whenever you know.

Speaker 3 22:45

I don't know, I'm not speaking for myself dan you know, okay, there's there's not enough explosions and fires, and you know I just don't know that I don't know the audience people hanging off cliffs and hallmark content but probably not it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 23:01

I mean, look there's, there's definitely I. Here's how I think of it. Mark acorn tv the amount of people who want to walk british documentaries and shows there's, there's millions out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I look at that very similar here. Eight dollars a month okay, it's not crazy expensive. It's in line with a lot of the other services.

Speaker 3 23:18

It's not live tv yeah, but the point is, you're gonna, you're, you're going to pay eight bucks in November, in December you're going to cancel, then you might do it in in February and then you don't pay the rest of the year.

Speaker 2 23:30

Well, maybe that might be an assumption on your part, right? We don't. We don't really know the audience in terms of when they're watching Hallmark. Do we know it's only during holidays? I don't know? Might be, yeah, but they did give a list of all kinds of content they're bringing to it to the platform. The one thing they didn't say, though, was how much total content they're going to have depth and breadth. I don't know how many hours, yeah, which I really wanted to know, because that tells me how much content they'll have. That somebody could cycle through, sure, but we don't know. They didn't say Interesting, so that's all we've got there. Now let's go to CNN.

Speaker 2 24:09

So CNN is going to reduce its staff by about 100 layoffs. To put that in full context, they have about 3,500 employees. I didn't realize CNN was that big. And then they're also doing this new thing called their one newsroom strategy, which is going to include a digital subscription offering later this year. So I I don't really quite understand that. Be honest with you, but what was said here is that cnn wants to build on the, on the reach of cnncom, with a new focus on quote engagement and free, how long our users spend with us and how often they return and they say they want to do this by improving the quality of the product experience and giving users powerful reasons to come back to us more often. The subscriptions offering and the letter that went out to employees said will want to use, saying subscribers will want to use paid offerings that will be anchored by lifestyle journalism. What does that? I don't really know what that is anchored by lifestyle journalism.

Speaker 3 25:13

What does that? I don't really know what that is.

Speaker 2 25:15

Yeah, Lifestyle journalism. So you're doing content tied to lifestyle. If it's around lifestyle, then I think it's around entertainment. It's going to be around finance, things tied to lifestyle. I mean, that's my guess, but that's such a broad topic. Also was announced the launch of additional fast channels with CNN Originals and CNN in Spanish, which are going to come later this year. They're going to be added to the CNN, the CNN International fast channels that already exist. So some sort of CNN offering coming out, unknown what exactly the content will be or the price point. All we know is it's later this year. Now, Mark, you and I were discussing beforehand. Cnn has had multiple subscription services over many years, dating back to CNN Pipeline, which I can't even remember the year that was, but we're talking 15 or so more years ago. I don't think I even knew about that one Pipeline. Google that one listeners CNN Pipeline.

Speaker 1 26:10

You are an.

Speaker 3 26:11

OG that's where it started. Started, you are an OG.

Speaker 2 26:13

That's where it started. Yeah, people know that name who've been around a long time. There's probably still references out. I think I did a screenshot of the pipeline service on LinkedIn on a flashback Friday post, so people might be able to find that. Oh, actually, wikipedia has it, wow. So it first launched to the public December 5th 2005. Wow, and then in 2007, they discontinued it and they decided to go to a pre-ad supported stream ad supported stream. Now pipeline was also live, whereas this isn't going to be live. We don't think this subscription is going to be live, but, again, hard to know. But so that's, that's what we've got to watch for at some point.

Speaker 2 27:02

Uh, now let's do something here. Let's go through some news. This is good by everpass media. For those that don't know, everpass is the joint venture between the nfl and redbird capital partners. Uh, they acquired a company called upshow and that's who they partnered with when it started providing peacock sports pass to bars and restaurants and other businesses. Yes, so, starting this season, now everpass media is going to be able to offer nfl sunday ticket streaming outside of what you know, direct tv. So nfl sunday ticket streaming in bars, restaurants and businesses, and previously those establishments could only get the games through a satellite subscription, through direct TV. That's right.

