VideoNuze Posts

Although Disney gained a healthy 14.6 million direct-to-consumer subscribers in its fiscal fourth quarter reported this week, it also lost nearly $1.5 billion in the segment. That raised its annual DTC loss for fiscal 2022 to over $4 billion, more than twice the $1.7 billion it lost in fiscal 2021. Disney reiterated that it expects DTC losses will decrease going forward and that Disney+ specifically will achieve profitability in fiscal 2024, absent a “meaningful shift in the economic climate.”

On this week’s edition of Inside the Stream, nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I examine the various cross-currents impacting Disney’s DTC business going forward. These include declining ARPU at Disney+ domestically and Disney+ Hotstar, upcoming price increases, SVOD and FAST competition, content costs and more. The stakes are high for Disney to turn the corner on DTC profitability but it isn’t clear when or how that will happen.

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This week on Inside the Stream nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss Roku’s Q3 ’22 results which were reported earlier this week. The company had a pretty strong quarter, adding 2.3 million active accounts to reach 65.4 million. Platform revenue, which includes advertising, increased 15% to $670 million. And streaming hours increased by 1.1 billion to 21.9 billion from Q2 ’22.

While the Q3 results showed strong resiliency for Roku, company executives were less upbeat on the earnings call about Q4. While noting that the Q4 holiday season is typically the strongest period for most companies, including Roku, executives expect this year to be different. Roku has already observed a decline in “pretty much every vertical” category of advertisers due to uncertainty about an upcoming recession and is also worried about the impact of inflation on consumer spending, which hurts its device sales.

However Roku continues to benefit from the shift in ad spending from linear to CTV, its international and original programming expansion and a new set of smart home products.

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On this week’s podcast Colin Dixon from nScreenMedia and I discuss Q3 2022 bumpiness for four companies heavily focused on streaming. Comcast reported a small gain of 10K residential broadband subscribers compared with 281K a year ago. It also lost 540K residential video subscribers compared with a loss of 382K a year ago, as cord-cutting and cord-nevering continue.

Meanwhile YouTube ad revenue was down 2% in Q3, after a blistering period of growth during the past couple of years. Apple TV+ is raising its monthly rate by $2, betting subscribers see enhanced value in its 3 year-old service. And Disney’s CEO envisions Disney+ being tied closer to its theme park business. We explore all of them and share our thoughts.

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In Q3 ’22 Netflix added 2.4 million subscribers globally, beating its forecast of a million additions, and more importantly, reversing the two prior quarters’ declines. As nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss on this week’s Inside the Stream, there’s a lot of action just ahead for Netflix as it rolls out its ad-supported tier and modifies its longstanding account sharing approach.

The latter will likely impact tens of millions of subscribers, who will have multiple variables to consider in order for family members to retain access to Netflix. We do a little back of the envelope math that illustrates  the significant revenue opportunities all of this will create for Netflix.

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This week on Inside the Stream nScreenMedia’s Colin Dixon and I discuss the intensifying competition among TV operating systems and in particular why two large TV manufacturers - Samsung and LG - are licensing their TV operating systems to smaller competitors. Earlier this week Samsung announced deals with three manufacturers to license its Tizen OS.

Given the competition, it appears that the primary monetization opportunity is through wider distribution of their respective content services, Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels, to gain more advertising revenue. But as we discuss there are likely other motivations as well.

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This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I interview Xperi’s EVP and Chief Products and Services Officer Geir Skaaden. Earlier this week Xperi completed its spinoff and is now an independent company with a portfolio of entertainment technology brands including TiVo, DTS, IMAX Enhanced and HD Radio. Geir walks us through how Xperi is focused on building out its media platform business as an independent partner to TV OEMs and automobile OEMs.

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Join us for VideoNuze’s second annual Connected TV Advertising Brand Suitability Summit (virtual) on the afternoon of November 17th. Complimentary sign up is available now.

Connected TV advertising is surging, with eMarketer estimating that it will reach $19 billion in 2022 in the U.S. alone, and increase to $30 billion in 2024. With more new FAST, AVOD and hybrid streaming services launching all the time, there are more choices for viewers and advertisers than ever.

Once again, VideoNuze's CTV Advertising Brand Suitability Summit will feature the industry's top thought-leaders digging into all aspects of brand suitability and safety in CTV advertising along with the integral role of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). The Summit is the only industry event 100% focused on intersection of all of these critical trends.

Many thanks to the Summit's Presenting Partner Pixability and Gold Partner Mediaocean, along with agency partners Dentsu, GroupM, Horizon Media, Publicis Media and UM. If you're interested in partnerships and speaking opportunities please contact me.

More information on the program and speakers coming soon.

COMPLIMENTARY SIGN UP NOW!

This week on Inside the Stream Colin and I interview Hub Entertainment Research’s Founder and Principal Jon Giegengack about top conclusions from the firm’s latest “Decoding the Default” survey (excerpt here). Among them are that streaming services continue to gain as the default source for viewers (with Netflix by far the leader), being the default is the best protection from churn, SVOD stacking appears to have plateaued and some streaming services seem to be pretty well insulated from inflation. We discuss all of these and more.

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