Speaker 3 27:43

Yeah, pretty cool. Now, uh, are they still working with, is it edgy, oh, uplink? Or do you know what the infrastructure is?

Speaker 2 27:53

A large portion of the solution is Uplink.

Speaker 3 27:56

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 27:57

On the back end platform wise.

Speaker 3 27:58

I don't know all the different pieces but yeah and that came through what NFL already kind of had in place With Redbird yeah.

Speaker 2 28:10

I don't honestly know the whole thing now. How Upshow ties in much up show is white labeling? Sure don't know. I'm sure we'll hear more about that. Um, but the uh uplink with edgy was tied in there. Uh, also, the piece to this is important is everpass also announced as a new investor tko and for those don't know.

Speaker 2 28:31

Tko is a newly merged company that combines UFC and WWE, so what do you think, content wise, might be coming? Wrestlemania so there's going to be more content coming, I'm sure. More offered. Uh, mark two more pieces here. Let's do maybe three.

Speaker 2 28:57

Uh, so the doj published the witness list for its upcoming antitrust trial against google late last week. It's a who's who. Wow, I don't. I don't know who's going to be covering this editorial in the courtroom. I guarantee some will on the ad side. So there's 68 names on the list. Now I'm going to read just a few, not names, but company names, and now every single one of these names I'm about to read the person who's coming is the CEO, cto or CRO. Youtube, openx, index, exchange, pubmatic, trade Desk, appnexus, magnite, buzzfeed, the New York Times, prime Video, gannett, usa Today. A huge amount of folks from Google, some current Google employees, some who are no longer at Google. There's also half a dozen at least of those from the academic side who've been doing all kinds of research and studies on this agency, buyers, advertisers. It's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of this. So keep keep an eye on that. In terms of in the media, we'll cover if it's anything specific you know, yeah, video, uh, but you have that many people testifying um as witnesses.

Speaker 2 30:08

There's going to be a lot of interesting information. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Final two pieces here, mark, we have a bunch of numbers in terms of viewership ESPN, fox and a couple others. We also have one that came out yesterday from ITV. So ITV says that on July 10th July 11th, I forget which day the game was but they attracted 21.6 million viewers for England's semifinal victory against Netherlands. Oh, sorry, on July 10th. So peaked at 21.6 million, but that was across TV and streaming. Then in the release it says ITVX. So streaming saw a record-breaking number of people come to the platform to live stream, to live stream the coverage, with 16.8 million streams of itv's coverage, semi-final. But they didn't say simultaneous or average minute audience, so I can't tell if that's 16.8 million peak yeah where that's just 16.8 million total during the event.

Speaker 2 31:13

So I've thrown that up on on LinkedIn, asking if someone from my TV can comment If it's 16.8 million, current, simultaneous or AMA. If they use one of those three numbers, then it puts them up there in terms of, let's call it, the top 15 or so largest events out there in terms of streaming, so one to watch. If we get a little bit of clarity there, maybe we won't. Espn talked about some of the broadcast TV viewership. They peaked at almost 3 million viewers on July 7th for Red Sox and Yankees game. Not really surprising considering that rivalry Sunday night baseball so far for the season on ESPN is up 6% from last season.

Speaker 2 32:03

Fox put out a couple things on the UEFA European Championship round, also the UEFA Euro 2024 group stage, as they call it. So both of these are up 27% compared to 2021. The group stage was up 30%, but the group stage averaged just over 1 million viewers and the European Championship Round 16 averaged 1.9 million viewers. So not that big. And also keep in mind fox doesn't break out streaming, only numbers. So this is across fox, fs1 and anything streaming related. Uh, and then we also have a number here. Fox talks about the national us men's soccer team. Final round of the copa america soccer tournament drew 3.78 million on fox sports. One peaked at almost 5 million. So they say the total marked the most watched non-world cup soccer game in network history and that overall the games have averaged 1.1 million viewers, which they say is up 411 percent, yeah, compared to the 21 21 tournament. So I don't know what's going on with copa america's soccer that it would be up that high. Maybe it's a team thing, depending who's in the final.

Speaker 1 33:32

I don't know enough about it.

Speaker 2 33:34

But some numbers there. And then finally, mark, let's just hit next week. Actually, by the time people are listening to this, prime Day is actually, if you're listening right now, actually Prime Day is taking place today. Prime Day only takes place for, I believe, it's two days, on July 15th and 16th. So if you're listening to one of those two days, prime, as usual, is offering a whole bunch of junk on their site that probably none of us actually needs.

Speaker 3 34:01

Including more streaming services. That's the thing Time of the day to have to watch.

Speaker 2 34:06

But they are offering 20 different streaming subscriptions for only 99 cents a month for two months. But, now wait a second.

Speaker 3 34:15

It's 99 cents for each one, or it's Each one? Oh, come on.

Speaker 2 34:21

It's not going to be five cents for each one. No no, no. But what I like here is it's not hard to cancel these services. I don't care what anyone says like oh, I can't figure out how to cancel, or to find a button no come on, it's easy. So if you really want to try a streaming service, it's on the list, it's a dollar, just come on. Yeah, yeah, go try it out. Binge, a whole bunch of content.

Speaker 3 34:43

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 34:47

No, ridiculously low. I saw the fire TV stick light mark. How much do you think that's going for? Oh, 19 bucks probably. You're still too high.

Speaker 3 34:57

Really $10? $14.99.

Speaker 2 34:59

It's 15 bucks. So for anyone who doesn't care about 4k right, older TV person, older who can't see the day man, at $15, you can't go wrong.

Speaker 3 35:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:10

It's amazing, It's's amazing. It's incredible what they do and I still wonder if they're subsidizing. I still wonder what it costs to produce that stick.

Speaker 3 35:19

Yeah, their BOM is probably in that range or just slightly higher, which means effectively.

Speaker 2 35:27

They are subsidizing.

Speaker 3 35:30

Well, so actually, dan, that's a very good point. The licensing burden, the patenting stuff, yeah, yeah, the licensing and all those things. Well, so actually, dan, that's a very good point. The licensing burden, the patenting stuff on. Yeah, the licensing burden, now it's not 15 per stick, but no, no, but it's but it's dollars. It's dollars you know which one here yeah, when you're in, when you're at that kind of price point, like you know, even if it's just call it $2, it's a lot. Well, shoot, yeah, like that's.

Speaker 2 35:54

But but economics of scale more than 15%, you know, drives down actual price of the unit.

Speaker 3 36:00

Yeah, of course, and then and then obviously, look, you know, you put the playback in more people's hands. You know the ability to easily play back the content and well, it's going to drive subscriptions. So over over time, sure, but but you know, here's.

Speaker 2 36:14

Here's an interesting thing. Some readers might know this if they've ever tried this before. And, mark, I actually asked Amazon about this recently in person and they didn't know the answer. Whenever Amazon sells fire TV sticks and I don't mean on sale so regularly throughout the year, normal price you can never buy more than three Ever. Normal price. You can never buy more than three Ever. Why Don't allow it? Three is the maximum allowed with one account, one Amazon account. Yes, now I looked up the other day how many Amazon fire TV sticks do you think I've purchased? Well, because you're a lifetime.

Speaker 3 36:48

I mean I'm going to guess that 30 over Over 500. Over 500. Wow.

Speaker 2 36:54

Yeah Well, think about you know Christmas NAB show. I'm giving them out like candy.

Speaker 3 36:59

Hey, you sent me a couple and, by the way, thank you, right, right, You've gotten some.

Speaker 2 37:03

Right, yeah. So you know they're great gifts to give to moderators at the show, whatever it may be. I send them to soldiers all over. I'm always sending them out, and I talked to Amazon in person about this recently on AB and I was like why can't I buy more? And they were like we don't know. We actually don't know, because what's odd to me is don't you want to sell more of these? Because, to your point, it's like a Trojan horse Get it in the home, control the living room, buy digital services, the margins that are higher. We know hardware is like can be a loss leader. We don't know if it is for amazon, but why only three? Yeah, now, if it's during a sale and it's like, hey, we only have a limited quantity and manufacturing.

Speaker 3 37:44

I get it.

Speaker 2 37:45

Yeah, sure, sure, that's so what I end up having to do is I end up having to go to staples or a place like that. It's like you know, and you go there and you're like, hey, I want 20. And right away they look at you.

Speaker 3 37:57

They look at you and you're like how big is?

Speaker 2 37:58

your house. Yeah, it's a little strange, but yeah, that's something odd. If anybody knows why Amazon does that, send me an email. I would love to know why. If you actually know not speculation, because, even because even the multiple people at Amazon are like yeah, I don't, I don't really know why we do that yeah. Yeah, it's kind of. It's kind of odd, fascinating Wow.

Speaker 2 38:17

Yeah, so we something going on. So that's what we got this week. Uh, mark, let's see next week we will be back before we take just a little bit of break for travel. Believe it or not, if you're listening to this podcast, depending on when you're listening to this Netflix. When you're listening to this Netflix, earnings are a day or two from today.

Speaker 2 38:32

Yeah amazing Because it's July 18th and we're recording this on the 12th. So we're going to have some interesting things to talk about on the next podcast from Netflix. After that we're going to take about a two-week break as Mark and I travel, but then we'll be back talking about earnings from Comcast, verizon, meta, altice, apple. We'll have some some new cord cutting numbers as well. But next up on the next podcast is is netflix? Interesting to see if we get any additional updates on the on the ava dad supported side. Very interesting, there is really what I want to see. Also, the stock price mark. I'm just thinking. You know it's.

Speaker 2 39:08

It's been a while since net. Netflix has done any sort of split and they closed out Friday, july 12th, at $647. So at some point when do they make this just easier for the average shareholder to want to buy? That's right, because it's not anymore. Yeah, it's just it's. It's too difficult. Um, so that that's something that we've we've got to watch, uh, over the last year. So call it. Uh, let's see. Is this 12 months here to date? No, so over the last 12 months, netflix is up 47%. Yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 39:48

It's remarkable when you, when you pull the um five year, you know um. It's remarkable when you pull the five-year stock chart, just looking at it. So it peaked. The first peak was October 29th 2021. The stock was $690, 690.31 to be exact. Today it is 647.60.

Speaker 3 40:15

Yeah, but it's peaked at 686 but, it peaked on july 690, on july 5th. It's 690, so and that's 2024. So you know october and july. So you know, I don't know, you know three, a little over three and a half years apart and we're right back and I, I think it's gonna keep growing. You know, I don't.

Speaker 2 40:38

I don't see any obvious cliff, but hard to know yeah, hard to know, and I'm really thinking just in terms of the split. Yeah, it's fascinating to watch netflix too, because if you look at and obviously you can do this with you you know Apple as well. But if you think about Netflix was such a a stock that was under a dollar or a dollar for you know, from 20, let's see so when public, I believe in 2002, and it didn't go above, you know, 10 bucks for for eight years. Great it just 2020, 2020, it hit N bucks for the first time for eight years. Yeah, great it just 2020.

Speaker 3 41:16

2020, it hit N bucks for the first time, yeah, so to think, for eight years it never went up. No, no, 20,. Let's see February. Basically the end of February 2010. 1st of March 2010, 2010. So 14 years ago, yeah, yeah. That's when it hit $10 and then they had their famous, you know, quickster debacle, and so 2012 it dropped back down a bit, but still, you know, it dropped down like $8, you know. And then it just started, the march started the march up.

Speaker 2 41:55

Just its peaks and valleys are pretty interesting on the chart it's so check that out. Yeah, it is interesting to go look at that.

Speaker 2 42:01

It's very fascinating, yeah, yeah so that's all we got, mark. Appreciate everyone listening. Have any questions? Let us know. Everything we've talked about we've put up on linkedin, except the pluto tv piece which I have to get up and try and get that up this weekend. But you have any questions, let us know. Otherwise, we thank you for listening. We'll talk to you in two weeks. Everyone, stay safe. Have a good holiday. If you're taking off for the summer, mark and I are always available on LinkedIn as well. Thanks very much.

Speaker 1 42:29

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 Dan's blog at streamingmediablogcom.